no swing in arrange view??

[faun2500]

no swing in arrange view??

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by faun2500

no swing in arrange view??

No surprise mate. Midi workflow is half-assed still. I still hope that things will improve.

[faun2500]

Originally Posted by MikComposer

No surprise mate. Midi workflow is half-assed still. I still hope that things will improve.

Yeah it maybe, But I want to quantise audio events to a swung grid so that ain't happening either!

Why won't they do this?

[MikComposer]

Originally Posted by faun2500

Yeah it maybe, But I want to quantise audio events to a swung grid so that ain't happening either!

Why won't they do this?

I have no clue why. I just don't understand... Or maybe I do. The dev just doesn't FEEL like working on it.

[James HE]

In the meantime, mpl has a script to swing selected items.

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=1541563

[Banned]

If you'd just swing the clock, the grid in arrange view would swing along.

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by faun2500

Yeah it maybe, But I want to quantise audio events to a swung grid so that ain't happening either!

Have you checked out the Groove Tool? You can grab any groove/swing and apply it to audio or MIDI items or MIDI notes. And "Toggle groove markers" shows the "grid lines" used which items then snap to as if they were real life grid lines.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by faun2500

no swing in arrange view??

Originally Posted by faun2500

Yeah it maybe, But I want to quantise audio events to a swung grid so that ain't happening either!

Why won't they do this?

Swing is just a slight alteration of 8th note triplets, have you tried that?

[mccrabney]

that's a cool workaround, but certainly not ideal due to the various complications introduced by tempo change stuff, for example this link:

"gradual tempo changes: gridline display/snapping and envelope pasting issues"
http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=182703

[Andywanders]

Originally Posted by Tod

Swing is just a slight alteration of 8th note triplets, have you tried that?

At slower tempos Tod you're right. But as tempo increases, a swing feel changes - it becomes less - until at very fast tempos it almost indistinguishable from a straight feel. This is from a musician's perspective, not a DAW's.

So, using eighth-note triplets at 60bpm to create a swing feel is workable, but at 120bpm and higher it isn't. It gets messy and unnatural sounding. The swing needs to be reduced to make it "swing" again.

And when it comes to notation, well... You certainly wouldn't want your swung eighth-notes to print out as the first and third of a triplet with a rest in between. Nobody scores swing like that.

Having adjustable degrees of swing in the main grid (like the MIDI editor has) would be a very desirable feature indeed IMOp.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Andywanders

At slower tempos Tod you're right. But as tempo increases, a swing feel changes - it becomes less - until at very fast tempos it almost indistinguishable from a straight feel. This is from a musician's perspective, not a DAW's.

So, using eighth-note triplets at 60bpm to create a swing feel is workable, but at 120bpm and higher it isn't. It gets messy and unnatural sounding. The swing needs to be reduced to make it "swing" again.

And when it comes to notation, well... You certainly wouldn't want your swung eighth-notes to print out as the first and third of a triplet with a rest in between. Nobody scores swing like that.

Having adjustable degrees of swing in the main grid (like the MIDI editor has) would be a very desirable feature indeed IMOp.

Thanks Andy, for making that clearer. I didn't really mean to suggest that you should quantize to the triplet. What I meant was, if you use your head the triplet can give you better indication to analyze where you are. I guess I should have said that.

Regarding triplets at 60BPM vrs 120, I think my experience has been similar to yours. However, I've always found a shuffle at 120BPM to be fairly close to a triplet. Thinking about it, I guess it really depends on the song as much as anything.

[ivansc]

O.K. Showing my ignorance of modern genres again I suspect.
Why do you have to have a mechanical way of introducing shuffle/swing/why? Cant you just PLAY it?

I have never had a problem just slapping down a groove the way I want it regardless of "swing" or whatever.
Enlighten me as to why this is necessary and how it gets used.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by ivansc

O.K. Showing my ignorance of modern genres again I suspect.
Why do you have to have a mechanical way of introducing shuffle/swing/why? Cant you just PLAY it?

I have never had a problem just slapping down a groove the way I want it regardless of "swing" or whatever.
Enlighten me as to why this is necessary and how it gets used.

Hey my old friend, it's not about using it to make a groove, it's using it as a reference. I use triplets and swing in the ME a lot if it's that type of song.

