Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    re the latest sounds/equipment syndrome:
    I've 'limited' myself to first one (keyboard), now 3 (perc pad,
    Casio 'sax') MIDI controllers.  I've limited myself (until lately)
    with a 5-year-old sequencing package on a 6-year old MAC.  And I've
    limited myself to a 4 year old EMAX and 3 year old Kurzweil unit..
    If something came along in my head and I couldn't do it, I saw it as a
    failure of my ingenuity and imagination, not my equipment !
    
    thanks for bringing it up, Steve - karl

 I agree somewhat and I disagree somewhat.  Now, after that firm statement ;-)
 let me explain.

 I think a DEC notesfile has a skewed representation of people who
 are obses...er  "interested" in technology. 

 I think it is often easier to write about concrete things such as
 equipment or even sounds than it is to describe the nuance of
 creative endeavors.

 I think lots of people have a tendancy to try buying their way
 out of a creative stalemate, but I don't think this is necessarily bad.
 In fact I never liked the idea of just "playing what is in your head".
 To me that is a truly linear/conservative/uncreative act. If the
 technology was so simplified ("tranparent" is the buzz word, I guess),
 that I can play what is my head, it would be pretty boring. The struggles
 and victories with technology *are* a double edged sword, the only kind 
 of sword to have in my mind.  Someone who hears a Sax part in his
 head and can instantly translate it by thinking at his forhead based MIDI 
 controller and SOTA SGU is less likely to create a new sound/scale/rhythm
 pattern. Someone trying to create realistic sax parts using a keyboard
 and a limited SGU, *might* create a whole new musical expression that
 has previously not been in anyone's head. 

 So, I guess I am saying that the creative process is interactive not linear.
 Creative people are always looking to incorporate new, incompatible
 technologies into their current, but fleeting view of things, and then, 
 because they are creative, immediately get frustrated with the limitations 
 of what they have fused together, because they now have another view.

 This is why so many creative people get depressed, I suppose. ;-) ;-)
 Dave

	the basic deal is, ya know, these MIDI things were made for
	commericial rockers.  Of course they are also useful for other things.
	Traditional classical is easy to put into MIDI from the score,
	but hard to put in expressively.  The details are always hard,
	regardless of the vehicle, a $40 guitar, which can't play
	a note below E1 (middle C as C4) without unconventional 
	retuning; a $20,000 grand piano,
	which can't play pitch bends or aftertouch for pete's sake;
	a saxophone, which is monophonic, (unless you play these often
	dissonant unpredictalbe multiphonics), hey, hasn't Conn heard that
	monophonic instruments went out with the mini moog? Geesh!
	I've had it with singers that can't read rhythms, sax quartet
	leaders that don't answer the telephone, orchestras that ignore
	new music by people under 60, 

	MIDI beats them all.  So for a pre-planned budget, with used equipment
	that doesn't deprecciate too fast, you carefully choose the 	
	controller/SGU combo that will help you get some  work done for
	a while and ignore the weanies that try to tempt you to spend
	megabucks buying a new studio full every year.  MIDI is better
	than real musicians.  MIDI plays my music better than real musicians.
	MIDI is more available than real musicians.  MIDI is cheaper
	than real musicians.  MIDI is more obedient than real musicians.
	MIDI is better, better better.  Unless I want to do something
	that has nothing to do with MIDI, such as set up a siren that will
	interfere at 2 cycles per second with the fire house siren.  Which
	a guy did sort of (I think Source magazine ca. 1975)
	Tom 

    
    
    
    Well said, Steve.  I felt something like this a couple of weeks ago
    when Marshall fever gripped the GUITARnoters.  Couldn't express like
    you did, though.  Seems like it's easier to guy buy new gear than it is
    to push the edges of the envelope of the gear you've got...
    
    The other comments about a skewed sample population and the ease of
    writing about tangible stuff apply, too.
    
    What I think it boils down to, is, this is the wrong medium for an
    auditory subject.  We really need sound...
    

>    For example, Roland drum machines and sequencers have lots of dedicated
>    support for doing percussion.  The idea is that you can create a bunch
>    of patterns and then pick and choose them to string along.  Great idea
>    because it makes it easier to handle the percussion stuff.  But, there
>    are problems.  Most folks are too lazy to dream up patterns.  And,
>    patterns may or may not fit everywhere.  And stringing them together
>    can be a pain.  One solution is to add "humanization".  Helps, I guess.
>    I find this all to still not match what I have in my head.  So,
>    nowadays I use just a bit of the pattern stuff.  Often, the rhythm
>    track is full of rests.  Most of the rhythm stuff comes from real-time
>    playing onto a track.  This is the best way I know to get out of this
>    trap.
    
