Tapping out riffs in the Loop by Zaweba riff editor
The riff editor in Loop by Zaweba is a step grid for drum pads or two octaves of your song's scale, over 1, 2 or 4 bars, playing in time as you build.
Sometimes no loop in the library is quite right. The drums need one more kick, the bass should hold back for a beat, the lead wants a different shape. The riff editor in Loop by Zaweba is where you make your own: a step grid you click to fill, for any instrument, that plays round in time while you work.
Open it from Tools > Riff editor. Double-clicking a clip on the grid also opens it in the riff editor.
The grid
The grid runs left to right in steps across 1, 2 or 4 bars. For a drum instrument, the rows are drum pads. For anything with notes, the rows cover two octaves of the song's scale. That second part is what makes it friendly: every row is a note that belongs in the song's key, so you cannot pick a note that clashes.
Click a step to switch it on. Drag across steps to paint a run of them. Shift-click to add an accent, a stronger hit, which is how you give a pattern a lilt rather than a flat, mechanical feel.
Hearing it as you go
The riff loops in time while you edit. You add a hi-hat and hear it on the next pass. You move a bass note and the change plays straight away. Working by ear like this is quicker than thinking it through, and it is how most good patterns get found: try, listen, adjust.
Two patterns to start with
A simple start for a dance beat: choose a drum instrument and one bar. Put a kick on each beat. Add a clap or snare on beats two and four. Fill the hi-hat row with every other step, then shift-click a few to accent them. Listen for a few loops, then nudge one kick off the beat to see if it grooves more. Small changes make big differences.
For a bassline or melody, choose a bass or lead instrument and two bars. Because the rows are already in the song's scale, start by putting the root note of the scale on the first beat of each bar. Add a note on a higher row before the next bar to lead into it. For melodies, fewer notes usually sound better than more; leave gaps so the phrase can breathe.
Adding it to the song or saving it
When the riff sounds right, add it to the song and it appears on the grid as a clip, which you can then repeat, copy and move like any loop. Or save it to My loops in the library. Saved riffs follow the tempo and key of whatever song you use them in, so a pattern you build today can start a different song next week.
When to move to the piano roll
The riff editor is about speed and feel, and it keeps to the song's scale. For finer work, Studio mode has a piano roll with note lengths you drag, velocity, quantise and grid choices from 1/4 to 1/32 including triplets. A good routine is to sketch in the riff editor and polish in the piano roll.
Where riffs go wrong
Filling every step is the most common. A grid full of notes sounds busy and tiring. Another is forgetting accents, which leaves drums sounding stiff. And if you change the bar count, listen again, since a one-bar idea stretched to four bars can feel repetitive. Undo covers every edit in Loop by Zaweba, so experiment freely.
