What to call yourself if you create a song with Acid loops?
 

What credit would you give yourself if you created a song using Acid loops? A composer? Arranger? Programmer? DJ? Studio Engineer?

Acid Head?

Loopy?

I mean, "composer".

If you are creating music by whatever means other than improvising the performance or leaving matters entirely to chance, you are a composer.

If Stockhausen or Cage were still around, I'm sure they would agree.

The question remains as to whether what Andrew Lloyd Webber produces can be called music :-)

I usually say "I did this on Acid", and then wait for the strange looks...

You are a composer or DJ if you splice, re-sample, edit, eq, compress, add extra sounds and synthesizers and such to a sample.

If you just play the loop... well, hopefully you have a decent commercial library that PERFECTLY fits the mood (which it never does... so you better be editing the crap out of them), then you aren't doing anything... just using royalty free music.

Well technically if you are creating original music you are a composer; if you're sampling, cutting, etc. then you are an arranger. A dj is a live arranger.

So if you're taking generic loops and splicing them together to create a totally new song, you would credit yourself as the composer. If you're taking copyrighted, royalty-free music and looping or rearranging it, you credit yourself as the arranger (make sure to credit the composer).

You're a looper.

It's probably not in Webster's yet.

Regards,

Ty Ford

I wouldn't call yourself a "looper." They aren't hiring "loopers" in Nashville...I don't know about LA. Programmer and composer are both accurate. You could even say Produced and Programmed by Michael Wisniewski.