Whether you’re working on an old school hip hop joint or a new tech house jam, Beat Repeat makes spicing up drum loops a breeze. Just as the name implies, the function of this processor is to grab different bits of an audio signal and repeat it. You get to specify when, how often, and at what speeds.
In today’s demonstration, we’ll use Beat Repeat to spice up the groove of a drum loop.
Take a listen to it as is:
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Now let’s spice it up..
Step 1 – Adjust your Interval and Gate.
Load up an instance of Beat Repeat. Your Interval determines how often Beat Repeat grabs new information to be repeated. Set it to 1/4 for now. The Gate defines the total length of repeated material. Set it to 3/16th.
Step 2 – Adjust the Grid and Pitch Decay.
The Grid determines the the length of the slice that gets repeated. Set it to 1/12th. Adding a slight bit of Variation will help keep the repetitions fresh.
Increase the Pitch Decay a touch as well. This means that any repeated audio will decrease in pitch in a successive manner. The Pitch Decay is a useful effect for spicing up a drum loop.
Step 3 – Tweak your Volume and Filter.
Lower the Volume to blend the effect with your original drum loop. Next, adjust your Filter so it only catches most of the mids and highs onward. Finally, increase your Decay to roughly 30% – this will allow the effect to taper out gradually.
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Let’s compare our new drum loop with our old one:
Original:
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New Version:
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Summary
You can easily use Beat Repeat to spice up a drum loop. It’s also very simple to create variations so your grooves aren’t static for too long. If you’re interested in creating glitch effects then try experimenting with the Grid size. Anything faster than 1/48th should create some cool glitches.
We hope you found this article helpful! Anytime you’re in need of loops or samples, we have you covered!
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