When you sing in the bathroom, or any other small space it tends to sound good. It sounds good even if youre a terrible singer anywhere else. The reason for this, is that your singing; the sound waves, are bouncing off those tighter walls and creating lots of depth to your voice. Depth it normally lacks. You are ;more or less, sing harmony with yourself.

This is also why music or Singing in a concert hall sounds so good, the room has been optimized for that effect.

This added depth of tone gives vocals a nice quality, it also makes music played in a bathroom sound hollow. The reason is that your vocal sounds are not traveling as fast. The Album music has already been optimized for large spaces, by putting it into a small space the sound waves are bouncing around so fast they are canceling each other out and creating a flat; or hollow, sound.

This effect is called Reverberation.

The Audio effect Reverb mimics that natural effect. By “echoing” whats put through it, it creates that depth of sound artificially. most; if not all, singers use it to some degree. As you heard on the audio track from the reverb video, Reverb can do some odd thing to audio when used at high levels. It is mostly used to add a little depth and color to a recording, allowing the environment its played in to do the rest.

For vocals I recommend a 5/95 – 10/90 Dry/Wet with Reverb. But theres no reason to not be creative with it. In Music production dry/wet refers to how much of the sound(s) are affected by the effect. 10/90 means only 10% of the sound (such as your singing) is being proccessed. Again the idea; in most cases, is to add depth, and “color” with the effect, not overpower the sounds.

One last and important thing, the reverb on each part of a recording should match up if used on anything other than vocals. using reverb On vocals alone is fine, but if you want the whole song to use them, either render out the track and put the reverb on top of the whole thing, or make sure to put the same level on each track in the song.

Well thats about it on Reverb, have a nice day.

If you do have room to store them on your hard drive; or hard drives, put them in easy to remember folders. The best way is to have a loops folder, then subfolders for a style of music or for each loop library. Arrange them the best way for you to keep track. Just remember that loop 00005.wav tells you absolutely nothing on its own, keep them organized! Lastly once you’ve used the file; if you move it, the program will complain and want to know where it is the next time you open a project. To save yourself a good deal of hassle be as organized as you possibly can with your loops.
If you plan on mainly using loops; to begin with at least, this is a must do task. However this also applies if you will be using your own instruments or doing any recording of your own material. Save them as names you’ll remember, and keep them organized in easy to use folders. This will save you a great deal of headache with searching. Acid music studios loop selection window, which you will be using for all track selection uses a simple folder, subfolder, subfolder etc. file selection method. Just dumping all of your loop files into one folder will be a massive headache when trying to find anything; one last time, keep it organized.

Back it up, back it up, back it up, back it up, back it up on DVD, CD, external hard drive, internal hard drives, anything you can. Hard drives can fail. Removable media like discs can be damaged. So in case you didn’t get it the first time back up your work or risk losing it!

Next is acidized loops. An acidized loop has beats per minute and pitch information right in the file. This allows you to use the loops at any beats per minute or pitch acid can handle, which is a lot. This turns even a small collection of loops into a massive library of potential. For example altering the beats per minute by roughly 20 is enough to give it a significantly different sound. With Acid MS thats roughly 7 steps you can change any one loop. You can also change the pitch of any of those seven steps within a loop giving you a great deal of flexibility. By using a special FX, you can easily turn even a very small number of loops into a coherent track simply by using the same ones over and over again just changing them in small ways.

Now creating your own loops may seem like a hard thing to do, trust me it isn’t. If you have a microphone and something to make noise with you can make loops. I have used my keyboard and a neck chain to create a nice little spooky chain dragging effect, also been a rather versatile vocalist I can use my voice to make lots of interesting noises also. These are very simple examples of how you can make your own loops easily. At first it may seem like there would be no reason to do this with all the loops available, but the simple fact is that even with the millions upon millions of loops out there probably none have never been used. The better the loop sounds the more likely it has been used a great deal.

You can also use existing loops and cut them up to create your own. You can use drum sequencers to craft your own drum loops. Tons of synthetic programs are available, many for free. You can also use your mic to record anything. In addition to the samples already given, you can record the guitar that you play with now and then, you can record dripping water, stomping feet, claps, outdoor noises, anything can be recorded into a loop.

Sampling is the act of taking an existing sound or piece of music and using it in your own tracks. All loops technically are samples. I personally draw a line and say that using loops is not actually sampling however. To me; and this is purely my opinion, sampling is taking bits and pieces from a song somebody else recorded and using them in your own. Rap was born from doing this.
Early rappers could not afford actual instruments, recording time or to put a band together. What they did have was early tape recorders and record players. By sampling other peoples music, mixing it to create beats, they were able to create a new genre of music. This was originally called hip-hop. It was originally used for dancing. It was not until the 90s it became associated with criminal activity or what is commonly known as gangsta rap. The problem with sampling, is by sampling someone’s song you are breaking copyright law. That’s it; no arguing, nothing will save you if you get caught and they want to sue.
The only way; and reason, you would sample song is if you intend to change the sample. This allows you to continue using the already recorded ambiance of the track, while not ripping off the artist who did originally record it. However the changes must be significant. For you to be able to say that you have truly taken that piece of recorded material, sampled it, and made it your own, you must truly change the original recording. Your best bet is that if you do not feel comfortable with taking the chance with using samples, don’t do it. I don’t use samples because I don’t feel comfortable with them. Otherwise you must get permission to use the sample from the owner of the song. Even if you do get permission, it can still be risky.
The case of The Verve’s song Bitter Sweet Symphony is a prime example. They got permission to use a sample in the song, but when it became a hit the owners sued citing they had used too much. The owners won the case, and The Verve never saw a dime of the money that song made.

