Loopmash

anybody use this? I've been happily off Cubase for 2 years now and I've been enjoying my freedom from the resource hog. However, the newest version has a vsti bundled with it called Loopmash that sounds amazaing. Anybody played with this at all?

  Quote

LoopMash is a revolutionary virtual instrument that offers a unique and innovative way of creatively working with loops and beats to create stunning new rhythms and grooves. Seamlessly blendable variations of both the included loops and any loop from your library open up myriad new creative possibilities. LoopMash is based on a new audio analysis/synthesis engine, developed in collaboration with Yamaha, that matches similar elements across loops and beats, generating fresh and inspiring “mash-ups” from any rhythmic audio material.

 

Brand-new, first-of-its-kind interactive loop synthesizer

Creates entirely new and unique variations on the fly by simply dragging existing loops from MediaBay or the Project Window onto LoopMash

Entirely synced to the Cubase Tempo

Integrated editing tools and powerful live performance mode with user-definable scenes

I upgraded to 5 recently and have used it. It's interesting but I don't see myself ever using it in a song. I'd rather do everything manually. I suppose if you were looking to do a long jam or something and wanted some change ups and were feeling *stuck* it would be useful. But it's a bit fiddly and isn't quite as intuitive as you'd think, unless you are all for random results. You can tweak it quite a bit, and it doesn't sound choppy.

Pretty much everything that comes with cubase is good quality, just depends on if the user has a need for whatever vst.

I love Cubase. I hate dongles tho ;(

I say this because there is a Cubase 5 demo, but you have to have a dongle (which is the stupidest thing ever). I will rejoice when companies stop wasting money on anti-piracy methods and realse that as long as there are forward thinking programmers trying to prevent piracy, there's gonna be at least 10 that are able to work around their code.

http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/musicproduction/cubase5_product/cubase5_trialversion.html

Check the cubase forums, I'm sure there's bound to be peopel over there using it for all sorts of things.

http://www.cubase.net/phpbb2/

or the SOS PC music forums

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=PCMus

yeah the Cubase dongle is a serious buzz kill, if im like downstairs and i have an awesome idea for a song its lame to have to go find my dongle if i dont happen to have it plugged into that particular computer

ive heard that you can get for like $25 a dummy dongle that just duplicates your license, do you know anything about this?

and jesus fuck if Cubase still doesnt crash a lot for me, when are they going to implement a Crash recovery feature like Ableton live and Logic audio have? without this

I am with Lol Alzado on this one, im kind of tempted to upgrade from 4 - 5 with all these new features but if its just a bunch of fancy new VSTis i dont know if its worth it.

It's pretty lame Halion is still a commercial plugin and there is nothing as powerful as the full Halion in Cubase 4.

I've yet to have 5 crash on me. But I'm sure it will. I auto-save, and also save in generations

ie:

Blahsong1.1

Blahsong1.2

then when i make any significant changes it turns into

Blahsong2.1

Blahsong2.2

etc

When I used cool edit/audition all the time (which i still do for wave editing) I did this same thing b/c even with the crash recover, often times i would get like half a waveform and the other half blank, corrupted, or distorted. So I'm not so sure i trust crash recovery, granted Stienberg is Yamaha now and should have the funds to implement a good one.

As far as the dongle emu goes, I've heard of this, but haven't used one. Now that I am in the process of building a new desktop rack system (overclocked quadcore weeeeeeeee), it's something I'm going to look in to to go between lappy and desktop.

Things I love about 5

- Channel Batch export

- New Automation layout

- Channel Side chaining

- Total x64 support w/o issues on 7

- Support for up to 1 TB (lol) of memory

- QWERTY Keyboard playing support (play synths with comp kb [about time vaz modular has had this since 98)

- Groove agent would be cool if I hadn't already bought Guru and Battery

when you say channel batch export, does this mean for example being able to bounce like 10 VST instrument tracks with all their effects at one time, creating a folder of time aligned wave tracks for you?

