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collaborative music looper

Writing music can be fun but also intimidating. One way I try to make it feel less intimidating is to record looper songs. This involves making a short ~10s clip and repeating it several times, adding new layers of music on top of it with each repetition. (Here are a few examples of this.) This seems like a fun and easy way to collaborate with people musically over the internet, so I've build this page for it. I invite you to join the experiment!

using the looper

Toggle any track's checkbox to turn it on and off. Most of them have been recorded alongside a certain subset of the other tracks, but many tracks could sound cool together! Experiment with various combinations to create your own song in your browser.

Note on loop syncing

I'm aware the looping is a bit janky right now. Javascript isn't great at looping without delays and the strategy I'm trying here didn't seem to scale super well. I'm planning to look into this and maybe use ToneJS. If you have ideas, please reach out!



key: C minor, tempo: 80bpm, length: 4 measures of 4 beats (exactly 12s)

track 1

da dum

submitted by Evy

track 2

soft high sustained "da"

submitted by Evy

recorded alongside track 1

track 3

finger snaps and shhhhp

submitted by Jacob dGM

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 4

Simple shakuhachi riff

submitted by Gerard Yun

recorded alongside track 1

track 5

piano bass line

submitted by blinry

recorded alongside tracks 1, 2, and 4

track 6

da dum harmony

submitted by ruth

recorded alongside track 1

track 7

heartbeat ft baby lee

submitted by ruth

recorded with metronome

track 8

arpeggios

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 9

balalaika-bass

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 10

balalaika-melody

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 11

bdrum-snare

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 12

clarinets

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 13

conga

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 14

cowbel

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 15

crash

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 16

crotales

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 17

hihats

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 18

lead

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 19

marimba

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 20

piano

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 21

robot

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 22

strings

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 23

timpani

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 24

trumpet

submitted by winniehell

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 25

Clarinet w/ Overdrive

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 26

Clarinet

submitted by Aaron Strick

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

track 27

Clarinet from above, but behind by a bar ("call and response")

submitted by Aaron Strick

recorded alongside tracks 1 and 2

Wow!! Thanks for the anonymous musician that sent this in - what a fun riff on the dadum tracks :)

Another loop mix, by winnihell

loop 1

want to submit a new 12 second track?

Yay!

  1. Pick which track(s) to record with - it's fine to leave a bunch out! By removing some tracks, you get more flexibilty to introduce new ideas. You can download the tracks here.
  2. Record your new track. This can be something as simple as clapping or singing a single note. You don't have to fill the full 12 seconds - in fact a lot of great collaborative music is a back and forth between different musicians. For recording, I recommend garageband (mac only) and audacity (free and works on most computers) since they allow you to record alongside other tracks.
  3. Once you're done recording, make sure your track is the same length as the others, so that it can loop properly.
  4. Upload your track to this form. The form requires you to log in with google to submit a file through google drive. If this doesn't work for you, feel free to email me or send the file another way.

Thank you for your time and music!! <3

Note: all tracks uploaded to this project are licensed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-SA license.