I usually try to fashion the swing around the players and since I work strictly with single artists any more, it's usually my clients guitar or what ever they might play. Or I might work it around my own playing in the midi editor. As this post points out, it's only the midi editor that has the swing and it would be nice to have it in the arrange as well, it helps me a lot in the ME.

I just recently put together a shuffle together for a song a client wrote. Right now it's all midi for my client to practice with, he's supposed to be in tomorrow to add guitar and vocal.

I made a short mp3 out of the first part of the song, it's a shuffle at around 137-BPM although it deviates, it started out all freeform.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8s...ew?usp=sharing

This is the piano in the midi editor, you can see by the picture I've got this one set up with triplets, and it helps me a lot in fixing my many mistakes. Of course you might be a lot better on the keyboard than I am Ivan, keys were not my greatest accomplishment.

[ivansc]

(grin) I play everything in C or G and then transpose/modulate!

Easy-peasy.
I am beginning to see the light a little but cant really see myself ever needing this unless I go back to working for clients. And working for clients who couldn't swing on a garden gate....
Life ain't easy when your in that engineer's seat as well, is it?

[mccrabney]

ivan: this is not meant to sound snarky, but "why use a grid/project tempo at all, why not just PLAY it?"

the benefit of this and any other features to which your sentiment could be applied really should be obvious.

[ivansc]

Yeah I suppose it mostly comes down to how much actual control you want over what gets onto the track and who/what did it.
I generally find it quicker to play it in and mouse out my mistakes than top haver it automated and then have to go back in and make it sound more like a human being played it.

Philosophical thang I guess.Although I have been using computers in connection with recording music for a very long time, I still like to think there is more of me than of the algorythms in what I compose and record.
No snarkicity there at all, btw.

One thing: The ONLY reason I play with a grid enabled is because it is currently essential if you want to go in and edit your stuff quickly and easily. Otherwise I would just play.
One thing I still find difficult is getting a natural flow of tempo going, which for old lags like me is still part and parcel of an emotive performance.

[ReaperMadness]

Originally Posted by ivansc

................. Cant you just PLAY it? ............

What!?!!

Originally Posted by TonE

ivan, you might like Midi Optimizer*. Record your feelingful performance, not caring of any grids or tempo, just play as

you like, do not look to any screen, close even your eyes. Then export midi, load to midi optimizer, adjust a little if necessary, save back to

midi, load back to reaper, and notes should sit nicely on a musical grid, plus tempo changes automatically added. So you have a better starting

point. Your original feelingful performance, plus correct grid alignment. I hope it works out.


* https://mir.sechsachtel.de/midi/

This looks possibly cool. I'm gonna' check it out. Thanks, TonE.

[ivansc]

Me too.... thanks

[bilsner]

Altho I agree midi in reaper is lacking, groove tool is good, you can steal grooves from any music, breakbeats are v good and same them as you're own. I used to nick amen break groove, james brown grooves when I used to chop up beats.

There's places on the net you can find MPC swing and others. It's not the easiest thing in the world, but then in some ways it's better making you're own or stealing them off an incredible drummer

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by ivansc

O.K. Showing my ignorance of modern genres again I suspect.
Why do you have to have a mechanical way of introducing shuffle/swing/why? Cant you just PLAY it?

I have never had a problem just slapping down a groove the way I want it regardless of "swing" or whatever.
Enlighten me as to why this is necessary and how it gets used.

There is a certain audio quality that is common to hear in modern music, that comes with perfect timing.

This means that all backups, and all drum hits, and all other little sound effects and hits are all perfectly timed.

To give an example, right now I'm working on a tune, and when I play it on the piano, where I wrote it, the swing comes in naturally. I don't know how much swing it is in percentage or anything.

And, I also don't play it perfectly.

Now, if I want that modern perfect timing sound, where everything is nice and snappy, but I still have that swing feel, I need to setup a swing grid that follows what I played.

Then I get my swing value, and now I can setup all my midi grids to swing perfectly with the perfect version of what I played.

Now everything sounds really nice and snappy, and not mechanical and rigid, in a sort of "awkward" way.

But, now it's a problem if I want to get perfect timing with audio.

Let's say I want to get perfectly timed vocals, or even if I use arrange view to insert audio samples directly for my beat, I can't just setup my swing value, and have everything easily snap perfectly.

