How can I use an existing song and add loops to it?

Yes, what you want to do is called Beatmapping. This will allow you to bring in a song and map it to a beat. Once you’ve done that, you can mix and match parts of songs and they will all overlap seamlessly.

Some thing to watch out for:

1. If a song was recorded live or even recorded in a studio with a live drummer who wasn’t listening to a click track, the beat may vary from measure to measure. There is not a lot you can do about this. Songs which uses a steady tempo beatmap the best.

2. The songs you want to mix together should start out with a tempo that is fairly close. You are not going to be able to mix a song at 80 beats per minute with one at 140 beats per minute because that much stretching will produce unwanted audio artifacts. Try and select songs that have tempos that are pretty close to begin with for the best results.

Start by reading the Quick Start Manual cover-to-cover to get a good overview of how ACID works. Then open the User’s Manual and go to the Using The Beatmapper section (in Chapter 7, starting on page 103). This should get you started quickly. Then, of course, go back and read everything you skipped. 😉 (and don’t forget to experiment, explore, and have fun)

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About John Rofrano

John Rofrano is a Senior VASST Trainer and the author of Instant ACID, a book on Sony ACID Pro software, from CMP Books. He is also the developer of Ultimate S Pro, Vegas Pro Production Assistant, Mayhem, and other software plug-ins including the FASST Apps for Sony Vegas Pro NLE software. John has been a performing musician, singer, songwriter for over 40 years, and programmer and computer architect for the past 28 years. He is also a forum moderator at the Creative COW.