In a related matter when you buy a CD or DVD with loops you do not own the rights to those loops. The copyright of those loops remains with the original maker. What you do have is a user license. Basically a contract allowing you to use the loops for the creation of your own material. You should always make sure you are buying royalty-free loops.

Royalty-free means you do not owe the company anything for using them as long as you are the one that rightfully bought them. Any loops that do have royalties will require you to pay the company anytime you sell any song with one of them and it. Be it by CD or download. You can buy of loops, or you can get them for free, some sources for free loops are sample downloads and magazines.
Once you have your royalty-free loops be they free; or bought, you have made a contract with the owner to be the only user of those loops. You cannot give them away, or sell them, nor can you buy used loop libraries. Doing any of these things voids the contract and your right to use them. So don’t do it. You cannot buy used loop libraries because you are not the original licensee of the loops. You can use your loops on other people’s work if you are a credited creative name on the product. This means that you are part of the creative process in making the work. By doing this the work becomes partially yours, and therefore you can use your loops. You would normally do this if you are a producer working with a group. This is why a good deal of rappers have similar sounding beats.

My First program for making my own music, was Acid Music Studio, and I have yet to find fault in the program for what it can do, at the price it costs.
Ive been using the program for a few years and have learned a lot of tricks and fun ways to get results.

Acid music studio uses a very easy pick and paint loop system. All you need is to pick a loop (a small piece of sound, that can be looped to play as long as you need it) and paint it into your workspace. The number of tracks allowed is only limited by your computer’s ability to handle them.

It uses a very easy to use loop selection system. You have a window that you select your loops from. When loading loops it is best to use organization because it uses a simple file and folder selection system.

Acid music studio works with 70 to 200 beats per minute.

It comes with a small selection of decent audio effects for production work, and there are many others online for free. I will go over the effects later.

The program contains a very easy-to-use split tool. This allows you to take any loop and chop it up for customization. It also contains a tool called the chopper. The chopper does the same thing as the split tool only is far more in depth. By using it’s also easy to use copy and paste tools. You can take one loop and use it to create your own customized loops.

Acid music studio also has built-in MIDI and synth program add-ins (computer instruments). It also includes live recording capability. These features, I have not used much, but intend to do so in the future. I will convey my findings in my blog. I’m looking forward to using them more with the exception of the built-in recording capability because I use other software for those functions.

Pitch shift, pan envelope and volume envelope:
Pitch shift allows you to change the pitch of a loop. This allows you to take one loop and make it sound different. Much like the changing the beats per minute this allows you to take a small collection of loops and make it seem much larger.
Pan envelope allows you to move the sound within the stereo field. The stereo field is your ability to hear left and right and directly in front. This would typically be called a 2.0 speaker set-up. By moving the sound of your track or individual loops from left to right or center. You change the effect of what people will be hearing. This is one of your most important tools. When you watch a movie in a theater and you hear the sound move all around you, this is action in the stereo field. In music this is used to give a more lifelike sound. When recording drums the position of the drums in a typical drum set will be taken into account. Bass kick in the middle, and other drums arranged from left to right. This gives a sensation of actually being in front of the drum kit.
Volume envelope is your other most important tool probably more important than any other. It allows you to change the volume of each individual track, also giving a more lifelike feeling by giving contrast to each individual track or loop. For example in rock music the guitars bass and other instruments will be louder when they are only playing by themselves, and will all become quieter during singing or vocal tracks.

Onother nice thing about acid music studio. Is its ability to render in 13 different types of sound files. This allows you to control exactly how big a file and how nice you want the finished product to sound on your computer.
The file sizes range from raw audio, MP3s, Windows player audio files. Etc. Each file type allowing you to control the size of the file. And the quality at which you wish to save it. Lower file size equals less quality. These file formats work by removing certain aspects of the song which normally unhearable, do contain aspects of how you hear the song and make it sound better.
Think of how singing in the bathroom sounds. The type of walls used, and close space gives a very nice tone to singing. And while parts of what you are hearing are not completely audible they do add vibration which you feel. Converting to MP3, removes really extreme levels of these sounds and sensations. Strictly speaking this does not lower the level of the music’s quality a great deal. But for those who like extreme quality recording it will be a noticeable difference.

Note: Buying Loops involves a license to use them for YOUR purposes. A person can NOT pass on this License. DO NOT BUY USED LOOP COLLECTIONS!