     I couldn't agree more!
    
    My drum programming improved by two orders of magnitude when I stopped
    using patterns.
    
    Patterns seem to have an inescapable pull that draws you to do things
    that drummers would never do.
    
    Mainly they encourage you to create 8 bar verses where the first
    7 bars are exactly the same, and the drums in verse1 are identical
    to the drums in verses 2-4.
    
    You tend to hear the same fill more often in one song than any drummer
    would do, and you almost never hear any mini-fills (variants) inside
    a verse or chorus.
    
    And most importantly, the drummer does NOT respond to what the rest
    of the band is doing.  He doesn't get louder as he approaches the
    chorus/bridge/solo, he doesn't do the accents that the rest of the
    band is doing.
    
    My HR-16 is now used EXCLUSIVELY as an SGU - I do NOT use patterns at
    all and that has made a big difference for me.  Your mileage may vary.

    I'm a drummer who finds patterns a very natural way of programming drum
    tracks, though there are some things I would do differently if I was
    designing a drum sequencer (most of which have to do with economy of
    representation.
    
    You know, this is really a vocabulary issue.  This sounds like
    complaining about the fact that writing is based on words and this
    encourages writers to use the same words over and over again.
    The obvious answer - stream of consciousness strings of letters!
    
    How about "enlarge your vocabulary"?  It's a poor craftsman who blames
    his tools...
    
    len.
      

    re: db and drum patterns...
    
    I don't find patterns to be limiting at all, or inherently better or
    worse than "linear" drum programming. It's a poor drum programmer
    who uses the same 16 measures for verse 1 as for verse 2, and uses
    the same fill ad nauseum. (For an absolutely perfect example of horrid
    pattern usage check out the tune "Always" by {braincramp}. One pattern,
    with a fill at end of verse. Exactly 2 patterns in song.)
    
    No, patterns aren't evil. They're simply another tool that can be
    used well, or used poorly.
    
    Edd

    Can we put the "pattern paradigm" on the examining table for a minute?
    
    > It's a poor craftsman who blames his tools
    
    I am not saying that you can't do it with patterns - only that the
    concept isn't very useful except in taking shortcuts that involve
    compromise.
    
    I think the right analogy here is that the true craftsman knows 
    the right tool.   Sure, you hammar nails with the end of screwdriver
    but...
    
    No doubt, drummers repeat patterns if you reduce patterns to only
    the information represented in a typical drum chart.
    
    But I just think that real drummers seldom play any particular pattern
    the exact same way (with no change in dynamics, accents, open/tight,
    etc.) all that many times in a song.
    
    And I think that's why drum machines TEND to sound like... drum
    machines.
    
    One thing I truly hope you wouldn't disagree with is that there IS
    a trap you tend to fall in when using patterns.  I certainly agree
    that you NEEDN'T fall into that trap, but the more you tend to avoid it,
    the less the pattern paradigm (as implemented by any particularly current
    drum machine) seems to appear useful (i.e. few things repeat)
    
    In fact, the only use for the pattern paradigm I've found is to create
    a "basic" riff which you copy and modify for each verse.
    
    BTW. the kinds of traps I'm talking about are:
    
    	o Absence of dynamic modulation thru the course of the song,
          or if you're really lazy, not really having any modulation
          (like the drums are the same for EVERY verse)
    
    	o Using the same fills, or if you're really lazy, not even having
    	  fills (like in certains transitions such as going into the
          bridge)
    
    Don't you hear these things in COMMUSIC tapes?
    
    Now said something about designing a drum machine of your own.  Do
    some of your ideas involve "humanizing" at the pattern level?
    
    I think you can sorta "get away" with that, but it will tend to sound
    much more like "real drums" (not always a goal) if you don't use 
    patterns.

    A better user interface than pattern editing on a drum machine would
    allow multi-track sequences (one track per drum voice) with *unlimited*
    cut and paste and looping capability *per* track.
    
    The trouble with your average sequencer is that when you want to cut
    and paste one part, you have to cut *all* parts.  Loops all have to be
    the same length, etc.  And drums tend to be last for many folks (I'll
    often use a single bar repeated endlessly while recording other tracks,
    then do the drum tweaks last), which causes the whole mess.
    
    The engineer in me says this is most likely due to the way data
    structures are set up in sequencers.
    
