Are Your Multitrack Drum Loops Tempo-Adjustable in Logic?

Are Your Multitrack Drum Loops Tempo-Adjustable in Logic?

Jeff S. 

The short answer is no, the longer answer is yes.

The no part: The files are non-acidized, but raw WAV files, meaning they have not been tempo tagged. Why? Because it can be a very labor-intensive task and many programs nowadays do so with internal algorithms or other plug-ins. For example, Pro Tools has its own plug-in called Elastic Audio, and Ableton Live does so internally as well. I believe Cubase has this capability as well. We hand-tag all of our stereo loops, thus to hand tag the multitrack loops -- when you take into account all of the DAWs that don't require it anymore -- would make the price just too high. So we have chosen to offer the multitrack loops in generic WAV format.

Now, with all that being said.... We've done our own testing doing quick conversions of our multitrack WAVs to Apple Loops format. You used to be able to get the Apple Loop Utility for free but Apple does not offer it anymore. It also used to come with Logic as a standalone program, but not so anymore. (You might be able to find this somewhere out there on the web.) You could quickly do a bulk conversions out of that and get pretty good time stretching without having to "check" every single loop.

The other thing you can do is drag and drop the multitracks into Logic, detect transient, and then control click on each loop and select export, sending the file to the Apple Loop library. This converts the generic WAV file into an Apple Loop. You have to delete the original and then the one that is in the Apple Loop library is now a fully functioning Apple Loop. You drag those back into the track. I just messed around with a set of multitrack loops and got 20+ BPM increase in speed as I brought the one measure of multitrack loops back into the timeline as Apple Loops. It took about a minute per measure but it worked very well.

Finally, there are a lot of commercially available sample/loop editors out there that can bulk convert WAVs into Apple Loops. They are reasonably priced. Try a Google search for "WAV to Apple Loops" and you'll see some conversations on various Logic and Apple message boards as well as some links and recommendations for some of these programs. For example, I use a basic program called Loop Editorfor bulk conversions from time to time and it sells for $49.95.

Please let us know if you have any more questions.

The DOD Team