APPLYING GROOVE

OK, I think it’s time to move on from warping for a while. Today, we’ll pick up where we left off, though and discuss another automatic technique for changing the timing of a loop: the groove engine.

In this tip, we’ll cover the basics.

To apply a groove to a clip, hit the hot-swap button at the far left side of the Clip view:

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This will open your browser to Live’s groove library:

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Now it’s just a matter of opening a folder, and double-clicking on the groove you want to apply.

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…after which it will appear down in the Clip view:

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But what groove to use? Aha. Therein lies the rub.

Software companies always market these so-called groove tools as magic makers that miraculously give your music “feel” or “humanize” things for you. But if you go in and browse around at random, what you’ll find are loads of grooves that either make things sound worse, or in some cases do nothing at all.

That’s why its important to understand the underlying concepts of groove, and how the Groove Pool really works. In the coming tips, we’ll break this down a bit.