    Pattern programming was also intended as a memory saver; why store the
    same thing over and over again in memory when you can just point to it
    when you need it?  Early drum boxes where pattern programming first
    showed up didn't have lots of memory and also didn't have the dynamic
    modulation (i.e. velocity control) of modern machines.  I'll skip the
    argument that many folks need to program in step time anyway (go try
    step editing a long song on a linear-based sequencer with no autolocate
    function, I've done it and it is a PITA).
    
    I think you'll find that many limitations in MIDI gear can be traced
    back to hardware constraints; software tradeoffs are often based on
    processor clock speed and memory size restrictions.
    
    							Brian

I sort of wanted to wait until this note went beyond the "normal" discussion
concerning abuse of ready-to-use electronic-music-making power. No offense
meant, but I figured my viewpoint would be sort of redundant. Now it seems to be
getting into a little different area.

Now, as to the use of patterns, there's a new paradigm lurking here, IMHO:
"bootstrapping." In my own case, I don't typically have the opportunity to play
with live colleagues, which initially sort of limits the dynamism you lucky
folks with *real* bands get. Trouble is, I really think, feel, and play
differently with a "groove" than without one- I'm still trying to shake off
(but take advantage of) years of classical training and improvise more freely,
and I need all the help I can get!

The way I would describe "bootstrapping" is as follows:

At first I can use the "generic pattern" which comes closest to what I need,
and put down some other tracks. Once there's enough "musical meat" to work with,
the percussion track can be either tweaked or replaced completely with something
more "natural," maybe not using patterns at all, as db recommends. This is where
the "loneliness of the electronic musician" is a real minus- the interactive
dynamics of a real band just have no competition in the world of electronic
accompaniment! The process of iteratively altering each track is at best a poor
(and slow) imitation, but the best one I can think of. Maybe this is taken for
granted by everyone, and I've just reinvented the wheel; if so, what can I say-
I'm slow, take pity on me!

My sequencer (SoundScape) does allow tracks to be looped independently, which
is a plus. It never occurred to me that it could be otherwise. I'm about to
upgrade to Bars and Pipes Professional, which also features an automated MIDI
mixer function, which (if I understand its function correctly from the
literature) can be used to essentially "overdub" the velocity for each track
independently. I'm really looking forward to it.

BTW, the attitude of "let the equipment do the work" isn't unique to music.
It's common knowledge that if you buy an exercise machine and put it in the
closet, you'll no longer be a 90-pound weakling, and if you buy a high-tech
top-of-the-line camera, all your pictures will be beautiful, and so forth.
I bet if you buy a VAX, all your applications will be bug-free.....

Cheers,
  _____
 / . . \
{   .   }
 \ \_/ /
  \___/

	Bob

	I almost never use patterns.  Only on about 3 pieces out of about
	130 something.  Maybe 4.  "By the River" in Siddhartha, (23 notes
	in one hand in the same length of measure as 24 notes in the other
	hand)	"Resurrection Bells", (4 different measures lengths in each of
	4 different lines, but each line repeating), Caterpillar Boogie
	(2 lines in 4/4 and 2 other lines one in 15/8 and one in 17/8).
	A piece in "Earings" with each hand playing the same length eighth note
	in a scale that is an eight different length in each hand, very fast.
	that's for those with my "The Nearly Complete Works" albums.
	Incidently, Dr. T's KCS open sequencer could easily play 
	Piano Phase by Steve Reich, in which one pianist plays a figure
	repetetively at about MM 60 and the other pianist plays it one another
	piano at about MM 57.8 or so (it's not scored with that precision,
	but in prose instructions).  I enjoyed that.  It's a good piece.
	Patterns have their place, but not too frequently.
	Tom

    I thought of this string as I listened to some old Santana on my car
    radio. Two drummers: one doing basic keep-the-beat, the other doing
    tasty latin overlays. It seems like a good model: use a modest drum
    track which allows you to build the rest of the composition, then layer
    on the variations later, as the spirit moves you, probably in real
    time.
    
    Being somewhat less experienced than a tyromaniacal neophyte, this is
    all speculation to me, but for me a big trap is COVERS. Our disposition
    to like what we know makes it very difficult for me to do anything new.
    This is particularly true since I have zippo grounding in music theory:
    without the framework of a well-known song, all sequences are so many
    random notes. I expect this will pass, like my endless surveying of C
    code is finally leading to my own programming idiom.
    
        Hoyt's Rule: Figure out why that groove makes you want to dance,
                     and steal the critical element(s).
    
