Best way to play in Live

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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Hi,
This is not so much a theory question, but just the closest to it...

I use Logic Pro 9, buy say I want to play in live parts chord sequences. What's the most efficient way to hold the groove, my timing is NOT rock solid, I have latency at lowest, and also decrease the BPM, so play it in slow. I dunno it's just not easy. When it appears on sequencer, let's just say I have to quantize alot.
Go on say it...It's my playing!

thanks.
joe

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Well you're right, it is your playing. The best thing to do is not look at the tools you have, but to practice. If you give up and assume you will never be better then it's unlikely you will improve. You just need to practice over and over again until you get better. That's how it works for everyone.

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You may find it useful to mute some other tracks and use a clicktrack while playing live. So for instance only use the bass part and a clicktrack instead of the entire arrangement.
Don't know whether this will work for you but it may be worth a shot.

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Or use a guide track that only plays back on the monitors.

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many thanks, I'll take these into account, yeah my playing seems just 'stiff' sometimes like I need to loosen up the wrists. Strange because I've done various classical piano exams. But now I'm learning funk, a different ball game entirely....it's rhythm is one aspect,

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'quantize' and 'funk' are going to have disagreements.

The rhythm in funk is, additionally going to be hard to suss by how it looks on the grid; it breathes, there is give and take. It depends, some of what you want might end up being pretty close to the grid in terms of the backbeat, some of it might have more of push and pull, such as a longer 4th beat of 4 (and/or a little bit of rush at 2).

You're going to have to wade in past your ankles and try and err a lot, I'm afraid.

"decrease the BPM, so play it in slow" - I wouldn't, but I'm not you. "feel" seems more married to tempo than that seems to take into consideration.

Some people respond well to a click, some can't stand it. I'm in the latter camp in the extreme. I think you have to look at bass and drums and their symbiosis in the music you want to cop really closely; and find out how to inhabit both roles to the extent you can muster.

What host? There is a function in Cubase that is really instructive in terms of tempo, its "time warp tool". Where you can take an audio file and match the timeline/grid to the musical places - and find that breathing I mention, for instance the BPMs changing subtly, maybe even four times in a bar of 4/4. If not, this is an area where a scratch or guide track from some exemplar of the style should be valuable, and instructive. I would say to be wary of expecting the machine to correct you into proper fonkiness.

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Maybe you want to take a look at the software ScoreCleaner.


It tries to interpret your playing intelligently. It works without a click-track and without any manual quantize settings. You can freely play your music without paying attention to the tempo. To some degree even tempo changes are detected automatically. Cool software, in my opinion. I really love this kind of artificial intelligence stuff. Makes life much easier.

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jancivil wrote:'quantize' and 'funk' are going to have disagreements.

The rhythm in funk is, additionally going to be hard to suss by how it looks on the grid; it breathes, there is give and take. It depends, some of what you want might end up being pretty close to the grid in terms of the backbeat, some of it might have more of push and pull, such as a longer 4th beat of 4 (and/or a little bit of rush at 2).

You're going to have to wade in past your ankles and try and err a lot, I'm afraid.

"decrease the BPM, so play it in slow" - I wouldn't, but I'm not you. "feel" seems more married to tempo than that seems to take into consideration.

Some people respond well to a click, some can't stand it. I'm in the latter camp in the extreme. I think you have to look at bass and drums and their symbiosis in the music you want to cop really closely; and find out how to inhabit both roles to the extent you can muster.

What host? There is a function in Cubase that is really instructive in terms of tempo, its "time warp tool". Where you can take an audio file and match the timeline/grid to the musical places - and find that breathing I mention, for instance the BPMs changing subtly, maybe even four times in a bar of 4/4. If not, this is an area where a scratch or guide track from some exemplar of the style should be valuable, and instructive. I would say to be wary of expecting the machine to correct you into proper fonkiness.
Thanks I read your post. I'll just have to experiment. I use Logic 9.

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Not sure but you might have latency issues if you are not using a proper audio driver. I know i ran into this back in the day by not having a proper ASIO drive for reason so when i played a note on my keyboard it would create a small delay.

If you know you have a very good setup with no audio latency issues then yes perhaps it's your playing.
:borg:

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