I would have to do it by ear, which is impossible to get it perfect, and really slow to get it close. But that's what I'm going to have to do, since there is no arrange view swing grid. To me, that's a downer.

================================================== ====================

If anybody else wants to vote for this FR here's the link.

[faun2500]

Example of why i need variable swing control in midi editor:

Say I am using a hardware drum machine like the Analog Rytm, it has swing on it so the drum beat has swing. I then want to add more sounds to the beat using NI battery but I can't easily do this because I cant add swing in reaper midi editor.

That's how i am wanting to use it anyway, really want this!

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by faun2500

Example of why i need variable swing control in midi editor:

Say I am using a hardware drum machine like the Analog Rytm, it has swing on it so the drum beat has swing. I then want to add more sounds to the beat using NI battery but I can't easily do this because I cant add swing in reaper midi editor.

That's how i am wanting to use it anyway, really want this!

Midi already has swing grid. It's just the arrange view that doesn't. So for midi you're good.

That's one of the first major sweet changes they made soon after I started using reaper, which was in the 3.0 version.

To access it, you go to choose grid divisions in your piano roll, where straight and triplet are, and there's a 3rd swing option, and then a slider appears to let you change it. Or you can manually put a value, or move the handles that appear at the top of the grid.

[faun2500]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

Midi already has swing grid. It's just the arrange view that doesn't. So for midi you're good.

That's one of the first major sweet changes they made soon after I started using reaper, which was in the 3.0 version.

To access it, you go to choose grid divisions, where straight and triplet are, and there's a 3rd swing option, and then a slider appears to let you change it. Or you can manually put a value, or move the handles that appear at the top of the grid.

Ah yes you are right. Sorry a while ago since I wrote in this. BUT, the same applies to add audio hits in arrange view. Still no love for that huh?!

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by faun2500

Ah yes you are right. Sorry a while ago since I wrote in this. BUT, the same applies to add audio hits in arrange view. Still no love for that huh?!

I don't think so. I'm not very optimistic this will get love, but I certainly am hopeful.

Best we can do at this point, is vote for it in the FR, and mention it to others, and hopefully there are many people that would find it as useful as we do, and the devs decide to give it a go.

It might be a lot more difficult to do in arrange view because of tempo maps and stuff.

[Tod]

Heh heh, you guys do know there is a pretty simple way to do this, right?

Of course it's not the grid, but it's pretty simple and works.

[Sound asleep]

If you know an easy way to do that, I'd really love to know, because it will save me a lot of time when I do my verses.

[Fergler]

Originally Posted by MikComposer

I have no clue why. I just don't understand... Or maybe I do. The dev just doesn't FEEL like working on it.

You are so fucking ungrateful.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

If you know an easy way to do that, I'd really love to know, because it will save me a lot of time when I do my verses.

Hey Sound asleep, it's really pretty simple.

In the picture below, first I recorded a short piano midi track by playing my midi keys.

Then I copied a couple of notes, one on the down beat and one of the swing beat, and pasted them in a midi track I had set up for drums. I placed the down beat note on the kik drum key and put the swing note on a sidestick key.

Then with some quick copy/pasting, I set up the whole track as kind of a metronome track.

Then in the arrange area, I put that track in the "Inline Editor". Now I not only have a visual in the arrange area, but I also have a metronome. Of course I can place that track just under or above any audio tracks I want to edit to the swing beat.

[Germps112]

Originally Posted by faun2500

no swing in arrange view??

Music is about groove, i find that swing is little missing feature, u can move notes around and listen it back to fit ur needs, and u have much more control over it to! how cool is that?? Groove/swing button is for lazy ass people.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by Tod

Hey Sound asleep, it's really pretty simple.

In the picture below, first I recorded a short piano midi track by playing my midi keys.

Then I copied a couple of notes, one on the down beat and one of the swing beat, and pasted them in a midi track I had set up for drums. I placed the down beat note on the kik drum key and put the swing note on a sidestick key.

Then with some quick copy/pasting, I set up the whole track as kind of a metronome track.

Then in the arrange area, I put that track in the "Inline Editor". Now I not only have a visual in the arrange area, but I also have a metronome. Of course I can place that track just under or above any audio tracks I want to edit to the swing beat.

thx I'll have to check out the inline editor, and see how that works for my workflow. I never really used that before. That could maybe save me some time. What I did for my chorus was insert markers on the swing beats.

