Mike (and all)-- I just re-read this before sending, and it may sound a bit abrasive or unappreciative... On the contrary, if I didn't think DoggieBox was one of THE BEST pieces of music software the Mac has EVER seen, I wouldn't have bothered to write. Keep up the fantastic work-- DB is a dream come true for me and my musical endeavors. Now, on to my frustration... ;-) Concerning the swing setting for iDrum, it's most likely a "stretcher" of the off-beat eighth notes in a pattern, which is a very valuable feature. I've wanted to ask about this topic for a while now. The concept is: straight eighths (all 8 of 'em in a 4/4 measure, normally on a hi-hat in a rock or latin pattern) occur precisely on, and precisely half-way between, each beat. (ONE AND / TWO AND / THREE AND / FOUR AND) A heavy swing pattern would have the hi-hat or ride cymbal off-beat eighth notes (ex. the 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th ones in a 4/4 measure) feeling like triplet eighths. (ONE and A / TWO and A / THREE and A / FOUR and A) The total time of the overall measure, however, and the timing of the main beats, would be exactly the same as a rock or latin measure at the same tempo. If I want a more subtle swing, I would play those off-beats somewhere in between straight and tripletted. (Whoa, now I'm makin' up words. Gettin' fired up here.) So... Solution 1: if I have a "swing" setting like iDrum's, I could adjust the timing of the off-beats across the entire pattern (or, ideally, any section of the pattern I choose) with a simple change of a single setting. Solution 2: If I want to do this in DoggieBox... Do I stretch out the view of every measure so I can manually place each off-beat cymbal hit (or "swung" hit on whatever drum) a hemi-demi-semiquaver or two late? This will not only take an unreasonable amount of time and effort, but it will also make for an extremely messy DB-to-MIDI-to-sheet music conversion, with lots of flags and double-dotted notes... most written "swing" patterns display the 8th notes straight, and indicate the swing feel at the top or at each swung section. (light/med/heavy swing, up by the tempo) Or Solution 3: Do I record my own custom cymbal (or whatever drum) sound with half a triplet's worth of extra space in front of it, so when it triggers precisely on the beat, it doesn't actually make the sound until a half-triplet later? This would work for a "strictly swing" kit... But many jazz charts flip-flop back and forth between straight 8ths and swung 8ths... now I need a bigger kit to include both recorded sounds...? What if I don't want a full hard swing? Now I need ANOTHER recording of those sounds that are only SLIGHTLY late? Ugh... Anyone else working with swing patterns have a more practical solution to this? Thanks-- Dan Costello Re: excerpt from DBDigest Vol.12 issue 5
3) There are some cool things present in the iDrum UI such as the "swing" level selection. I'm not sure what this does, but it seems to introduce a bit of timing randomness within the pattern itself, while retaining the overall timing from pattern start to pattern end. (Huh? Even I'm having trouble understanding my own sentence).
Dan Costello wrote:
Concerning the swing setting for iDrum, it's most likely a "stretcher" of the off-beat eighth notes in a pattern, which is a very valuable feature. I've wanted to ask about this topic for a while now.
I think I recall some calls for a similar sort of feature in Doggiebox ... a "percentage ahead or behind the beat" setting that could be applied to given pieces of the kit, perhaps on a measure-by-measure basis. Much like your Solution 1:
So... Solution 1: if I have a "swing" setting like iDrum's, I could adjust the timing of the off-beats across the entire pattern (or, ideally, any section of the pattern I choose) with a simple change of a single setting. Solution 2: If I want to do this in DoggieBox... Do I stretch out the view of every measure so I can manually place each off-beat cymbal hit (or "swung" hit on whatever drum) a hemi-demi-semiquaver or two late? This will not only take an unreasonable amount of time and effort, but it will also make for an extremely messy DB-to-MIDI-to-sheet music conversion, with lots of flags and double-dotted notes... most written "swing" patterns display the 8th notes straight, and indicate the swing feel at the top or at each swung section. (light/med/heavy swing, up by the tempo)
Mmmm, _very_ tedious :)
Or Solution 3: Do I record my own custom cymbal (or whatever drum) sound with half a triplet's worth of extra space in front of it, so when it triggers precisely on the beat, it doesn't actually make the sound until a half-triplet later? This would work for a "strictly swing" kit... But many jazz charts flip-flop back and forth between straight 8ths and swung 8ths... now I need a bigger kit to include both recorded sounds...? What if I don't want a full hard swing? Now I need ANOTHER recording of those sounds that are only SLIGHTLY late? Ugh...
Also, it would break if you changed the tempo, since a given amount of delay that is "half a triplet" late will no longer be "half a triplet" late if the length of a triplet changes! IMO, a "percentage ahead or behind the beat" setting that could be applied to given pieces of the kit on a selectable-by-measure basis AND a "slight randomization" of beat placement and/or velocity would be pretty cool features. Obvious, one can beat a lot of the "sounds like a drum machine" problem by manually varying tempo and hit velocity, but its very tough to mimic the virtually imperceptible timing imperfections that keep even a very good real drummer from sounding like a machine. I don't know how tricky such features would be to implement! Cheers, Carl (who promises to have another go at the MMC MIDI stuff and MIDI file export as soon as he can pry the computer away from his wife ;) -- Carl Edlund Anderson http://www.carlaz.com/
participants (2)
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Carl Edlund Anderson -
Dan Costello