Making click track with 8th-note triplets - how?

[Nip]

I am evaluating R5, and was interested in beat pattern like DigitalPerformer allow - set any pattern.

Seems really weird that it's always 4 beats in pattern as Reaper5 allow.

It says something that dots(.) be used to create silent click.

And also looking at using click source, to create click track that way.

How do you do 8th-note patterns anyway?
And 8th-note triplets?

Looked at a number of youtube tuts, including a ReaperTV - but were just 4/4 stuff.

Seems it might be easier just to record audio from my Korg Beatlab where it is easy as just raising volume on triplet or any tuplet and there it is. Then maybe just stretch that audio to aligh in grid in Reaper.

But suspect I don't really comprehend flexibility with the metronome or click source stuff.

Can you use anything but 4 letters A or B????

Like if to do 12/8 signature - and then use twelve letters and dots for spacers, or?


Thanks for any input - reference to tuts or anything.

[schwa]

Probably not a very satisfying answer, but you could set the time signature to 12/ or 24/, and use a metronome pattern of ABBABB... This would give you the click track rhythm you want with measures marked in the right place. But individual beats would be marked as 1.1, 1.4, 1.7... instead of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3...

Originally Posted by Nip

Can you use anything but 4 letters A or B?

The number of letters allowed in the pattern is the number of beats in the measure. In 12/8 you can use a 12-beat pattern, etc.

[Nip]

Originally Posted by schwa

Probably not a very satisfying answer, but you could set the time signature to 12/ or 24/, and use a metronome pattern of ABBABB... This would give you the click track rhythm you want with measures marked in the right place. But individual beats would be marked as 1.1, 1.4, 1.7... instead of 1.1, 1.2, 1.3...



The number of letters allowed in the pattern is the number of beats in the measure. In 12/8 you can use a 12-beat pattern, etc.

Excellent, thank you.
I assumed I misinterpreted the 4 beat remark everywhere to make it four letters or symbols.
Maybe that text change if I change signature to 8 or something else - have to check that.....

EDIT: changing project to 12/8 I get a ABBBBBBBBBBB pattern, and text changes - how lovely....silly me not trying that

[Sju]

An option to have metronome beats on different subdivisions, without changing the time signature, would be most welcome. :P

[Nip]

Originally Posted by Sju

An option to have metronome beats on different subdivisions, without changing the time signature, would be most welcome. :P

Yes, would be swell.

But try using AdotBdot will make sound to one and three.

I think DigitalPerformer has more symbols you can use - not just accent and beat.
But it could mean also using a third sound source to correspond to those.

Let's say ABT and dots as spacers, and allow T be a digit tuplet of choice 3, or 7 or anything. T=default triplet then. But probably needs rules that is all measure up to signature in divisions used or midi timing will be screwed up.

But R5 seems superior to anything Cubase or Sonar do. As I recall ProTools did not have anything better either. You can subdivide though not getting a click on every beat - but Reaper is still more clear, now getting how it works.

[schwa]

Originally Posted by Nip

Let's say ABT and dots as spacers, and allow T be a digit tuplet of choice 3, or 7 or anything. T=default triplet then.

It's easy to add support for for T=triplet in the metronome, so a 4/4 pattern of ABT. would be:




We'll go ahead and add that for the next build. It will only affect how the metronome plays, not how the ruler is divided or how MIDI notation is beamed or anything else. Adding metronome support for tuplets >3 is less trivial.

[Nip]

Originally Posted by schwa

It's easy to add support for for T=triplet in the metronome, so a 4/4 pattern of ABT. would be:




We'll go ahead and add that for the next build. It will only affect how the metronome plays, not how the ruler is divided or how MIDI notation is beamed or anything else. Adding metronome support for tuplets >3 is less trivial.

Yes, that would be nice.

I think midi clock is 24 ticks each quarternote, so something evenly divisible to 24 should work fairly well even doing external sync and stuff.

I wonder if to use ABTTT to get that you showed. So you could use ABTdotT to get sound on first and third for triplets.
So TTT always should be in three. And doing H for halfbeats in pairs to do half divisions.

So AHHHHHH is same as ABBB and you can silent as you wish with dots in there.

