pouët.net

Ok, so that thing in MOD/S3M/IT/XM where you change the tempo (or sometimes the number of frames per step) every 16th note? I.e.



(IT/ST3 syntax)

...how do you do that in a modern DAW?

Ableton has "swing templates", that you can apply to MIDI notes on an individual track, but (a) they don't sound as good, (b) they physically move the start and end of the notes off the "grid" which annoys me to no end, and (c) they're not global. There *is* no global tempo swing function that I can find.

I know Renoise you can use like a tracker, since it is (and it *has* global swing anyway), but I have an Ableton project I'm already working on and don't feel like porting the whole thing over.

Beats per bar is usually 16.
Change it to say 64 and you can do the swing by hand.

You can change time signature in Ableton. To achieve the swing you're talking about, what you actually want is typically a 3/4 or 6/4 beat. Set that in Ableton and you'll have note snap to grid. http://sonicbloom.net/en/ableton-live-tutorial-automatic-tempo-and-time-signature-changes-in-arrangement-view/

ACID Pro had this thing called "groove mapping" which was essentially what you were looking for; worked both on MIDI and clips.

Triolen mal wieder!

Sorry, no idea whats it in english, maybe "triolic" ?!
So basically what Punqtured said...you only need to find out how to let the notes snap to "triolic" in your DAW of choice.
Hopefully some musician steps in and adds the correct term in english! ;)
This is the german wikipedia-page for Triolen. (if you simply choose "this page in english" on the left some page appears that doesn´t have the same info as far as i see.)

Triplets.

And while they're an okay surrogate for grooves, they're usually too "precise".

Yamaha QY70. PlayFX. Frickin' awesome.

It doesn't help you but... frickin' awesome anyway!

In Logic Pro I just use the piano roll view and nudge the notes to get the feel I'm after.

Triolic = Triplet?

Yeah - triplets.

And there's definitely a difference between the good old F06-F04-F06-F04 tempo trick in Pro Tracker and a groove-setting in a modern DAW. The Groove-setting in most DAWs try to simulate some kind of human imperfection, whereas the old pro tracker style definitely gives you a clinical take on the tempo changes.

So depending on what you actually want, you should go for either triplets, which will give you the old style groove/swing or add a groove to your tempo in Ableton. In Renoise, simply set pattern length to 48 (0x30) or any multiple of that and you're all set to go. In Ableton, Cubase and any non-tracker-DAW, change tempo setting of your song to have it reflect a 3/4, 6/4, 12/4 etc. beat, and your note grid should magically adapt to the set tempo.

Since changing the ticks per row is nothing more than a tempo change, you can also try to create a repeating tempo change pattern (e.g. something like 107 BPM - 150 BPM - 107 BPM - 150 BPM - ... which equals a 7/5/7/5 swing at 125 BPM) on your global tempo track. Note that this only works as long as you don't use any plugins that overreact to tempo changes. Anything that has a delay line (such as, well, delay plugins) may sound weird on tempo changes, but it might just work for you.

While what Saga Music writes is true, I highly recommend not doing in-song tempo changes. Everything you might have synced to tempo, being LFO's, delays and other plug-in/effects will almost certainly sound horribly wrong :)

I never used it, but ReViSiT might be an interesting option (?)

Looks interesting, Tomaes! Might not be the solution for the tempo/swing issue, but it looks somewhat similar to the ReDUX from the Renoise team. And while we're at it: Have anyone actually tried it and what are your thoughts about it? Does it actually give you the genuine tracker editing in Cubase, Ableton, Logic etc? I've been looking at it for a while, and I'd love to speed up the editing part (since I'm a terrible piano player, really) of composing with anything but trackers. Any comments would be highly appreciated!

No no no. What you're looking for is TRITONE SUBSTITUTION - and don't buy the cheap sticky stuff from Guitar Center, it will completely ruin your oscillator commands - and you need to use a much larger drum envelope! And try tuning your dynamics templates with vintage tempo notes. Higher time signatures might cause your swap space to run out of module pretty quickly though.

Thanks guys! Not really understanding how 3/4 or using triplets would get me the same effect - I'm still writing in 4/4 but literally the length of every second sixteenth note is short.

I might actually try using a tempo change track in Ableton and see what happens. Or I can set it up as a Rewire slave to Renoise and use that for the master clock - seems overly complicated though.

I'm trying to do a quick remaster of an old IT but without the "swing" it completely loses its groove & energy.

@tomaes - I've tried ReVisit - it's good, but development sadly seems to have fallen off. The last 1.8 Mac beta only shows up as a 32-bit plugin for some reason which means I can't use it in Ableton (Renoise has a built-in plugin bridge but it's pointless there.)

If you use a 32-bit version of Ableton Live, you can use 32-bit plugins.

I really recommend reading the manuals and doing tutorials. You don't seem to know even the most elementary basic things, or even what things are called. Hint: the stuff you say about how Ableton's features work in the opening post is just plain and simple false, wrong, incorrect. All of it.

The stuff told in some of the answers about inserting tempo track changes or time signature changes, "64 beats per bar", 3/4, etc. ... in Ableton Live, to do one of the most essential things in the whole application ... is just fantastically crazy. I thought it was obviously a joke.

There are two methods for swing. You either set the percentage of swing which gives you control over how much there is or you write your midi data in using triplets. If doing it by triplets simply ignore the 2nd and 5th qualities point on each beat.

Don't do the bpm switch, that is utter madness.

Watch a tutorial on making garage, the genre king of the swing beat. . Little known fact, swing via triplets was originally done because old hardware sequencers and drum machines didn't have swing.

Reaper has built-in swing functions on MIDI-data. Just right-click and have at it.

In Ableton you can either "bake" the groove into pattern (or clip, whatever) - or you can have the sequencer apply the groove pattern while playing. Combined to a precise pattern (I think Ableton has few of those as well, named "swing" iirc) and you should get very close to the tracker swing.

iirc, you can apply same groove setting to all selected clips in ableton, and yeah probably you just need to find a groove that you like/make your own. It's really not that bad. =D

Not very helpful, i guess, but FL Studio actually has a "swing" option per pattern.

oh and this? http://www.thepiz.org/plugins/?p=pizmidi

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