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when will come the TR seq?


xarolium
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An idea...Because it does not need to make notes strike early, but only delay them, that feature could be built into a standalone device. That way you can both have your cake and eat it too :)

Just a single core and maybe a tiny LCD would do the trick, you wouldn't even need a DIN or DOUT...

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An idea...Because it does not need to make notes strike early, but only delay them, that feature could be built into a standalone device. That way you can both have your cake and eat it too :)

Just a single core and maybe a tiny LCD would do the trick, you wouldn't even need a DIN or DOUT...

mmm yeah... even though groove/shuffle with late notes only would miss a lot, that's an idea to take upon

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Yeh but he wasn't talking about groove/shuffle, he was talking about delaying hits due to the time it (supposedly) takes a drummer to move his arm the extra distance to the next drum.

Personally I never had that problem. My drumming is tighter than MIDI ;)

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I'm sure it is, but i've rarely heard a drummer that doesn't have a 'feel' for the music.

I'm a sound engineer so I've had a lot of experience with recording drums. It doesn't matter how tight you are, a drummer will never sound like sequenced beats, there's always that groove factor.

I don't think the stock 'delay the second note' shuffle is particularly effective at giving sequenced beats more life. Sure it's better than without, but it's still mechanical.

Put it this way, there are a million programs that allow you to sample hits and make your own beat, but James Brown's drummer is still being sampled today ;)

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This idea that it's about the extra time needed to reach further seems completely bogus to me.  Do you play kit or other actual "drum" drums?  I do.  Drummers allow for that when they are building the timing map in their heads, and anticipate - the timing is on the strike, not the reach.  It's not like you -only- ever hit a hat or whatever on the offbeat - how do you account for dragging offbeat kicks?

I'm not a kit drummer, I play hand drums, but I do know at least one kit player who is as tight as a drum machine when he wants to be.  I would say that feel is something that drummers deliberately cultivate over time, at least semi-consciously.*

* and some do their best work when they're semi-conscious :)

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It seems to me that some of you percussionists are a little offended by what I said, which is not at all how it was intended.

I accept that a good drummer will have anticipated the rhythm so will be more or less in time, it was merely an example to show the small changes in timing when different drums are played. All I was doing was trying to put across an idea for a unique type of 'shuffle table' as was suggested earlier in this thread.

I've personally never heard a sequencer that can get 'on top' of the beat the way that Ginger Baker used to, but then he was probably the best drummer of a generation so perhaps my aspirations are too high ;)

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I'm sorry if I came across as offended, I'm not.  I'm not enough of a drummer to really care :)  Just thought I'd clarify a point that's been bugging me at the back of my mind is all.

If you want a machine that can provide that kind of feel, see if you can get hold of a Roland R8 with "human feel" quantising to try out.

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I was just kidding around dude. When I'm accurate to 96ppqn you can watch me on the Guinness World Records TV show :)

I totally agree that a real drummer doesn't, and IMO shouldn't, sound like a machine. Obviously as you say, human drummers have a 'feel', and that causes them to slide the drums around in time both before and after the 'beat'.

To me, that 'groove' should be calculated and entirely intentional. And I agree, the everyday groove/shuffle functions just really don't do it for me. I've never heard one that I liked. The thing is that this groove is in fact extremely complex. The timing shift of the drums can sound pleasing when it is a reflection of the rhythmic properties of the entire song, because like shape recognition for our eyes, we have an instinctive ability to recognise rhythmic structures, and we will react to the rhythms we detect... I think that a good drummer will use the nature of that perception in a calculated manner to invoke a certain feeling in their breaks, and to do so still requires tight timing - although you're playing tight to a rhythm which is a product of each of the various rhythmic components of the song, not a nicely divided grid. Analog beings like us are far more complex than 1/4 :)

Funky Drummer is a nice example. Anyone who ever put that into a beatslicer knows what I'm talking about hehehe But the fact that it isn't "on the beat" and the fact that it sounds so dope, are not a coincidence... and I doubt either are an accident ;)

But IMO the reason that drum machines are (and for at least the next few years will remain) unable to emulate the groove/swing/timing shift/whatever you call it, is that they are not aware of the rhythms implied by the other parts of the song. Even feeding the MIDI of the rest of the song into the drum machine for processing would be useless, because the patches used by the synths control the rhythm as much as the placement of notes.

So my very opinionated self says groove/shuffle is a waste of time, why bother. If you want it to sound like a machine, use a machine. If you want it to sound like a real drummer, use a real drummer. Don't know one? Learn.

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Shuffle as implemented in the TRs and Thorsten's code though is well within the capabilites of a PIC, and though sure, it doesn't sound like a human drummer, it does at least allow you to add some robotic swing to a groove.  I use it all the time on my 707, and it definitely brings da funk to town.

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I like that, "robotic swing" :) It's -almost- human, but not quite... Like the Terminator, and C3PO ;)

I think you guys got it all wrong here..

Shuffle in drum machines isn't supposed to "emulate a human being". It's supposed to add rhythmic variety, as sequenced by the person who made the song. Techno composers have used offbeat drums since day one, and it's not because they want to sound like human drummers alright...

It's just another quality you can change to make the song sound or feel differently. Like the shape of an LFO or the type of filter, for starters

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Shuffle in drum machines isn't supposed to "emulate a human being". It's supposed to add rhythmic variety, as sequenced by the person who made the song.

That's what the human being does :) (or should do) ;)

I guess what you're saying is that 'shuffle' adds rhythmic variety, not that shuffle emulates humans, who add rhythmic variety. To me it's 'chicken or the egg', I just haven't heard a drum machine shuffle that's up to the job..... But hey that's just me :)

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It's like playing vibrato on a Stradivari and putting an LFO on a VCA. Those two things really aren't supposed to do the same thing. Anyone who thinks they do should get sharper :P

I think you meant VCO, but yeh unfortunately they are supposed to do the same thing... At least, that was the original intention (don't believe me? Check out the name of such a patch on any old synth, it'll be called vibrato), but we all know it's not the same.... The human will out-vibrato the machine any day - and that's exactly my point.

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According to wikipedia LOL. Bunsen I know you already knew that... Let me guess, you looked it up anyway, just to make sure you didn't make a goof of yourself on the forum? ;) (or am I the only one who does that?)

I'd like to think anyone calling themselves a musician would have invested enough effort in training to know that one without looking it up ;)

Maybe I'm starting to sound like a grumpy old man ::)

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Heh that's pretty cool :) Good tip Doctor!

"Nope, that one almost worked, but it crashed once. I'll have to build another one and check it...."

Funny thing about patents is; have you ever tried to find a patent to fit a specific purpose? There's so many of them it's near impossible to find anything of use.... it reminds me of the worst of the early internet search engines, just a 'needle in a haystack' situation :(

Who'd have thought TR sequencers would have so much in common with the terminology of musical theory, Leo Fender, and the Patent Office?  ;D

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