That gave me a decent reference, but was still pretty slow, and without any sort of "snap" feature.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by Germps112

Groove/swing button is for lazy ass people.

In the universe of professionals, features that make things faster and easier are never used to do less. They are used to accomplish more in the same amount of time.

I don't understand people that are such haters like you are. Swing is a feature that a lot of great artists use. That's like saying "snap to grid is only for lazy people." Give me a break.

Maybe you said that to make yourself appear somehow superior like "I don't need swing, swing is for losers" But really, in my eyes, all you accomplished is the opposite.

[Tod]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

thx I'll have to check out the inline editor, and see how that works for my workflow. I never really used that before. That could maybe save me some time. What I did for my chorus was insert markers on the swing beats.

That gave me a decent reference, but was still pretty slow, and without any sort of "snap" feature.

Heh heh, well you just gave me some more ideas. Using markers is a good way to do it too, however, putting them in is kind of a pain, as well as time consuming.

So I took the project file I used this morning to get the above picture to add the markers.

It took me less than a minute to add 100 markers right at the swing points.

I already had an action set up in the ME that selected the next note, then moved the edit cursor to the front of the note.

I had it set up with a shortcut key "J", and also have insert markers set up with "M", so it was just a matter of hitting J, M, J, M, etc..

Incidentally, if you disable the grid lines, but have Snap enabled, it's easier to snap to the markers.

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

In the universe of professionals, features that make things faster and easier are never used to do less. They are used to accomplish more in the same amount of time.

I don't understand people that are such haters like you are. Swing is a feature that a lot of great artists use. That's like saying "snap to grid is only for lazy people." Give me a break.

Maybe you said that to make yourself appear somehow superior like "I don't need swing, swing is for losers" But really, in my eyes, all you accomplished is the opposite.

Depends on how you think of "making music".

In my case I have very specific requirements in terms of feel on my own stuff, so any automated groove I apply is still going to need a bunch of massaging afterwards to get what I am looking for.
I can see using swing or groove quantise/WHY for other peoples stuff, though, and agree it can save a bunch of time.
But it does sorta depend on how picky you are - specially on your own tunes, I guess.
I would never call applying swing "lazy" but sorta see the point our newbie friend was trying to make.

Incidentally, I would really LOVE to get my hands on an example of a piece with and without swing applied, just so I am 100% sure of what you guys asking for "swing" are talking about.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Depends on how you think of "making music".

In my case I have very specific requirements in terms of feel on my own stuff, so any automated groove I apply is still going to need a bunch of massaging afterwards to get what I am looking for.
I can see using swing or groove quantise/WHY for other peoples stuff, though, and agree it can save a bunch of time.
But it does sorta depend on how picky you are - specially on your own tunes, I guess.
I would never call applying swing "lazy" but sorta see the point our newbie friend was trying to make.

Incidentally, I would really LOVE to get my hands on an example of a piece with and without swing applied, just so I am 100% sure of what you guys asking for "swing" are talking about.

It depends on what kind of music you are making. If you are recording a live performance, just leave it to the people playing.

If you're making something more of a modern pop kind of thing, then perfect timing brings a feel you can't get any other way, so snapping becomes not only faster but essential from a sound and feel standpoint.

I am working on something right now, and so I had a verse part, which was really sort of basic, that let me quickly quantize the piano snapped to grid with swing and, then just straight. I haven't finished arranging this yet, and didn't EQ or anything on it either, so it's just in really rough basic stages, this section is actually next on the agenda for me.

Only the piano is different in these. Technically when the horns come in, I think some of those should have swing also. I'm not sure about the bass, I think it probably ought to have swing, but I'm not sure I gave it any, because I may not use that bassline at all. But I didn't touch it for this comparison.

Swing doesn't affect all the grid lines, only the ones sort of going into the down beats or whatever. Every second one, and the downbeats are always straight, essentially.

Here it is with swing. Sounds fine like that.

Here it is with the piano quantized to straight beat divisions. You can see that the piano sounds a bit awkward and out of place. The beat is all on the perfect beat divisions, yet the piano sounds kind of rigid and awkward. There is no swing in the bassline. It is quantized on a straight beat.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by Tod

Heh heh, well you just gave me some more ideas. Using markers is a good way to do it too, however, putting them in is kind of a pain, as well as time consuming.