Ableton and Logic Audio's crash recovery is pretty flawless, but yeah Cooledit pro's and Audacity's are far from perfect.

how do you auto-save in cubase? sounds useful

Preferences --> General ---> autosave tick box and increment selection

still best to save in generations (imo) with autosave on

as far as batch export you can export like that yes, as far as time code I dunno. Never tried. I usually mix from start point to finish when transporting to someone else's DAW so i don't have to worry about that. But that wold be handy.

  Quote

Channel Batch Export – for the efficient export of audio files for individual channels or busses

 

Channel Batch Export is an extension feature to the “Export Audio Mixdown” window and allows the export of the audible output of a multiple selection of mixer channels (respectively of what is listed in the “Audio Engine Output” list) to audio files. The primary goal is not to create a mixdown of multiple channels into one file but to have individual files for each channel. The Audio Engine Output selection as known from previous versions is now placed at the left side of the export window. It lists all available channels/busses sorted by type. Enable the "Channel Batch Export" mode on top of it and you can start to select the channels which should be exported. This function is ideal for exchanging projects without 3rd party plug-in-dependencies, to create an audio-only archive of projects or to start a mixing session with all available CPU resources you have. It is totally up to you if you want to include EQ, inserts, send settings or automation from your mix or not - just configure the mixer before you start a Channel Batch Export.

 

* Extension to Audio Mixdown window

* Fast selection for channel in and exclusion

* Search field for channel names

* Renders multiple channels in one go to separate files

  On 2/19/2010 at 12:58 AM, Awepittance said:

being able to bounce like 10 VST instrument tracks with all their effects at one time

Actually if you mean to have the info about the vsts and inserts so they will load into a project, and not just the audio mixdown, then I have no idea, I don't think so though.

thanks for that, great information to know. No you pretty much answered you question, i just meant time aligned in the sense that it would batch export using the same locate points (not time code).

Do you ever use the 'freeze' function in cubase? I tried it in the past but it seemed to take even longer than just mixing down a pass to an audio file.

Brandi, would you care to give a little more of an in depth review for Loopmash?

I never use freeze. I agree it takes to long to freeze and unfreeze. I just mix down to audio. Since i save in generations I can always go back and find the midi track if i need it later. Took me too long to work out this system tho, lol. Would've made me a lot more productive years ago in cubase vst (pre sx).

And re: loop mash, sure. :)

Here is me messing with a loop in loop mash for about 6 minutes. No external processing, etc.

I'm just using the edit pane on a single track. Nothing special.

Edit: By nothing special I mean what I was doing,just adjusting the edit parameters, not the plug itself. It actually may be quite useful after all ;)

one thing that i find intriguing about this plugin is it's supposed ability to spectrally match one loop's characteristics to another. Does this mean i can create a new pattern out of a loop's sounds being driven by the pattern of another loop?

do you guys remember that Dutch viral video of a custom sound software called Scrambled Hackz? It sounds too good to be true but this cubase instrument might do something similar in theory.

I'd love to be able to use raw sounds i have of fire crackling or water and have a program isolate pieces of it that sound similar to drum hits, and then let me trigger those hits with a drum loop's spectral information (matching up say a bass drum from the drum loop to a bass water hit on the water recording)

I will do my best to test this sometime this evening. I will say that when using multiple loops and "mashing" them together, it is sometimes quite difficult to discern which loop is which, and it almost reminds me of "mutate" functions found in some synths. So I think what you are suggesting is quite possible. However, when it comes to triggering certain things at a certain time (ie: water kick) i'm not sure, i'll have to take a look see at the automation parameters.

I'm glad Alzado posted this thread, it's made me take a deeper look at this plug, and even better that it's something I already own!

It's kinda like when I bought Microtonic. A friend pretty much sold me on it, and i got it, messed around, but went back to my former fav's (attack, drumatic). Then one day it just kinda clicked and now i use it in every song, if for nothing else, synth drum rhythmic loops that i chop all to hell.

  On 2/19/2010 at 1:23 AM, Awepittance said:

Do you ever use the 'freeze' function in cubase? I tried it in the past but it seemed to take even longer than just mixing down a pass to an audio file.

