How to Plan Your Worship Loop

Sometimes knowing which instruments you will be creating a track for can be all you need to get started, but sometimes you’ll want to plan based on knowing what instruments you won’t have. You know that you will have two singers, an acoustic guitarist, electric guitarist, drummer, and bass, but your keyboard player is out of town, then most likely you want to create a loop with some of the keys/synths/pad parts built in.

A common debate in the loop community and for worship leaders using loops in worship revolves around this very issue–which instruments do I try to totally emulate (as in try to create an actual piano part), or just try to create some piano fills that are for the most part just to fill out the mix and add color? While this post really doesn’t serve to answer that question, I often will not substitute an entire instrument unless that is actually the points (in which case I will most likely just record it using GarageBand, ProTools, or Logic, and have an actual track playing alongside the loop when we’re playing live).

When I’m just creating a loop that is meant to add depth and “fill the holes” that may exist within the band and the overall sound, I’ll simply just do some simple piano fills using one of the built-in Reason pianos rather than try to emulate an entire piano part and cause confusion–and inevitably a distraction–for my congregation. Most of the time, when I make a loop that has a piano part, guitar part, or bass part, these parts are so basic and/or bare that they are really just “lost in the mix” most of the time and can only be heard when you really focus in on them. In that case, most people will know that I’m using loops because they can see my computer on the platform with us anyway!

Decide the instrumentation you want include, then write it down. You may decide you want to have a synth part and a very basic drum part that is just an electronic drum to go alongside the actual drummer’s acoustic set. This is a very common strategy and many loops here on LoopingWorship.com are actually that very thing. Namely, they are a combination of pads/synths and pianos, some basic, minimalistic sounds, and rudimentary rhythmic patterns on some sort of electronic drum, or ethnic drumbeat. I try to use instruments that I know we don’t have normally and won’t have at a given worship service, and I also try to use instruments that aren’t so out there and crazy-sounding that they cause a distraction to anyone. Once you’ve decided on which instruments you will be tracking for, write them down.

The next step in planning out the process of creating a worship loop is deciding where you are going to go musically, and emotionally. This means that you’ll want to have a basic understanding of the parts of the song that will increase dynamically (get louder), decrease (get softer), fill up a lot of space, have less presence, etc., and, of course, the places where you want nothing more than a shaker or a cymbal to just keep time if you don’t have in-ear-monitors. Most of the time you can use the same dynamic contrasts that exist in the actual original song, you’ll also want to include your own musicality and structure based on your bands’ style and skill. The choice is yours, but often if I’m trying to create a loop in a hurry, I’ll use the same sort of elements and dynamic structure that the original songs use. As with all good plans, you want to write it down. On a sheet of paper (preferably the one you also have written out the structural sections of the song), you’ll want to also jot down the places between your structural elements where you want to have dynamic contrasts. You can literally write in “crescendo,” “decrescendo,” etc., or you can simply just say “get louder slowly” or “get louder before this last chorus, then fade out to nothing but piano and click…”

The next step in my process usually involves tracking just one instrument at a time, all the way from the beginning to the end of the song each time. The best way I’ve found to do this is to try and sync up the original track (I use iTunes and QuickTime player most often) with the click (metronome) built into Reason as closely as possible. The goal is to not copy the song exactly, but just to get the structure down; to be sure that I can play both the loop and the reference track at the same time and know where I am in each. I may decide to change the tempo after I track the first instrument, as that track is used merely to get the reference point for the rest of the instruments I’ll want in the loop.

I like to record a single pad or some other keyboard arrangement part first, as it gives me the full chordal structure in each section of the song, and this way I can keep my place throughout the entirety of the piece, whereas with other instruments like drums and bass (instruments that only play in certain sections), they won’t be playing throughout the entire piece.

After you lay down the first track, of course, you can certainly delete sections of it for dynamic contrast and musical creativity, as well as fade it in and out as you desire. If it’s a pad track for this first instrument, most of the time you’ll be able to leave the majority of it in the loop.

Once this first track is finished, track the other instruments. Most of the time I’ll track any kind of drums, beats, or other electronic drum patterns that will go alongside or behind the drummer that I’ll actually be playing with live. Then I’ll put in the remainder of the main parts including bass, guitars, and any other synth/pad sounds. Lastly, I’ll put in the auxiliary instrument sounds, and any other small sections, riffs, or repeated segments of music using whatever instruments I planned on in the first step of planning.

This fourth stage of the process is usually where I’m most creative, so take a lot of liberties and time in just playing around with all the sounds Reason has to offer. Maybe you want a strings part, or a repeated keyboard vamp over that last chorus? Maybe you want some kind of timpani crescendo before the rest of the band comes in during the bridge section with some pizzicato strings like raindrops over the rest of it? Who knows? The choice is yours. This is where most of my fun comes in, and I spent a lot of time (sometimes even days!) deciding where I want to go with the loop. Feel free to abandon your original plans of where you want the song to go and let your mind wander (that is, of course, it’s midnight on Saturday night and you have to use this loop for church the next day. In that case, it’s best to stick with the plan!)

Once you have every instrument tracked and ready to go and separated into the sections you want and labeled, you’re probably ready to play around with the effects, mastering, and finding that polished, finalized sound for your loop. Sometimes, I’ll put the effects in as I go, as it helps me hear what the drums really will sound like (even though I always have huge, thick reverb dripped over the top of all of them). If you’ve already done all this, great. If not, spend a little bit of time playing around with any effects you may want (reverb, chorus, delay, etc.).

Also, play around with the volume levels of the track in your mixing console. See the video of how I set up my instruments for a great example of using the mastering suite that Reason has to offer, as well as the mixing console and the auxiliary effects units I always tie in to that mixing console. This is the general “template” of how I start most of my loops. Using that same template as the base, you’ll be set for most different types of sounds you want to have in the loop, and you’ll only need to bust out different effects units for some more creative sounds.