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Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:05 pm
by Críoch
Yeah.. that sounds fucking mental in a club as well. Great track.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:30 pm
by Disturbis
Yeah polyrhythms are a great way to make a track more alive!

I came across this article a while back which gives a good explanation about the different rhythmic devices you can use in your songs.

http://blog.dubspot.com/electronic-musi ... c-devices/

As a newbie this was really helpful for me.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 12:41 pm
by gavisthename
I love the Bootsy Collins Basic Funk Formula video on that dubspot page, he's one cool cat!! :-)

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 1:49 pm
by Disturbis
Haha indeed, you know... and that's the funk!! :)

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 5:27 pm
by willemb
I dont think you have to worry too much about what the deal with time signatures is, as long as it loops on a 16th it will get back in sync at some point. Then you can either force the loop to retrigger the start every 32 or 64 bars or just let it run free. If your using 6/8s the natural return to start points become 12 or 24 bars, and if you use builds for these its also a nice way to bring a more organic structure to the whole track.

I like 7/8 and 9/8 or even 15/16 for little clicks and hats too, it can give really nice organic feel. With synths or stabs 6/8 or 5/4 works better in my personal experience.

Just experiment with the length of your loops/bars and see what sounds good for that particular element, depending on programming and the even or oddness of the length, the element will interact in different ways with other elements.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 6:20 pm
by ashley BORG
willemb wrote:I dont think you have to worry too much about what the deal with time signatures is, as long as it loops on a 16th it will get back in sync at some point. Then you can either force the loop to retrigger the start every 32 or 64 bars or just let it run free. If your using 6/8s the natural return to start points become 12 or 24 bars, and if you use builds for these its also a nice way to bring a more organic structure to the whole track.

I like 7/8 and 9/8 or even 15/16 for little clicks and hats too, it can give really nice organic feel. With synths or stabs 6/8 or 5/4 works better in my personal experience.

Just experiment with the length of your loops/bars and see what sounds good for that particular element, depending on programming and the even or oddness of the length, the element will interact in different ways with other elements.
I added a small simple polyrhythm to a 4/4 track I was working on, so now I understand how it comes together. It's one of those typical things where I wish I'd known about this before since it would've been perfect (for this track).
Can't be bothered to rework it, better to save it for another day :)

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Sun Mar 24, 2013 11:10 pm
by Planar
I read something about generating poly-rhythms a while back with a euclidean algorithm and bookmarked a couple of pages that someone may find interesting/useful. I originally intended creating a little app that would spit out these patterns in midi files- I'm just too lazy :lol: :-

http://ftwem.com/2013/01/01/euclidean-rhythms-primer/
http://www.hisschemoller.com/2011/euclidean-rhythms/

The last one is a little flash app for creating poly-rhythms with the method and is fun for experimenting. The first link has a VST called Eckel that will spit out midi poly-rhythms that you can feed to drum machines (works with Geist for sure).

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 10:08 am
by bram2000
Check out Tony's Pulses; Tony's done the hard work, so you don't have to...

youtu.be/wOhRK9HudJs

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 11:49 am
by Planar
bram2000 wrote:Check out Tony's Pulses; Tony's done the hard work, so you don't have to...

That's pretty much what I was going to do. Thank fuck someone else has done it already.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 12:20 pm
by ashley BORG
Planar wrote:
bram2000 wrote:Check out Tony's Pulses; Tony's done the hard work, so you don't have to...

That's pretty much what I was going to do. Thank fuck someone else has done it already.

Haha excellent, think I'll take this myself. Would be cool if this works as easily in Geist / Logic as it does in Live. Although I'm quite up for creating my own polyrhythms.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:42 pm
by Lost to the Void
Jesus, just make your own music, this little apps are horrible.
All you have to do is make a damn midi pattern and change the pattern length, then adjust the pattern to fit.
Experiment. Polyrhythms work best when you play around, rare than regular spacing like that guys silly program, itis more interesting when there isn't regular spacing between notes.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 5:51 pm
by Críoch
I've just been counting everything to 7 in this loop that I have now.. Sounds very Surface.

Cant think of a more pleasant way of getting stuck in a loop. Just wanted to share that haha :mrgreen:

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 6:04 pm
by ashley BORG
Was all up for making some Polyrhythms at lunch to find that Geist can't do it the way of Tremor, in stand alone mode.
Better install it on my work computer then. :D

Steve - Chill out dude ;)

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:13 pm
by Lost to the Void
It just drives me crazy when rather than trying stuff, people look up solutions, apps and such.
You discover more in music by trying it and doing it wrong, than any other way.


An interesting thing to try that will lead on to other ideas is,.... make a hi hat pattern with some flourishes in it, little triplets here and there or something. But try the pattern as a 24 or 36 (or whatever, best to go divisable by 4 initially) step pattern. That way the hat pattern will move around within the tune, the flourishes will change place, it will give the feel of a live drummer doing improv flourishes, but perfectly in time.
Not exactly euclidean, more about different pattern lengths, but you can apply this little trick to all sorts of things.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:35 pm
by Lost to the Void
ashley BORG wrote:
Steve - Chill out dude ;)
Sorry, overslept, woke up moody, as bad as undersleeping. Forgot to drink anything all day. Had tea, better now

see look

:P :P :P

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:49 pm
by ashley BORG
Lost to the Void wrote:
ashley BORG wrote:
Steve - Chill out dude ;)
Sorry, overslept, woke up moody, as bad as undersleeping. Forgot to drink anything all day. Had tea, better now

see look

:P :P :P
Yup all is right in the world now

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:02 pm
by Críoch
haha - Steve using Emoticons.. must be a blue moon :D

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:06 pm
by arc
Lost to the Void wrote:make a hi hat pattern with some flourishes in it, little triplets here and there or something. But try the pattern as a 24 or 36 (or whatever, best to go divisable by 4 initially) step pattern. That way the hat pattern will move around within the tune, the flourishes will change place, it will give the feel of a live drummer doing improv flourishes, but perfectly in time.
Not exactly euclidean, more about different pattern lengths, but you can apply this little trick to all sorts of things.
Then on top of that, automate the volume envelope in random spots so the hi-hat fades in and out at different times.

I also agree with Void about doing things by hand on not using little apps like the one posted ITT. Some of my biggest "aha!" moments happened when I was experimenting with new things and by accident, I stumbled on something that worked despite being a mistake in relation to what I was trying to accomplish.

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 9:04 pm
by rein
for people using maschine...

there's a bug when running maschine as a AU plugin in your DAW.

- start the project with a 4/4 time sig
- put in a simple pattern and keep the step sequencer open on maschine
- then adjust the time sig to whatever you want
- the maschine wil run a full measure, and then a quarter, half or whatever one (depending on time sig), before returning to start and running the full measure..

very hypnotic and fun stuff

Re: Polyrhythms

Posted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 10:15 pm
by ashley BORG
ICN wrote:haha - Steve using Emoticons.. must be a blue moon :D
His finger must've slipped whilst he was bashing it.