Low-effort, high rewards in pop music.

August 22, 2023 7:47 PM

I'm looking for examples of songs built on top of free or cheap loops.

Such as: Rhianna's Umbrella from a standard loop in Garage Band, Lil Nas X using a $30 beat from a song by NIN for Old Town Road, Gorillaz' Clint Eastwoord being a preset loop in a Suzuki omnichord.
I'm not looking for uses of samples like funky drummer, etc., but rather whole loops and other things like the aforementioned.

posted by signal to Media & Arts (14 answers total)

Songs using an Optigan
posted by credulous at 8:41 PM on August 22, 2023 [1 favorite]

Sleng Teng as a genre was based on a canned Casio synth rhythm also.
posted by soundslikeobiwan at 9:54 PM on August 22, 2023 [4 favorites]

Prisencolinensinainciusol ?
posted by Violet Hour at 11:26 PM on August 22, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not sure if this fits the bill but Rei Harakami's music was mostly created using only Roland's SC-88Pro, an old-style MIDI sound source released in 1996.
posted by misozaki at 12:10 AM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Trio - Da Da Da (Ich leib du nicht du leibt mich nicht) is based on the default rhythms of a casio synth.
There is a whole playlist of songs using OOTB Casio VL-1 Rhythms here.
posted by rongorongo at 1:12 AM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

A good chunk of the iconic synth lines in Duran Duran's Rio were made with the built in arpeggiator of the Roland Jupiter 8.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:45 AM on August 23, 2023

Ich leib du nicht du leibt mich nicht

I like this version of the original text, which could be interpreted as "i don't body you and you don't body me" (der Leib, noun, means body although somewhat oldfashioned).
Correct Version however is "Ich lieb dich nicht, du liebst mich nicht" (i don't love you, you don't love me). 🙂
posted by 15L06 at 6:09 AM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

The original version of The Nails' 88 Lines about 32 Women used the same Casio synth rhythm as Da Da DA
posted by Ms. Toad at 6:56 AM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Low effort:

The intro to Michael Jackson's Beat It was taken directly from Danny Jaeger's The Incredible Sounds of Sinclavier II , which was a demonstration record for the Sinclavier synthesizer.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:42 PM on August 23, 2023

I don't know that it's low effort, but Far Side Virtual by James Ferraro is one of my all-time favorite records, and he made the whole thing with Garage Band and lots of cheap-as-hell samples.
posted by tovarisch at 12:44 PM on August 23, 2023

(PS. Might be a stretch for some people to call FSV a pop record, but it is pop to me. Also: a noise record.)
posted by tovarisch at 12:46 PM on August 23, 2023

WhoSampled has a page of songs which have sampled standard cellphone or computer ring tones or other sounds. - you can also search their database by instrument to find songs which may have used presets - for example it let me find A Tribe called Quest's Push It Along which opens with the distinctive Korg M1 preset "Lore".
posted by rongorongo at 1:32 PM on August 23, 2023

Clint Eastwood by Gorillaz is largely a preset from a Suzuki Omnichord.
posted by alby at 2:22 AM on August 25, 2023

I think Daddy Yankee's Gasolina is pretty pirated frooty loops preset-y.
posted by umbú at 7:00 PM on August 26, 2023