Dooper Looper Swooper Scooper

I’m in the Sonic Sorcery Discord chat where we’re every week is given a challenge. The challenge for week 31 is to produce a song using nothing but a short audio clip where Max Konyi, the ruler of the Discord server, says “Doop and loop it”. That’s it. No synths as sound sources, not allowed to convert to a wavetable and no granular effects. Go!

Week 31 – Doop and Loop It

My song starts with the full “Doop and loop it” sample we’re supposed to use as the only sound source for our songs.

The Bassdrum, or the Kick

Cut from the word “Doop”. I used the envelope shaper on the audio clip itself to make it really short.

EQ:ed to only contain the lower frequencies of the “Do” sound. I’m using the stock Pro EQ which is included with Studio One. It’s low on resources and it does the job in this case.

I distorted it slightly using the RedlightDist bundled with Studio One.

Then I smashed it (look that the Gain and Reduction knobs in the screenshot to the left), and EQ:ed it even more, using the Summit Audio EQF-100 by Softube. Compression happens before the EQ.

The Snare

The snare is a bit more complicated. I took the last word, “It”, and stretched it to 200% and then used the “Speedup” function it so it would play even slower. “But it says Speedup”, I hear you say. Yes, I of course gave it a value less than 1. I think I was around 0.3 or so.

Processing was a bit easier. Taking away the bottom, to not clutter up the kick and also taking away the top so it doesn’t sound like a hihat. Again, I’m using the stock Pro EQ plugin.

Then I gave it some DBX style compression using the Arturia Comp VCA-65.

I don’t have my Universal Audio plugins installed, nor my UAD-2 Satellite connected, so this is the closest thing I have to the super nice DBX-160 compressor — and I really like it on snares. Together with the hihats they’re being sent to the EOS 2 reverb by Audio Damage.

The Hihats

The closed and open hitats are just slightly processed versions of the last work, “It”, again. I used the envelope shape on the audio clip to give it the proper short length it needs to sound like a hihat.

The Bassline

The bassline is again using almost the same sample as the kick; the “Do” part from the first word, “Doop”. It’s longer and I just dragged it to the SampleOne and gave it a short and efficient Filter envelope with a semi-open cut off of a lowpass filter.

When you solo or isolate it you can really hear the “Doo” sound.

The Arp

Entering sound designing land for real on the arpeggiator sound. I word “And” has an increasing pitch at the beginning so I took the bit from where it stabilises on a the note E and cut it before it turns to an “n” sound leaving me with a stable and quite smooth “a” sound. I duplicated it three times and reversed the second and fourth clip before putting them together and making sure they all start and end on a 0 DC offset (the thin line in the middle of the waveform) to minimise the risk of pops and clicks. I then bounced it and put it in Kontakt 6 by Native Instruments so I now had a long enough “a” sound slightly morphing back and forth. I set the loop markers and gave it a fade in and it’s quite seemingly looping without too much difference and divergence.

I added the Pro-53 filter module in Kontakt, tweaked the envelope to make it a rather short. I added a phaser effect so it so the sound moves and feels more alive.

As insert effects I first used the Softube Console 1 to give it some punch and drive.

And in the beginning of the song, I’m using the Soundtoys FilterFreak1 to sweep the cutoff of a high pass filter so the arpeggio is introduced in a better way.

The Pad

The pad uses the same “a” sample as the arpeggio. I’m using a different filter setting and different amplitude envelope but otherwise it’s actually the same. In the first 8 bars I just let it play four different chord but the following 8 bars are treated with the Soundtoys Tremolator to give it a rhythmic feel and soft stutter, or gated, sort of sound.

The SoundFX

I took the whole sentence “Doop and Loop it”, then cut the ending of “Doop” and “Loop” to get rid of some pops since the “p” sound interfered with the drums and bassline a bit. Console 1 was used to EQ and drive the sound.

I then used the Molekular effect in Reaktor 6 by Native Instruments. The sequencer gives it a rhythmic effect accentuating the “and” with a stutter and bandpass filter. Since a freeze effect is borderline granular, I turned that block off.

The Doop and Loop SoundFX

I took the words “Doop and loop” and cut them up placing them on different beats along my measures. Again, Console 1 is used to EQ the sound and give it some drive while the Soundtoys LittleAlterBoy is automated to change the formant through-out the song to add variation.

I sent them to both a huge reverb as well as a filtered delay with the feedback turned up. It’s set to dotted 1/8 notes and it’s a classic by the book delay for this type of music.

The Other SoundFX

I took the same “a” sound as my arpeggio and pad had and put it on a new track. I then added the Soundtoys FilterFreak1 with a random cutoff clocked at 1/8 of the song tempo.

Since the “Smoothing” is on at around 30% the randomisation makes the cutoff quite hard in its frequency jumps producing some super fast filter sweeps. Since it’s randomised I don’t have any control over what it’s doing so I just let it live its own life. And it lives and happy life for sure!

The Pigments Lead

Last, but not least is a new arpeggiated melody. It uses a shorter version of the “a” sound as well as the “i” sound from the last word. I exported just one cycle of both waveforms and loaded both of them in Pigments’ sample engine. I made sure the Granular Mode is turned off. I set the Sample Map to Random so every time I press a key the engine randomly selects any of these two waveforms. I then used the Wavefolder and Multiband compression in Pigments’ internal effect chain before sending it to a huge reverb and a dotted 1/8 delay. The filter cut off frequency and the wavefolder drive are both automated on separate lanes in Studio One.

All tracks are routed through different bus channels which all have the Softube Tape effect and Console 1 for further EQ, compression and drive. The drum bus has slight harmonic distortion while the pad and arpeggio both have stereo widening effects.

And that’s it. Everything you hear in this song is made from the “Doop and loop it” sample which is played in the beginning of the song.

You can listen to it here: