What host for Groove Quantize and Advanced Piano Roll?

[bduffy]

[Hink]

two in a row...reckon I'm not alone because I do that all the time...or were you just trying to get me to post the pic?

[TotcProductions]

Cuuuuuuubbbbaaaasssseeeee

Cubasee?

Do you use Groove Quantize much? I have to admit that I've never gotten much out of my experiments with it, but I know people swear by it (and it's good to humanize your stuff), but I could never get the quantize of a loop to just magically "fit" my music. I seem to recall the old Cubase was a real vanguard in this domain.

That ACID thing looks real interesting, I must say!

Rednroll, this is how you do it:

Code: Select all

[url]http://www.gluemeat.com/images/nicefnjobcanada.gif[/url]

Easist thing: paste your picture URL in, highlight it, then hit the "URL" button up top; it'll magically wrap it!

Honestly, for the Qbase groove quantize functions...I love them. I tend to use custom templates though, that I've created either in my free time (which means they're old, as I don't have much of that anymore. ), or custom made for the project.....but I suppose making a custom groove template for each project sort of defeats the purpose. They are great for humanizing stale/robotic midi programming as well. I use them for my drum beats all the time. I find my custom templates most useful when recording though. Saves me from losing the feel to the metronome.

Peace

[griels]

Cuuuuuuubbbbaaaasssseeeee

Cubasee?

Do you use Groove Quantize much? I have to admit that I've never gotten much out of my experiments with it, but I know people swear by it (and it's good to humanize your stuff), but I could never get the quantize of a loop to just magically "fit" my music. I seem to recall the old Cubase was a real vanguard in this domain.

Use it all the time here - when I quantize stuff, I still want to retain the swing that I originally intended it to have - therefore the 'grid' I want to quantize to is not perfectly regular. It's not about humanizing, it's about improving timing. If everything else is swinging, a row of uniform 16ths is going to sound completely wrong.

I tend to use iterative groove quantize a lot, just until notes seem to fit in place...

This and drum edit are probably the two features that keep me locked to Cubase.

[bduffy]

Yeah, I've been using Iterative Quantize a lot more, that's been useful. But when you guys are talking about Groove Quantizing, do you mean using Groove Quantizes derived from Hitpoints or from tweaking the Quantize Settings and saving them? I use that for swinging all the time, but I thought "Groove Quantize" refered specifically to analyzing audio and applying that feel to your MIDI. But if it means being able to flexibly adjust the quantization, then hell yeah, Cubase is excellent for it.

[Kriminal]

Quantizing and Humanizing are basically the same thing, just going in the opposite direction.

im aware of that.

so are we talknig about Quantising, Humaising or Groove patterns???

Either way, OP has thenm all, but im not sure what you are trying to do.

..and even more so, why would you want to sound out of time/human? proper daft....

We are taking about groove patterns or groove quantizing as Sonar and Cubase call it. This is not regular quantizing or humanizing.

Here's an example: Stylus RMX has midi grooves. If you examine Stylus midi files in your piano roll, you'll see that many of the midi notes don't start exactly on the 1/8 note or 1/16 note. They start a few midi tics early or a few tics late. So instead of a note starting at 13:02:480, it starts at 13:02:476. This variation creates a unique groove.

Groove quantize captures those start times and allows you to transfer them to other midi (or audio) files. It can also perform other tasks, like transfering velocity and note lenth. My main concern is with start times.

For what ever reason, the process is not working properly in Sonar 4 and I have no reason to believe that Sonar 5 is any better.

thanks, i see what you mean now. They are called Groove Templates in Orion, and you can write your own. There are a few included, but not many. Not sure about capturing the start times etc, can you not just copy paste the pattern?

[Cap'n Spanky]

Thanks for all the input everyone!! Maybe this is old school thinking, but the simplicity of working in one host is appealing. From that stand point Cubase looks good.

[bduffy]

Thanks for all the input everyone!! Maybe this is old school thinking, but the simplicity of working in one host is appealing. From that stand point Cubase looks good.

[Cap'n Spanky]

EDIT: In the interest of world peace, my comment here has been zapped!

[sjm]

If you're anything like me, and you want the piano roll to be easy to use, don't go the Cubase route. Whenever I am forced to use Cubase, it drives me absolutely spare. I don't care how much a piece of software can do; if it's fiddly and annoying to use it, I don't use it. I admit that I'm more unforgiving than some though, being an IT guy and not just a musician. After all, a lot of people don't seem bothered by the unneccesary clicks and 10 seconds Cubase requires for a task that takes just 3 seconds elsewhere.

FL is how piano roll editing should be done. None of Cubase's unnecessary clicking hither and thither until you give up in frustration, where the piano roll isn't well thought out at all IMO. It seems to cater solely to minimalist post-editing of tracks (that you've recorded live via MIDI in). Anything more, and you'll go mad with frustration!

In FL, you can compose in the piano roll really easily. Admittedly, I haven't used Cubase for 2 years, so it might not be as awful as it used to be. But Steinberg never were any good at UI design, so I remain sceptical...

[bduffy]

Oh, man - let's not go there! Cap'n Spanky, conventional wisdom would suggest to me that whatever you like using and what fits your needs best is the best. We can debate this till the cows come home, there's always something that one has that the others don't. Take sjm's FL arguments: when I've tried FLStudio, it will literally take me ALL DAY to get a basic VSTi/MIDI playing back correctly. I simply do not know that program and am used to working in a certain way, despite the fact that FL kicks ass.

That stuff is so subjective, it's hardly worth lingering on. I despise using all other sequencers other than Cubase (actually Tracktion and Ext are shaping up nicely...), and that's cool, but I totally acknowledge that these other powerful hosts with thousands/millions of users must be doing something right, so why bash 'em! I just bonded with my host, and that's all there is to it. I only recommend Cubase based on the strengths I know. I don't think all the other Piano Rolls suck it, I just don't know.

Anyway, let's avoid a host war. I find it interesting in these threads to learn about what the other guy's strengths are, and learn about stuff I've missed in my own.

[TotcProductions]

I don't care what anyone says....Cubase has some of the most powerful midi editing tools available. They so often get ignored around these parts....excellent stuff. Besides, F*ck piano rolls...learn how to play your keyboard.

Peace

[Cap'n Spanky]

FL is how piano roll editing should be done.

I'm sure the answer to this dumb question is yes, but does Fruity allow you to export your midi tracks to another host??

I was thinking I could lay down my scratch tracks and do all my heavy midi composing and editing in FL, and then transfer the midi files to Samplitude, where I'd finish the project off.

[TotcProductions]

FL is how piano roll editing should be done.

I'm sure the answer to this dumb question is yes, but does Fruity allow you to export your midi tracks to another host??

I was thinking I could lay down my scratch tracks and do all my heavy midi composing and editing in FL, and then transfer the midi files to Samplitude, where I'd finish the project off.

I think so...but you have to change all the tracks to midi output tracks, and as far as I remember, doing so is not reversible.

[bduffy]

I don't care what anyone says....Cubase has some of the most powerful midi editing tools available. They so often get ignored around these parts....excellent stuff. Besides, F*ck piano rolls...learn how to play your keyboard.

Peace

Hey! I like meticulously drawing in flams and slides....