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3. Changing the groove of sampled loops and beats in Live

1 Some DAWs like Live and ACID allow you to change the complete groove of an audio loop by applying different groove templates to it. Best of all you can import a sampled loop that you like and extract the groove from it and apply that to another and make it your own. Open up an empty project in Live with two audio tracks.

2 Load both of the supplied audio files, TechBeat 120a and HH_ Beat59 (both on this month's cover DVD but also in the Tutorial Folder) onto the two separate audio tracks. Live automatically locks them to the tempo 120bpm, or whatever you have selected.

3 Actually, considering these two grooves are from different genres, they don't sound half bad together. Job done? Yes, Live really is the DAW to use when you want to mix and match sampled loops but it goes one better by allowing you to extract and apply grooves. Control/ Right click>Extract Groove on the Hip Hop loop.

4 Now select the techno beat (muting the hip-hop one). On its own it's a solid and robotic loop with no humanity whatsoever. However look over at the drop-down Groove menu and you'll see that the groove of the hip-hop loop has been added as an option. Select it to make your techno groove more hip-hop. Tech hop anyone?

5 OK, it's not like it really has just changed a techno loop into a hiphop one – the changes are subtle at the moment – but you can open up the Groove Pool (bottom drop-down option) to enhance the effect, changing parameters like Quantize and Timing.

6 And now you have the Groove Pool open, try adding some other grooves to your techno). You'll notice the effect is more pronounced in the hats and percussion at first but you can get very dramatic results when pushing those parameters and it's another great way to really make those sampled loops your own.