Out of the box, Cubase comes with the Media Bay pre-populated with a stack of loops and samples. Some of these loops are provided in matched sets that provide e.g. bass, drums, piano and guitar that will each create an instrument track with the appropriate sound pre-selected in Halion Sonic when you drag them into your project. Used in conjunction with the Chord Track, this enables you to construct a sample arrangement for any chord progression in next to no time, allowing you to concentrate on refining your song content and structure without worrying about recording some scratch parts.
It may seem a bit “Band In The Box”, but anything that helps you break away from your own clichés can’t be all bad. This video looks at creating a sample arrangement for an intro to a song I’m working on at the moment and how I tackled the issue of the chord progression being longer than Cubase’s default 8 bar parts.
