Cyberwave Orchestra Game Audio
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How Seamless Loops Work – Dark Horror Piano Example
🕑 Added 2025-05-23 08:31:30 +0000 UTCThis is an audio track from my Horror Piano sound pack, and the name of the piece is Bringing Back The Past. It’s a short seamless loop, which means it’s made to repeat over and over without any noticeable break or jump. The beginning and the end of the audio are carefully matched so that when the track loops, you can’t tell if it has played once or twenty times.
Sometimes, though, the start of a seamless loop can feel a little too sudden. Maybe you want the music to fade in more gently for your scene? That’s completely fine. You can simply add a fade-in at the beginning of the loop. Just make sure the fade-in happens only the first time the track plays. If you leave the fade-in active every time it loops, the smooth transition between the end and the beginning will be broken, and it won’t sound seamless anymore — like you can hear in the example.
You can also use a fade-out at the end of the track, but that’s usually best when you don’t plan to loop it again, or when you’re moving on to the next piece of music.
Some composers include a fade-in and fade-out in the audio file itself and still call it a loop. But technically, those aren’t true loops. Almost anything can be repeated, but what we really want here is seamlessness — the feeling that the music is flowing continuously without a clear start or end.
If you’re working with a track that wasn’t designed as a seamless loop, and you still want to loop it, you can try creating an artificial loop point. This means using a crossfade where the end fades out and the beginning fades in at the same time. It won’t be perfect, but it can still sound pretty smooth.
Comments
Cyberwave
I feel like there's more to this than just handing you a bunch of sounds. So now and then, I’ll share simple tips like this one to help you get the most out of my audio. The main point here: if a loop feels too abrupt at the start, just add a fade-in, but only at the beginning. After that first play, the ‘abrupt’ start will blend naturally with the end of the loop, which is also designed that way. That’s how true seamless loops work.