    - Hoyt

    96 is not a magic number for sequencer resolution.  That may be how
    fast the MIDI CLOCK commands go, but there is nothing to prevent the
    sequencer, regardless from its clock source (MIDI clocks, SMPTE, or
    internal) from dividing time as fine as it wants to.
    
    The high end computer-based sequencers have 480 divisions per quarter
    note, and I think I have heard of one that goes to 960.  Some of the
    dedicated sequencers may have such resolution as well.
    
    If you care about precise rhythm control, stay away from sequencers
    with resolutions so low as 96.  This probably includes all sequencers
    that are part of "drum machines".

    Actually the magic number is 24, isn't it?  I.e. 24 MIDI clocks = 1
    quarternote.  This technically makes the smallest time interval
    possible a 64th note triplet...although since the sequencer has to
    *sample* the note being played, this really means 32nd note triplets
    are  as fine as you can quantize.  Actually, this isn't too bad for 95%
    of the music in the world.  Obviously, for *extremely* subtle use of
    playing ahead and behind the beat, this resolution might not be fine
    enough.
    
    The figure of merit is pulses per quarter note, or PPQ (or PPQN).  I've
    seen up to 768 on computer based sequencers.  
    
    Some drum machines have even less resolution than 24 ppq.  The old
    standby Roland TR505 only goes down to 16th notes (4 ppq?), and has no
    capability for any time of time shifting.  
    
    							Brian 

re          <<< Note 2627.14 by IXION::ROST "Lobster in cleavage probe" >>>
>                                    -< PPQ >-

>    Actually the magic number is 24, isn't it?  I.e. 24 MIDI clocks = 1

	I think it might be 9.

	I don't recall the note string, but one of Tom Janzen's 
replies indicated that having two primes of 3 would be useful for 
....whatever it was that someone had asked about.  Unfortunately there 
don't seem to be (m)any machines with this capability.

	R

Drum patterns don't kill.


Drummers kill.



Chris

    The MIDI standard calls for 24 MIDI clocks per quarter note.  Note that a
    sequencer can subdivide this as finely as it wants.  96 ppq is a common
    standard because it allows almost all of the commonly found metric
    subdivisions to be represented by a whole number of ticks.  At 120 bpm,
    96 ppq corresponds to 5.2 msec resolution, which is at the limit of
    most listener's detection abilities.  Most real player's variance from
    perfect time is considerably larger; for an edifying experience, play
    into a sequencer against its click, and then examine the variability
    of your timing relative to the click.  Please note that I am not
    talking about deliberate, consistent differences used for expression;
    I am talking about random, uncontrolled variances.
    
    In practice, resolutions finer than 96 ppq seem to have mostly academic
    value.
    
    I suspect 288 ppq (2^5 * 3^2) would satisfy almost everyone's
    theoretical and practical needs, and if you have to do perfect
    quintuplets, then 1440 (2^5 * 3^2 * 5) should make everyone ecstatic.
    1440 ppq corresponds to 0.36 msec resolution at 120 bpm.
    
    Note also that a sequencer has to wait at least one MIDI clock before
    it can set it own internal subdivision timer - i.e., a tempo change
    can't take effect for at least 1 MIDI clock.  That's almost 21 msec
    at 120 bpm.  Now *there's* something to get upset about...
    
    len.
    

    >...almost 21ms at 120 BPM...
    
    Well, that certainly explains why my grooves sometimes don't seem
    quite right at times...
    
    Edd

    Sequencers would have to wait for the next MIDI clock if they were
    slaving to MIDI clocks.  Slaved to SMPTE you get a lot more
    versatility, since then it is the sequencer that *generates* the tempo
    changes.

    re .19 - if the sequencer's slaved to something else, how can it be
    controlling the tempo?
    
    len.
    

    If the sequencer is slaved to SMPTE, then SMPTE is only telling the
    sequencer what time it is, not what the current tempo is.  The
    sequencer figures that out from its tempo track, which says things
    like "at bar 57 set tempo to 150 bpm, 4/4".  It figures out when it is
    at bar 57 by the SMPTE-offset for the sequence, which says something
    like "at time 0:30:0 start at bar 1" and the tempo map saying "at bar 1
    set tempo to 120 bpm, 4/4".  By doing continuous recalculation of time
    vs beat vs tempo, the sequencer keeps track of where it is musically.
    
    This is one of the big advantages of recording a SMPTE track on tape
    instead of MIDI clocks - it lets you change the tempo indepedently.