How do you create a chord progression with loops in Mixcraft?

[fantasyvn]

Could you pls advise?

I usually write songs by creating a chord progression first, then try to write a melody over the chords.

Therefore I find it difficult to write a song with the loops, as I'm not sure how to create the chord progression that I want with the loops.

In Mixcraft, is there any convenient way to do this task using the loops?

Thank you

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

There's no option to easily create chord progressions from Mixcraft loops. For that, your best bet would be to work with virtual instrument tracks.

Video tutorials on virtual instruments and MIDI in Mixcraft.

Greg

[Mark Bliss]

is there any convenient way to do this task using the loops?

Not really.
While you can slice up and rearrange loops, those that consist of chord progressions don't really lend themselves to working that way. The simple explanation is that they tend to have sustained audio between chords and phrases, and any attempt at editing doesn't work well.
On the other hand, loops such as drums and percussion tend to have gaps and breaks to work with. Still some are more difficult than others.

Even so, in the long run there are better ways to spend your time IMO. Its tedious at best.

What's your preferred instrumentation? What do you play? Do you have a MIDI controller/keyboard?

[rrichard63]

The previous answers are right in general, but there might be specific loop libraries available that would help. Look for loop collections that have "chord" in the name and then read the descriptions carefully.

If you tell us what style/genre of music you produce, I might know of specific products.

[fantasyvn]

Thank you so much for your kind replies, which clarify my confusion.

I also use Band-in-a-box and Ezkeys. These two softwares fit my purpose for creating chord progressions first. However, the sounds are not as 'slick' as the commercial loops.

[morymb]

I had a similar question and I believe these kinds of things are tough to explain. On one hand you can just multi track layers of guitar, bass, keys, etc, and sustain just one big and beautiful note at a time...let the reverb trail off and decay..and then copy the mixed section and import it into a performance panel...then do the same with the other chords of the progression..once everything is loaded into the performance panels, in the same row, mind you...top to bottom, box 1 all the way down, map your midi so you can trigger each recording at a time with the key or pad you assign it to on your midi controller keyboard. I prefer the big rubber pads, myself.

I probably yet again did not explain this well, but yeah, there is a long way to basically sample stuff you may as well just multi track to begin with...but...sometimes having everything already prepped can lead to a relaxed improv session to lay vox on top of, and if you have all of the reverberated chords recorded and triggered when you see fit, it can be something kind of cool, to record a performance that way.

[BanjoGuy55]

I tend to use Band-In-A-Box for this sort of thing also. Using their RealTracks provides a decent starting point. I then export each track individually and bring them into Mixcraft for further processing.

[Halftone]

I noticed this on you tube and thought it would be of interest to the original poster.

https://youtu.be/Iy_OWp66xME

[Topcheese]

Your best bet would be to create a new users style in BIAB, then you can just drag and drop your arrangement into MC when you're done playing with the progression.

There are other very painful ways of achieving it, but I believe I already suggested that they add something along those lines to make it easier to create them.