So I took the project file I used this morning to get the above picture to add the markers.

It took me less than a minute to add 100 markers right at the swing points.

I already had an action set up in the ME that selected the next note, then moved the edit cursor to the front of the note.

I had it set up with a shortcut key "J", and also have insert markers set up with "M", so it was just a matter of hitting J, M, J, M, etc..

Incidentally, if you disable the grid lines, but have Snap enabled, it's easier to snap to the markers.

That's actually not a bad idea at all, thx. So, I could just setup an action to insert marker then move to the next note, and then go through my piano, and create a marker grid. I would only really have to press a button, like 20 times.

There is a little downside, in that I already use markers as easy ways to navigate sections, but this is definitely worth losing that for the time savings.

Since it is all actions doing it, it will snap perfectly precisely as well.

Nice one. That was a good bit of thinking.

EDIT: I could technically do this with grid lines as well, instead of notes, but I think notes will be cleaner, faster, and all I will need.

EDIT2:

I'm having issues, namely that I'm not sure what that inline editor is you were using, nor how to activate it, and otherwise am trying to get this to work in piano roll, except that's proving difficult, mostly because there is no marker action in there. I'm thinking I could use passthrough maybe somehow, but I'm not sure how to get that to work.

[ivansc]

Originally Posted by Sound asleep

Here it is with swing. Sounds fine like that.

Here it is with the piano quantized to straight beat divisions. You can see that the piano sounds a bit awkward and out of place. The beat is all on the perfect beat divisions, yet the piano sounds kind of rigid and awkward. There is no swing in the bassline. It is quantized on a straight beat.

Any particular reason why you set the bass about an octave below what a bass instrument plays? Or is that what a modern pop arrangement sounds like?
FWIW I hope your example is solely to demonstrate the effect of adding swing, which is pretty much what I thought you meant.

Incidentally, checked out your miles track on SC. Nice voice.
Have you done anything in French?

[karbomusic]

Lots of stuff that is fully swung sounds over swung IMHO. Just sayin' that much of the magic of swing is in between straight and a full swing because it is much more a human thing than it is a logical division; which is why grid swings tend to sound like music store drum machine demo songs. FWIW/YMMV/IMHO. That's the beauty of all those great tunes that aren't notated as straight but are actually played with just a little bit of swing, just enough to not be so damn straight.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by ivansc

Any particular reason why you set the bass about an octave below what a bass instrument plays? Or is that what a modern pop arrangement sounds like?

I haven't worked out the bass yet. I don't really have a good bass sound. It was originally an octave higher on a double bass, I might keep that, idk. It certainly doesn't sound like modern pop to me at this point. Not sure how it will end up.

FWIW I hope your example is solely to demonstrate the effect of adding swing, which is pretty much what I thought you meant.

Of course it was, Idk what else it would be for. I only chose this, precisely because it had swing, and few instruments other than the vox whic I muted, because it was in such early stages, I could go into the item, select all, and then add swing.

Incidentally, checked out your miles track on SC. Nice voice.
Have you done anything in French?

Thx. No, not really anything in french. I technically did write one song that was sort of half and half, which was kind of cool, because each half was a direct translation of the other half, so I had to make the music and rhyme scheme work in both languages and yet have them deliver the exact same message. But although I am fluent in both, french is not really my sort of comfort zone, and I don't wield it exactly like I do with english. So, I don't really write or sing in french much. But maybe I'll write a full french one one day, or another hybrid one, idk.

[Sound asleep]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Lots of stuff that is fully swung sounds over swung IMHO. Just sayin' that much of the magic of swing is in between straight and a full swing because it is much more a human thing than it is a logical division; which is why grid swings tend to sound like music store drum machine demo songs. FWIW/YMMV/IMHO. That's the beauty of all those great tunes that aren't notated as straight but are actually played with just a little bit of swing, just enough to not be so damn straight.

This is my general philosophy as well, but when I went to snap the whole piano part to the swing grid, it sounded just like the way I played it live. I find it sounds great like that.

[mehmethan]

Check groove markers and groove tool. (SWS extension must be installed.)