ABSTRACT
With the introduction and maturation of MIDI and digital audio, new and wondrous tools have made their way into the mainstream of music production. These tools can help us to use technology to forge, fold, mutilate and create compositions that make direct use of rhythm and other building blocks of music through the use of looping technology. This chapter focuses on many of the approaches and software packages that have evolved into what is one of the fastest and most accessible facets of personal music production. Warping uses various time-shift tools to match the timing elements of a sound file by detecting and entering hitpoint markers into the sound file. Beat slicing makes use of an entirely different process to match the length and timings of a sound file segment to the session tempo. Loop-based audio systems are groove-driven DAWs designed to let you drag and drop pre-recorded or user-created loops and audio tracks into a graphic production interface.
