Groove Quantize

There are a couple of threads outlining this feature -

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.p...roove+quantize

is one. I will paste essential soundbytes and pics after this post.

essentially, what we are looking at is being able to apply a midi file to another.

you can "extract" a groove, for instance, by dynamically splitting an item and making a midi file out of those separate items, all already existing functionality.

The reason this is a "groove" is because it will have midi notes that define the start/stop points of the looser (than computer) timing of the piece, not to mention velocity, and any other relevant parameter.

this midi file can then be applied to another by adding a field to the "quantize menu" whereupon you can select a groove to quantize by, amongst the other quantize options. This could be a similar field to the reaverb menu, which goes by folder, for instance (remembering its place would be nice)

Or, what would be additionally interesting, yet harder, is to have the entire midi grid adopt this "groove" and snap to it as you add notes. I think because of the interconnectedness of the grids at the moment, this would be impossible - at this point.

FL studio does it the former, and it works great.

Of course, taking an overly complicated midi would present problems. But i feel that simple midi files are the best way to go, and could provide some very interesting results.

Various grooves can be included with Reaper, very easily, and at hardly any disk cost.

we can see how the quantize function in reaper aligns directly to this rigid grid:



now, lets look at how FLstudio does it.

in FLstudio, you have certain midi files that are used as "grooves" -- we can take a look at one of them:



this is the "amen_16" (16 standing for the resolution of beats) -- groove. As you can see, the midi notes are not at all perfectly aligned to the grid. The deviations are used to represent the parameters upon which to quantize the midi notes. You can also see that velocity information is stored too. This will also be translated to the subsequent affected file, in the amount you desire.

lets apply it.

here is the original beat i came up with using FPC, an FLstudio generator.



sound of it here:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/10953/nonquantized.mp3

now, we will open up the quantize tool, and we get this box:



in the red is the groove template select box. If you dont want to just stick to a rigid grid, you open up a groove template. FLstudio automatically goes to the groove template folder in explorer.

underneath the "strength" section we will see in purple, the "Start time" control. One thing that is really great about FLstudio's groove quantize feature is the ability to have a knob to "dial in" just how much you want certain things to affect the file. For instance, if we dial in the start time to halfway, we will see (and hear if we have the file playing) the notes move back towards the grid a bit, 50 percent less.

Then we have the Sensitivity control, this is an overall control for all parameters on how much the midi will be "influenced" by the groove template.

the other thing, in blue, is "vol" -- one thing that is really neat is that the velocity of the template midi affects the quantization as well!

so lets apply the "amen_16" template to my boring beat.

here is what it looks like:



since no notes were specifically selected, it affects the entire sequence.

here is what it now sounds like:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/10957/amenquantized.mp3

wow, much funkier. Pretty nice to actually have the OPPOSITE, a tool that goes from perfect pc timing to something a bit more "human"~!!

you can see in the picture the grid of the piano roll, and superimposed over that is the template of the groove we are applying. if we move the "sensitivity" or "Start/End Time" knobs, we can see those lines move and hear the results of them REAL TIME.

Lets say we only want to affect the hihats...

we select the hihats, open up the quantize menu, and do this:



here's what it sounds like:

https://stash.reaper.fm/oldsb/10959/hihatquantized.mp3

so we can see that using the hihat preset, we can even humanize just the hihats if we want, and even affect their velocity!


this would be great if something like this could be applied in reaper. An addition to the quantize menu, and something that can be heard real time, and use templates that we can make ourselves, it would be amazing and very helpful for midi sequencing.

I know acid also has a way of doing this, to audio as well! But i use FLstudio for this and figured it would be somewhat simple to have to implement.