I used to use freeze and thought it was a good idea in theory that was too cumbersome in practice. inevitably, I would want to change something in the frozen track and it would be much faster to solo the track and export it than it would be to freeze, unfreeze, edit, and re-freeze.

  On 2/19/2010 at 7:44 AM, Awepittance said:

I'd love to be able to use raw sounds i have of fire crackling or water and have a program isolate pieces of it that sound similar to drum hits, and then let me trigger those hits with a drum loop's spectral information (matching up say a bass drum from the drum loop to a bass water hit on the water recording)

ok, so i've got this now. i played around with it for the first time last night. in theory, you should be able to do exactly what you're describing here. the plugin should analyze the snare hit of your master loop and then find the slice of your target loop that most closely resembles that snare hit and then replace it. admittedly, i've only messed around with this for an hour or so. but i found the plugin to be a little confusing when implementing it. it's often difficult to tell what's being replaced and with what. i'm still hopeful that a thorough understanding of how the manipulation of the plugin's various parameters effect its performance will result in a better likelihood of it creating the type of effect that you're looking for. but at least on first experimentation, I found it difficult to get there. that being said, this does seem like the kind of tool that could result in a lot of happy accidents. combining the right loops with the right parameter tweaks could result in something that you weren't planning but ends up being completely awesome.

I'm really hoping that this works. I've been doing a lot of sample/loop based hip hop type material lately and this has huge potential for that kind of music.

i'm also really looking forward to getting familiar with all that's changed with cubase since the last version that i was familiar with (SX3). I still don't think it will be my primary workspace. but it has enough value to be a frequent contributor. i still love the way it handles audio files in the sequencer. it's better than anything else i've used (granted, i've only used pc based apps).

I use cubase, but I don't use Loopmash. Overview here:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct09/articles/cubasetech_1009.htm

  On 2/19/2010 at 7:44 AM, Awepittance said:

I'd love to be able to use raw sounds i have of fire crackling or water and have a program isolate pieces of it that sound similar to drum hits, and then let me trigger those hits with a drum loop's spectral information (matching up say a bass drum from the drum loop to a bass water hit on the water recording)

i'm sure this wouldn't be too hard to do manually, or in reaktor or something? if i remember correctly, there was an mda plugin that did something similar (ie. it took peaks from certain frequencies and used them as triggers for corresponding drum sounds).. or am i completely wrong? is this available as a standalone plugin? i assume it isn't.

  On 2/20/2010 at 2:16 PM, modey said:

i'm sure this wouldn't be too hard to do manually, or in reaktor or something? if i remember correctly, there was an mda plugin that did something similar (ie. it took peaks from certain frequencies and used them as triggers for corresponding drum sounds).. or am i completely wrong? is this available as a standalone plugin? i assume it isn't.

Haha, yeah I remember that VSTi - mda beatbox (http://mda.smartelectronix.com/ ), nice small little plug in.

RE the initial topic - Vortex for Reaktor looks quite similar. Here's Richard Devine making his usual kooky noises with it -

[vimeo]9196800[/vimeo]

EDIT: Actually I think I'm talking balls - it seems to be more of a db blue glitch thing...

yeah haha , that's not doing the same thing im looking for. There is a plugin called drumagog that does 'drum replacement' and that's kind of similar but im looking for something basically like an audio only version of that Dutch Scrambled Hackz video concept. a spectral slicer, database collector and then real-time matcher.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRlhKaxcKpA

this guy made this in 2006 & never released the code like he claimed he would . It's been 4 years and i'd be shocked if something similar wasn't available on the commercial market. I woudln't expect it to be as powerful but Loopmash seems pretty close.

