Inmusic, aloop is a repeating section ofsound material. Short sections, such as one or two bars of music can be repeated to createostinato patterns. Longer sections can also be repeated: for example, a player might loop what they play on an entire verse of a song in order to then play along with it, accompanying themselves.
Loops can be created using a wide range ofmusic technologies includingturntables, digitalsamplers,looper pedals,synthesizers,sequencers,drum machines,tape machines, anddelay units, and they can beprogrammed usingcomputer musicsoftware. The feature to loop a section of an audio track or video footage is also referred to by electronics vendors asA–B repeat.[1]
Royalty-free loops can be purchased and downloaded for music creation from companies like The Loop Loft,Native Instruments,Splice and Output.
Loops are supplied in eitherMIDI orAudio file formats such asWAV,REX2,AIFF andMP3. Musiciansplay loops by triggering the start of the musical sequence by using a MIDI controller such as anAbleton Push or aNative Instruments MASCHINE.
While repetition is used in the music of all cultures, the first musicians to use loops in the sense meant by this article weremusique concrete andelectroacoustic music pioneers of the 1940s, such asPierre Schaeffer,Halim El-Dabh,[5]Pierre Henry,Edgard Varèse andKarlheinz Stockhausen.[6] These composers usedtape loops on reel-to-reel machines, manipulating pre-recorded sounds to make new works. In turn, El-Dabh's music influencedFrank Zappa's use of tape loops in the mid-1960s.[7]
Terry Riley is a seminal composer and performer of the loop- and ostinato-based music who began using tape loops in 1960. For his 1963 pieceMusic for The Gift he devised a hardware looper that he named the Time Lag Accumulator, consisting of two tape recorders linked together, which he used to loop and manipulate trumpet playerChet Baker and his band. His 1964 compositionIn C, an early example of what would later be calledminimalism, consists of 53 repeated melodic phrases (loops) performed live by an ensemble. "Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band", the B-side of his influential 1969 albumA Rainbow in Curved Air uses tape loops of his electric organ and soprano saxophone to create electronic music that contains surprises as well as hypnotic repetition.[citation needed]
Another effective use of tape loops was Jamaicandub music in the 1960s. Dub producerKing Tubby used tape loops in his productions while improvising with homemadedelay units. Another dub producer, Sylvan Morris, developed a slapbackecho effect by using both mechanical and handmade tape loops. These techniques were later adopted byhip hop musicians in the 1970s.[8]Grandmaster Flash'sturntablism is an early example inhip hop.[citation needed]
The first commercial drum loop was created for the song "Stayin' Alive" for the movieSaturday Night Fever byAlbhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. It was created by recording two measures of drums from the song “Night Fever” and recording them onto a two-trackanalog tape which was then fed between the capstan and the pinch roller. Because the loop was about 30 feet long, it was fed out to a 7” plastic reel for ballast which was hung over the arm of a microphone stand before the loop of tape returned to the take-up reel. This same loop was later used by the Bee Gees for the song "More than a Woman" also from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. That same loop was also use – though slowed down quite a bit, for the Streisand recording of “Woman in Love” produced by Albhy Galuten, Karl Richardson and Barry Gibb. WhenJeff Porcaro of the bandTOTO came to work with Galuten and Gibb on a Bee Gees record, he was shown the technique of creating drum loops with analog tape. Porcaro subsequently went back to California where he used the method he had learned to create the drum loop that was used by Toto[9] as the foundation of the songAfrica.
The use of pre-recorded, digitally-sampled loops inpopular music dates back to Japaneseelectronic music bandYellow Magic Orchestra,[10] who released one of the first albums to feature mostly samples and loops, 1981'sTechnodelic.[11] Their approach to sampling was a precursor to the contemporary approach of constructing music by cutting fragments of sounds and looping them using computer technology.[10] The album was produced usingToshiba-EMI's LMD-649 digitalPCMsampler, which engineer Kenji Murata custom-built for YMO.[12]
Since the 2010s, many musicians usedigital hardware and software devices to create and modify loops, often in conjunction with various electronic musical effects. A loop can be created and triggered by a looper pedal, aneffect pedal device that records the signal from a guitar or other audio source and then plays the recorded passage over and over again.[13] A loop can be used by aone man band so that a single performer can have more musical accompaniment.
In the early 1990s, dedicated digital devices were invented specifically for use inlive looping, i.e. loops that are recorded and created in front of a live audience. By late 1992, some units of Mathias Grob's LOOP Delay were sold (precursor to theEchoplex Digital Pro fromOberheim Electronics.[14][15]
In February 1994, researchers at the IBM Research Center in Haifa, Israel, developed software to showcase technologies that could slow down or speed up sound segments looped in real-time without distorting the pitch while adding echo, reverb, feedback, frequency filters, and reverse audio effects. It was demonstrated in April 1994, with a dedicated song and tune played along with virtual instruments, at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, along with the software-controlled MWave modem and soundcard for the IBMThinkpad laptop (later to becomeLenovo). It was mainly used to slow down or speed up voice messages. Not realizing the potential for musicians, the technology was sold as anAPI toSun Microsystems and incorporated in the Java language as part of the Telephony and Multimedia interfaces (JTAPI and JMMI).[16][citation needed]
Many hardware loopers exist, some inrack unit form, but primarily aseffect pedals. The discontinuedLexicon JamMan,Gibson Echoplex Digital Pro, Electrix Repeater, and Looperlative LP1 are 19" rack units. The Boomerang "Rang III" Phrase Sampler,DigiTech JamMan,[17] Boss RC-300 and theElectro-Harmonix 2880 are examples of popular pedals.
Modern looper-artists today also rely on specialised dedicated looping software:Everyday Looper,Loopy,Loopr Live Loop Composer are popular ones on iOS. They offer more creative options while providing ability to connect using the devices' cellular, bluetooth or wifi capabilities. They also offer connectivity to a very large range of audio and midi hardware that proprietary pedals don't usually offer.
The musical loop is one of the most important features ofvideo game music. It is also the guiding principle behind devices like the several ChineseBuddhist music boxes that loop chanting of mantras, which in turn were the inspiration of theBuddha machine, an ambient-music generating device. TheJan Linton album "Buddha Machine Music" used these loops along with others created by manually scrolling through C.D.s on aCDJ player.[18]
Digital audio workstation software can be used to create music using loops, commonly found inelectronic dance music such ashouse andtechno. Throughaudio time stretching and pitch scaling, multiple loops are aligned to create a track. Notable software includesAcid Pro with its "Acidized" loops feature andFL Studio.
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