Subject:WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Posted by: Snappy

Date:5/14/2004 8:40:45 AM

Working on Acid lately, pondering what it lets me do, and, what it doesn't...

I've concluded: The single-most important thing missing is 'swing quantize'. of audio events.

As cool as the vast majority of my Acid projects are -- and I have over 250 sitting in my folder in various stages of completion -- there is one common thread between all of them that I would like to be able to break, which is that all the step-written drum patterns (i.e. those created from one-shots, not loops) are 100% teutonic, quantized to straight-time perfection. Even when I clean up my own swing-y drum loops, I generally wind up locking them into straight-time, simply because it's the only available datum.

Those who know, know that a groove isn't usually about this...

SMS: Please give top-level consideration to adding swing-quantize to the next major release of Acid.

Thanks!

-----------------

PS -- my other primary wish -- that Acid's sub-bussing & effects send system could actually work like a 'real' mixer -- can be circumvented comparatively easily, just by exporting tracks to a true mixing program, or patching them via breakout box into a hardware mixer. This quantization limitation, though, can't be resolved by offloading the work to an external program/device, at least not without the nightmarish tedium of manual event tweaking. ...Which is not to say that I don't still want the mixer fixed, just that the quantization limitation is a much more pressing and absolute hindrance to true creativity.

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: Zacchino

Date:5/14/2004 3:34:27 PM

I think this was already requested in the AP5 Features Wishes & Request thread.

I do work like you. All "hand-made" shuffle (swing, or whatever you call it).

Good to see I'm not the only one who needs this badly

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: Spirit

Date:5/14/2004 6:30:45 PM

Why not just do this yourself instead of asking for yet another machine template ?

Just load up your drum sounds and do what humans do: play the thing ! If you'e capable of playing with feel or swing then that's exactly what you'll get. Then define the area of the best groove, render and reimport as a single loop.

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:5/14/2004 8:45:21 PM

They say good things come to those who wait...

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page
Guitars 4 Kids

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: coolout

Date:5/15/2004 2:26:17 AM

if you're doing any type of mid-tempo stuff my suggestion would be to get an AKAI MPC.

it's pretty much the one piece of gear that has created the rhythmic feel on the majority current records.

you're probably wondering if you get the same feel by using other stuff?

kinda...but it's much harder.

what most people don't seem to understand is that your average "swingy drum loop" sitting on your hard drive is just some drum brakedown taken from some 25 to 30 year-old recording, thrown into an akai mpc, chopped up and re-arranged, mixed with some synthetic drum sounds for punch, then eq'd and compressed.

by cutting out the middleman and doing it yourself you gain much more control and originality to your drum tracks. an mpc has the tightest and easiest to use sequencer combined with great feeling drum pads.

this is the reason they're still a bit pricey but at least they maintain a high resell value. you can get a mpc 2000 for about $500-$700 on ebay.

i've done drum tracks in acid alone and also using other apps like reason, logic and orion. nothing compares to how easy i get the sound and feel i'm looking for just by using NI's Battery and my MPC.

why battery? it's the best of both worlds. the only thing i don't care for with most hardware samplers is the headache of the file system. battery makes it really easy to compile, edit, and store drum kits, plus i can still use all my vst and dx plugins.

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: Snappy

Date:5/26/2004 12:31:21 PM

First of all, I'm not talking about MIDI notes triggering samples. I should have made that more clear. I'm talking about laying in one-shots or loops upon gridlines which reflect swing quantize, instead of the perfect timing quanitize which is the only option available right now.

coolout:
I cut my teeth on the ASQ-10 (for those who don't know: basically, the sequencer section of an MPC) It has exactly the type of swing quant I'd appreciate from Acid -- a numerical setting which determines how strongly the swing will be applied.

I'm doing what you describe, in Acid: taking my own drum loops, cutting them up and straightening them out. The problem is, I can only lay the pieces onto gridlines that are in 'perfect' time, not swing time. Since most of my funk beats have a natural swing of roughly 5-10 percent, you can probably imagine how this limitation (perfect-time only) actually corrupts the original feel of my beats. To be able to have the gridlines nudged to a 'swung' position would be perfect!

If I was doing any serious MIDI sequencing, I'd be using a full-featured soft-seq., but I'm not -- at the moment, my chosen approach is to make everything out of audio files in Acid.

BTW also appreciated would be a 'groove quantize' where the sequencer can learn the algorithm from supplied impulses!

(edit: typo + clarity)

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: luceses

Date:5/27/2004 2:20:52 AM

Acid already provides every type of subdivision necessary to creat "swing" type rhythms. You might try using the snap to grid feature and select 1/8 or 1/16 Triplets. As for the robotic feel, what you are looking for is not just about meter it is about velocity AND tambre, which means that if you are using a bunch of one shots that have the same vel. and tambre, they are going to sound robotic. The only way around this is to have a bunch of different velocities of sample sounds and then put those on the timeline at random to see what you get. Really it's all about knowing the "math" behind the "swing". Good luck, luces

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: spesimen

Date:5/27/2004 2:30:51 PM

although triplets are an example of "perfect" swing, they are often far too extreme for a lot of house or hip hop beats. many drum machines have had different settings for swing that allow for different degrees of nudging the note timing values around - typically with the maximum value being at where the notes would fall if they were pure triplets. on my rs7k there is also an ability to nudge them the 'wrong' way although i haven't found much musical use for that yet..

i agree about the timbre and velocity also playing a part...although i think velocity has more to do with it (at least in more electronic-ish music styles where lack of timbre variation on drum sounds is pretty common..)

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: jardeano

Date:5/27/2004 7:41:58 PM

I write alot of jazz and what I do is loop 1-2 bars, insert a metronome type sound and groove, turn off the snap and go for it,,placing shots on top of each other also gives a sync to the beat,, there's a new app out,, that does audio quantization ,,check it out.......

Subject:RE: WISH: I would take it all back ... for this:

Reply by: coolout

Date:6/1/2004 6:50:37 PM

snappy, i understand what you're doing, assembling drum tracks from loops and one-shots, but i'm just saying from my experience it much easier with battery and a MPC. you get better a better feel and it's much quicker than painting and nudging one-shots.

if you still have your ASQ then drop your one shots in some sort of sampling vsti in acid, sequence you groove with the ASQ and record the midi sequence.