  On 2/20/2010 at 9:21 PM, Awepittance said:

yeah haha , that's not doing the same thing im looking for. There is a plugin called drumagog that does 'drum replacement' and that's kind of similar but im looking for something basically like an audio only version of that Dutch Scrambled Hackz video concept. a spectral slicer, database collector and then real-time matcher.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRlhKaxcKpA

 

this guy made this in 2006 & never released the code like he claimed he would . It's been 4 years and i'd be shocked if something similar wasn't available on the commercial market. I woudln't expect it to be as powerful but Loopmash seems pretty close.

holy crap! that looks awesome!

exactly, and its been 4 fucking years! why hasn't somebody jumped all over this concept. seems ay more groundbreaking to me than Melodyne DNA

if i knew programmers who were capable of doing this i'd lock them away in a dungeon and not feed them until they made this for me

i wonder if that concept could be applied on a grand scale, ie. feeding an entire music collection into the database. i'd love to play one of my full tracks into it and have the software re-create it from my mp3 collection.

  On 2/19/2010 at 4:46 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 2/19/2010 at 1:23 AM, Awepittance said:

Do you ever use the 'freeze' function in cubase? I tried it in the past but it seemed to take even longer than just mixing down a pass to an audio file.

I used to use freeze and thought it was a good idea in theory that was too cumbersome in practice. inevitably, I would want to change something in the frozen track and it would be much faster to solo the track and export it than it would be to freeze, unfreeze, edit, and re-freeze.

 

  On 2/19/2010 at 7:44 AM, Awepittance said:

I'd love to be able to use raw sounds i have of fire crackling or water and have a program isolate pieces of it that sound similar to drum hits, and then let me trigger those hits with a drum loop's spectral information (matching up say a bass drum from the drum loop to a bass water hit on the water recording)

ok, so i've got this now. i played around with it for the first time last night. in theory, you should be able to do exactly what you're describing here. the plugin should analyze the snare hit of your master loop and then find the slice of your target loop that most closely resembles that snare hit and then replace it. admittedly, i've only messed around with this for an hour or so. but i found the plugin to be a little confusing when implementing it. it's often difficult to tell what's being replaced and with what. i'm still hopeful that a thorough understanding of how the manipulation of the plugin's various parameters effect its performance will result in a better likelihood of it creating the type of effect that you're looking for. but at least on first experimentation, I found it difficult to get there. that being said, this does seem like the kind of tool that could result in a lot of happy accidents. combining the right loops with the right parameter tweaks could result in something that you weren't planning but ends up being completely awesome.

 

I'm really hoping that this works. I've been doing a lot of sample/loop based hip hop type material lately and this has huge potential for that kind of music.

 

i'm also really looking forward to getting familiar with all that's changed with cubase since the last version that i was familiar with (SX3). I still don't think it will be my primary workspace. but it has enough value to be a frequent contributor. i still love the way it handles audio files in the sequencer. it's better than anything else i've used (granted, i've only used pc based apps).

awesome, thanks for the info. well i'm definitly more sold on Cubase 5 at the moment. I just wish i could use it without a dongle on my mac, i know there are ways around it on the PC is there a demo? or did you use alternate channels to check it out

  On 2/21/2010 at 6:16 AM, modey said:

i wonder if that concept could be applied on a grand scale, ie. feeding an entire music collection into the database. i'd love to play one of my full tracks into it and have the software re-create it from my mp3 collection.

the possibilities seem endless, this is why i'm so excited about this (and potentially loopmasher). i remember hearing around 8 years ago that the experimental/idm collective Farmers Manual had a 5 cd-rom changer in which they used a custom C++ software to automatically rip the cds in real-time and pull slices from them and then take these slices into a generative sequencer. this concept blew me away at the time but it seemed unreachable back then, now techniques like this seem very possible with little work. similar ideas have been around for a while but i don't think here is much demand overall for this type of sound fingerprint matching.

  On 2/21/2010 at 10:52 AM, Awepittance said:

I just wish i could use it without a dongle on my mac, i know there are ways around it on the PC is there a demo? or did you use alternate channels to check it out

The AiR cubase demo also works for mac.

alternative methods

  On 2/21/2010 at 1:47 PM, kakapo said:

  On 2/21/2010 at 10:52 AM, Awepittance said:

I just wish i could use it without a dongle on my mac, i know there are ways around it on the PC is there a demo? or did you use alternate channels to check it out

 

The AiR cubase demo also works for mac.

#5? i saw one for 4 but not 5. if you have a link pls pm me