Swing factor: is it the same on every gear?

Much fun to sync seqs/arps with triggers/clocks. You can put in a clock to make it follow straight to the tempo or send triggers and play with the steps…
Not so many synths with sequencers/sequencers out there that can be synced that way (most modern sequencers estimate the incoming tempo and adjust their own clock), although lots of (most?) sequencers in modular can do this. :slight_smile:

All machines dance slightly different. One of my fav swing clocks is the Akai MPC60.

…unfurtunatly swing is a general term for pushing or delaying raletion ties between single notes and “sadly” THIS comes in ALL kinds of flavours, opinions and settings…

so any hw device of any sort will do it’s own thing to apply to the same rules…
as mentioned, abletons vast groove pool of nothing but all sorts of different swing behaviours and states of possible innersettings is most common proove to this…

at least u can count on the fact, that a standard 16th swing turn to “60” on a swedish device is exactly the same swing amount to all other swedish devices…

but swedish 60 won’t match with an american or british or japanese 60…maybe more a 70…or a 55… :wink: …don’t get shuffeled away and lost in groove translation…

define ur main groove within one machine…stick to it and adept all other ingridients from where ever the might come from to that…
otherwise it’s endless struggle for what was the point again…?

if u got two usual groovebox suspects that simply have to shake along togehter in same fashion…
put them on the test…plain and simple straight 16th closed hihats, all at same velocity and same decay length…
decide once and for all which machine takes the snyc lead…let them run, swing the master machine to ur liking and then find out at which level of swing approach the other really starts to match and catch up…

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I’m aware of the rimshot trick connected with the bass sequencer (old school sync method), but I don’t think it will work with the Digitakt.
Here a snippet of what I’m playing: as you can hear the swing is sloppy (drums from Digitakt, hihat from RD8)

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…the relation of a hi hat line within each other alongside with the classic upbeat position (snares, claps, the tschakk to all the boom) defines ALL feel of swing…so trying to split this “job” on two different machines that meanwhie have to deal with some little midi sync jitter here and there can only drive u nuts end end up frustrating…

if takt does the boom and the tschakk, let it do the hihat shuffle too…for ur own sake…

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Internally?

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Yeah, there is definitely something off…

Basically I have 2 different master clock messing around on the beat, this kind of sound was instead known (end of the 80’s) to be supertight on timing. The only way to solve is is rebuild it without RD8
Uli: you shall be damned for the eternity

This might sound insane but it’s common for sound engineers to use listening as their primary method of assessment rather than considering it as a ‘workaround’.

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Back in the day you bet your funky ass the tight sync was achieved by ear!

They absolutely would not have expected arbitrary/relative setting “60” to match “60” on another device.

If you want to dictate a unified swing for all, dont go internal and instead use a master clock that can output its own swing like the E-RM multiclock or similar.

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In this case it’s also the easiest solution. Ears will alert you until it sounds right…

Or just call it a day and sample the RD8 into the Digitakt…

How does that work with sequencers that average the incoming clock and adjust their own clock to match the tempo accordingly?
My first thought would be it doesn’t work at all, but correct me if I’m wrong.

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My funky ass will follow your advice!

That multiclock device is dope but damn … 569 euro

erm mukticlock or innerclock systems (they have a bunch of options) you can set the shuffle there and everything synced to it will swing along.

https://www.innerclocksystems.com/syncgen-ii

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In addition to going by ear, back in the day my funky ass would offset notes in a tracker manually based on the number of clock ticks

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Yeah, I totally get wanting one workflow to be perfect :slight_smile:

Hrm, without buying anything specific… if you have a DC coupled sound card, I wonder if something like Expert Sleepers’ Silent Way would let you encode swing into either CV clock for the Behringer or let you directly send MIDI through an audio out (I’d imagine using a TRS to MIDI cable and 1/4" to 3.5mm converter)

I haven’t tried that, but it’s one way to get additional granularity for swing or force both to use the same swing timing.

Sometimes just tuning the swing together is needed though, I’d think the easiest way to get it sounding good is to tweak them both until it clicks :stuck_out_tongue:

Ok I thought I knew exactly what swing/shuffle does to a pattern. I knew that parameter values and ranges would differ per machine, but now I’m totally confused by people claiming that not all machines swing the same (even with matching settings?)!

Some people say, they all do the same thing, but with different ranges, but others claim there are more differences (pointing to Ableton’s groove pool).

So how do they differ? Are some machines delaying every 1st alternate 8th note differently to every 2nd alternate 8th note or something?
Or is there a difference in how they handle notes that have some micro offset timing compared to a quantized alternate 8th note?

How does Ableton and other DAWs do this with notes that are not quantized anyway? Does it stretch the timing of all notes increasingly dependent on how close they are placed to the exact timing of an alternate 8th note?

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My insight is that different manufacturers / vendors use diffent algorithms to create swing that not only uses micro timing but also weighted micro timing. Can be quite complicated to understand.

EDIT: MPC’s ‘Humanize’ functionality is the most advanced I know so far.

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I have no idea about 8ths. I live in a 16th swing world, and what they do in daws like reason in addition to delaying the second and 4th 16th notes, is they can also affect velocity based on the groove. For example:

8th are the reference. This is how I understand swing :

Trigs 1 and 3 are the 8th references.
Trigs 2 and 4 are the swing trigs.

The swing value is a % of delay compare to an 8th delay.
50% is half an 8th, hence a 16th, no swing.

Wouldn’t call working with your ears a workaround. It’s the single most important tool a sound engineer has. ;). Also, if they are not 100% exactly matched it will create extra soul and groove. So that’s why it’s often better to listen than to go by logic or vision. :+1:

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The A4 allows you to pick the trigs that are swung while in the swing menu. Always wondered why this is missing on the DT.

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