In the sequencer settings, add an option to program the position of every step in a track has a setting for the whole tracks. It could be used to make easyer triplet rythm programming like having the 3 first step of every group of four programmed a regular triplet and keeping 4 step repartition logic.
What is the problem?
Actually there is no option for very spécifique grooves. Or odd rythm
What do you want to achieve?
An easy way to program this without being lost in the number of step.
Are there any workarounds?
Sequence every track using Micromove but it’s a mess to program for every step, especially if you start introducing changes in tracks that you need to replicate manually everywhere.
@flexmelin welcome to Backstage, and thank you for contributing a wish. I am no groove or polyrhtm expert, and I have some trouble imagining your wish. Could you share a link to a song or piece of music with the kind of rhythm / groove you are after, please? Or if other people understand this wish better, can you provide music examples as well, please?
I absolutely love complicated grooves and odd rhythms of all kinds. as about the references, Dirtywave M8 allows players to do very specific stuff. I don’t have polyend’s tracker, but according to vids I saw, it’s pretty capable too. not sure about grid-based sequencer alternatives.
anyway, @flexmelin, please, make an easy-to-understand step-by-step example of what you want to do and how the device should react to your actions.
Ha! I remember watching that video about Stromae’s beautiful song (and videoclip). But you don’t need to have a “master track” programmed in the settings, you can use a regular track for this.
Start a new project, select one track, select a short percussion sound i.e. a clave and build your groove using Micromove wherever corresponds.
Copy the track as many times as you need, and then change or delete the sounds on top of the beats.
Note that you can also play with track length to avoid repetition of groove on the same track. The Stromae song has a syncopated rhythm, but it is regularly repeated almost across the entire song. This is usual in most traditional music because no matter what you do with music, after enough repetition our brains will get used to it and may even like it.
Also note that while the groove might be going “off the grid” regularly, some instruments may still want to play on grid, so it is not a given that you want the groove to be applied always to all tracks.
And this is very powerful feature. Copying micromoves is a workaround, but, yeah, it may be repetitive and you may lose all the information, if step was deleted. Also, every step is locked in the +/- 24 micromove cage.
Just to make it clear, in the beginning the vid’s author also mentions “hop” command that allows player to jump on a specific step of a pattern for a selected track. Using that feature you can skip some steps of a sequence which could be used for polyrhythms. Or you can make a pattern to cycle endlessly (or for some amount of time if “hop” is triggered by chance).
@flexmelin, correct me if I made the wrong example.
Not sure I understood the idea on the M8, but it seems close.
icaria36, of course it’s an option but it’s really not handy. Every time you work on a step you have to reprogram everything. My idea is to avoid this.
actually, it would be great to have such groove settings to be bound to variations too. having them bound to a whole track would mean you can’t switch between them.
