3/4 or shuffle?

[Chuck E. Jesus]

i'm trying to figure out a beat to a tune, i'd like to apply quantize/groove to it where needed...it's similar to the beat in "Night Clubbing" by iggy pop, or any number of doo wop type tunes, or even "Unchained Melody" i suppose...i assume it's 3/4 time sig, but what type of "groove" would it be considered? i'm going to experiment, but a few tips won't hurt either i figure...

like this: 1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3

i'm using Sonar 7 if it means anything, and thanks...

[Chuck E. Jesus]

can't be 3/4, now it makes no sense...

[BLynx]

(deleted)

[Meffy]

12/8 ??

That's my inclination too. Looks like you have four groups of three, Chuck, making it compound quadruple time, which would be 12/4, 12/8, or even 12/16, depending on how fast it feels. That's how, for instance, Tommy James and the Shondells' "Draggin' the Line" sounds to me (though I have no idea how the score is actually notated; might be shown as 4/4 with a lotta triplets).

[Chuck E. Jesus]

draggin the line is similar, or Rock n Roll part 2, just different speeds...i'll try 12/8, see where that goes...

i think the Sonar manual is not very good fwiw...

[Chuck E. Jesus]

12/16 works like a charm, thanks...

[Chuck E. Jesus]

one last question: this may be specific to midi sequencers, but is tempo independent of time sig? in other words, if something is in either 12/8 or 12/16, would the temp be the same, and it's just the beats per measure changes?

example: i recorded a track in 12/16, quantized to the 16th, perfect...but i had to slow it down to about 65 BMP(?), just seemed rather low, no big deal...but inserting a time sig of 12/8 changed nothing, is this just the way it works?

[Meffy]

is tempo independent of time sig?

Yes. Ought to be true of all sequencers; though I can't say that for certain, I'd be very surprised indeed if it weren't so.

The denominator (bottom number) in a time signature just tells what kind of note is used as the "unit" when measuring out beats and measures. A notational thing, though the notation ought to be picked to reflect the music's feel.

[xoxos]

i'd leave the seq in 4/4 and write in 12ths.

[Hovmod]

Agree. 4/4 with triplets, with accents on 2 and 4. If you're going for that Delilah/Unchained thing...

[xtp]

i'm trying to figure out a beat to a tune, i'd like to apply quantize/groove to it where needed...it's similar to the beat in "Night Clubbing" by iggy pop, or any number of doo wop type tunes, or even "Unchained Melody" i suppose...i assume it's 3/4 time sig, but what type of "groove" would it be considered? i'm going to experiment, but a few tips won't hurt either i figure...

like this: 1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3

i'm using Sonar 7 if it means anything, and thanks...

if you could post a few bars of it maybe we could count it out. I always have to record something i improvise then go back and sit and count it out, because I am unable to count in my head as i play. So i never have any idea what i am actually doing till i formalise it in cubase after.

[Sascha Franck]

Actually, thinking about "Delilah", you could find beats like that notated in various ways. I'd probably even go for 6/8 - but that might be because by now I'm pretty much used to what I often find in sheets for musicals.
Of course, 12/8 would be just another valid choice, as would be a triplet 4/4 groove.
In sequencer land it all really depends. Some sequencers aren't just working as great with triplets, others aren't good to deal with anything else but plain 4/4, and all this might again be entirely different should you want to deal with whatever score editors.
Oh, because we're on KVR, it does of course also depend on certain plugins which might be temposynced. For instance, quite a lot of delays still don't do triplets, but in a triplet 4/4 scenario you may want them.

Btw, I wouldn't necessarily go for a 12/16 beat. In something such as "Delilah" there's smaller subdivisions (if I recall correctly), in a 12/16 beat that would mean having to deal with 32nd notes.

[Chuck E. Jesus]

actually 12/8 works fine...i really was just trying to set up a click track that means something, with measures i can actually follow...if i had to edit stuff to triplets and such, i think my head would explode...

all comments are welcome though, as it's knowledge to learn from

[jancivil]

i'm trying to figure out a beat to a tune, i'd like to apply quantize/groove to it where needed...it's similar to the beat in "Night Clubbing" by iggy pop, or any number of doo wop type tunes, or even "Unchained Melody" i suppose...i assume it's 3/4 time sig, but what type of "groove" would it be considered? i'm going to experiment, but a few tips won't hurt either i figure...

like this: 1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3/1 2 3

i'm using Sonar 7 if it means anything, and thanks...

does sonar have a warp-to-audio typa feature? I mean where you find the downbeats and tweak the timeline by barlines, according to an ('beat detection') audio file? if you want to get a groove template that sounds like real music, your best bet will be to play something with that feel and make the tempo track, timeline conform to that. then when you work with the midi, the notes are magnetic to that 'grid'

[jancivil]

one last question: this may be specific to midi sequencers, but is tempo independent of time sig? in other words, if something is in either 12/8 or 12/16, would the temp be the same, and it's just the beats per measure changes?

example: i recorded a track in 12/16, quantized to the 16th, perfect...but i had to slow it down to about 65 BMP(?), just seemed rather low, no big deal...but inserting a time sig of 12/8 changed nothing, is this just the way it works?

here, the 12/8 tempo is three x faster than the 4/4. same diff. as triplets; only now, each triplet gets a primary count; eg., 80bpm as 4/4 is 240bpm for 12/8;

only prob. is what does the sequencer want to call 'a beat'; cubase insists that (and otherwise there'd be too much code to implement anyway) a beat is a Quarter Note Beat. so, actually you are working in 6/4, and the sequencer's tempo should be set at 120 to deal with this triplet feel (v. 4.4 @ 80), and not have to look at division by three all day.

OR, you could set your midi resolution at something divisible by three, and work in 4/4 as triplets; see, if you have any DUPLET figures in the thing, these are now DOTTED values in 12/8, which is what is known as a compound meter.

12/8 is very cool, cause you can easily switch up: dum de DAP du dum de DAP - dip dip dip dip, dip dip ditadita

confer: {eg., Bernstein, "America"} 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 & 2 & 3 &; the first group are dotted quarters, the second straight quarters, same tempo, 2 bars of 6/8 (here, aka 3/4)

SEE: HEMIOLA