[EvilDragon]

Originally Posted by schwa

It's easy to add support for for T=triplet in the metronome, so a 4/4 pattern of ABT. would be:




We'll go ahead and add that for the next build. It will only affect how the metronome plays, not how the ruler is divided or how MIDI notation is beamed or anything else. Adding metronome support for tuplets >3 is less trivial.

While doing that, why not add more subdivisions as well (C, perhaps D), optionally? So, we could have more subdivisions on slower tempi, 4/4 example:

ACBCBCBC

or:

ADCDBDCDBDCDBDCD

We would need to be able to define 3rd and 4th metronome click sound in metronome options, though... so it might be a bit more involving? Still, I would say quite useful, perhaps not with 4/4, but with odd timesigs for sure!

[Nip]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

While doing that, why not add more subdivisions as well (C, perhaps D), optionally? So, we could have more subdivisions on slower tempi, 4/4 example:

ACBCBCBC

or:

ADCDBDCDBDCD

We would need to be able to define 3rd and 4th metronome click sound in metronome options, though... so it might be a bit more involving? Still, I would say quite useful, perhaps not with 4/4, but with odd timesigs for sure!

I think we are on the same page.

H=half division
T=triplet division

and always appear in two and three(with spacer dot replacing letter).

A=accent
B=beat

[EvilDragon]

And yes, I agree with Nip that triplets should be written with TTT instead of T, so you can decide on which triplets should play and which shouldn't - BUT should always come in sets of three. IOW, this would be invalid:

ABTB.TB

But this would be fine:

ABT.TB

[schwa]

T=triplet (a whole triplet) is trivial and it's already done. All of those additional features add enough complexity that it probably wouldn't make sense to try to fit them into the existing interface, especially if adding a feature that creates the possibility of invalid patterns. You could set up a track with a MIDI item and ReaSynDr or similar to make whatever crazy patterns you want.

[EvilDragon]

But then it's not functioning exactly like the metronome feature and it's additional work (getting the MIDI item in, setting up the notes, loading a plugin...) rather than just adjusting the metronome pattern, which is simples... :/

Why not extend the feature set of it to cover a wider array of use cases? Perhaps not now, but definitely at some point? It's not strange to use more than two subdivisions in a metronome pattern.

[Sju]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

more subdivisions on slower tempi

Yes please. When recording on slower tempos, many times I'd like to be able to have the metronome beat at least on 8ths, instead of fourths.

[Nip]

What is nice with metronome and divisions is that it works like external metronomes.

Both Korg Beatlab and eDrum engine metronome work with divisions of a beat - meaning if you set 100 bpm on external metronome you will also set 100 bpm i daw.

You set bpm - and just set volume on subdivisions on that. Some have different sound for each subdivision, but maybe not necessary.

Otherwise having to do 12/8 in daw and set 150 bpm in daw to make it work together with how you count at 100 bpm and 8th note triplets otherwise.

I think the principles for midi is what makes this a problem - clock is tied to a number of clocks each quarternote, not bpm as such.

But I'm all good with how it works now - and doing signature changes.

[Nip]

Originally Posted by schwa

T=triplet (a whole triplet) is trivial and it's already done. All of those additional features add enough complexity that it probably wouldn't make sense to try to fit them into the existing interface, especially if adding a feature that creates the possibility of invalid patterns. You could set up a track with a MIDI item and ReaSynDr or similar to make whatever crazy patterns you want.

Sounds interesting what you say about ReaSynDr, ahven't checked that out - not much mentioned in manual.

But if invalid patterns - this could be checked each time it is saved. So don't think that need to occur to actual engine in Reaper.

And you could make a wizard dialog to figure out how you want it. Just a couple of rows with subdivision-checkboxes on each row - and you checkmark where you want it to sound. And when saving symbol-pattern is generated for you.

[EvilDragon]

By the way, you don't necessarily need to do timesig changes. You can adjust the playrate of a click source item to 3.0 and then use a custom beat pattern just for the click source item (go to Source Properties). Then schwa's example would be A..B..BBB...

[Nip]

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

By the way, you don't necessarily need to do timesig changes. You can adjust the playrate of a click source item to 3.0 and then use a custom beat pattern just for the click source item (go to Source Properties). Then schwa's example would be A..B..BBB...

Thanks.
I suspect there is a sea of opportunities with click sources - I searched for that on youtube. I will look closely at those.