Hi Guys, I’ve been following this thread with much interest because the Deluge is ticking many boxes for me but I have one burning issue. I have a 128HP 3U Eurorack system but need to complement with an external sampler/sequencer, portable like the Deluge, or maybe MPC Live. My music though, is experimental and deep in time modulation and time signatures, including 7/8, 13/8, 5/16, 15/16 and so on.
All my reading suggests that Deluge might be able to be programmed in different time signatures, including polymeter but not polyrhythm. But I haven’t been able to find any good in depth discussion on this for the Deluge or indeed any other device. The Yamaha RS7k seems like it is quite capable in terms of sequencer power but is probably a bit dated in other respects.
So my question to experienced Deluge users is:
Can the Deluge be set to say 7/8 and a whole performance recorded in that time signature? Is it as simple as selecting the time signature?
How difficult is it to program polymeters ie bars of different lengths in succession?
Is time modulation, gradual speed up or slow down, or change in tempo, possible and if so is it easy enough to achieve?
What about polyrhythym eg 5 notes in the pace of 4, how do users handle this?
These are really important features for me.
If Deluge is unable to manage this is there another device that can?
Thanks.
There are no time signatures per se, number of steps per section/clip/track is pretty arbitray. For example, clips default to 16 step loops (sixteen 16ths) but you can dial in an insane amount of resolution and set the steps to however many you like, literally. So you could have 15 x 16th steps. Or dial the resolution down further and have 17 x 32nd steps, or 1024 x 192nd steps. So you could definitely have 7/8 patterns but you’d have to deliberately set that up as time signatures don’t really exist.
As above, you can create clips of however many notes/beats/bars you like. Then just chain them together in the the Arrange. It gets a little fussy if you have “odd” clip lengths as you’d have to be ‘zoomed’ in to an appropriate resolution to be able to place the clips concurrently. Otherwise placing clips snaps to the boundary of the viewing resolution. Sounds more compliacated than it actually is.
Time cannot be modulated as in programmed. You can obviously change the tempo at any time by turning the Tempo knob. Also the way the Deluge handles loading of songs in realtime as the current song is still playing means you could probaby work on your ‘song’ in sections and store them on the Deluge as separate ‘songs’. Hit load on the next section and the Deluge switches songs in time with what is playing. It’s quite a nice feature.
New OS added the ability to micro shift notes forwards and backwards so 5 notes in 4 can certainly be programmed. Or you can turn off quantising and record it in I guess.
Yes, that totally helped. Thank you Neil. The idea that ‘time signatures don’t really exist’ I find very appealing. It’s one of the great things I enjoy with my Eurorack setup.
I take it that the default resolution or ppq is 192, which would be accurate enough for many polyrhythms (depending on tempo) to be played in manually, which is fun in itself.
As for time changes within a ‘song’, your suggestion I take on board. Maybe after creating two ‘songs’ in different tempos they could be recorded/sampled then chained and played back as a single song. Anyway it’s not a game-changer.
I think all my boxes are now pretty much ticked.
Thanks for your informative reply.
Regards
Pete
Resolution can be changed between 96, 192, 384, 768, 1536, 3072 and 6144 ppqn! Not sure why you’d want that but I’m glad they’re a bit mad enough to make it happen
Despite it wanting to operate in it’s ‘native’ 16 x 16th step patterns (and lack of tempo modulation) it’s insanely flexible with polyrhythm type stuff as you can arbitrarily set any track to literally any length at, as I’ve just highlighted, a crazy granularity.
Regarding saving part of your song as different song with different tempos - you can’t chain songs together but loading them on the fly is simple and also includes a ‘countdown’ so you can dial in a number of ‘loops before next song loads’.
Regarding my earlier comment about laying down stuff in the Arranger (and having to dial in the correct resolution on the display to be able to place clips end-to-end when you have an ‘odd’ number of steps in the clip): I’d also forgotten two very important features. You can place a clip (of any length) into the arranger and then extend that for as long as you want (hold the clip and tap somewhere to the right) which just causes the clip to loop for that extended amount of time in the arrangement. Also, from the clip page, you can ‘record into the arrangement’ - you engage recording and then as you mute/unmute clips etc. these changes get recorded in real time into your arrangement. Both features would work well with polyrhythm type material.
I’ll knock up a little polyrhythm demo and video it for you (I wouldn’t normally offer but I spent ages yesterday setting up an overhead camera rig and lighting in my studio space to record a Deluge video to demo my DIY MIDI footswitch prototype!)
This one of the many Deluge “everything should work like this” niceties, they got so many things very nicely implemented, but also quite a lot not so great implementations which feel un Deluge like as a result
It is a fantastic machine though overall, I would definitely recommend it.
Thanks Neil. Resolution up to 6144ppqn! I had no idea, that’s beyond beyond. Could be quite useful for extremely slow tempos to have many divisions available to give the appearance of faster movement with slow modulations, or something like that.
The more I hear about the Deluge the closer I am to forgetting the MPC’s and just going for it. This is really exciting stuff.
And, if you don’t mind, I’d love to hear a little demo. I very much appreciate your help and information.
Regards. Pete
I really do feel the Deluge is like the best prototype and strongest beta ever for the ultimate hardware groovebox. There’s so much brilliance in it, I’m sure that if Synthstrom ever did an MKII, they’d nail the interface as well, now that they know themselves what their platform can do.
My muscle memory never learned the Deluge, a few days away from it and I forgot stuff like slicing, how to time stretch and stuff. And I know MFB gear and the Octatrack by heart, so my brain’s properly wired for this kind of stuff.
But it faced too much resistance in the Dellie, at the end, so those wires, I didn’t have. Or they got cut somewhere along the way
I get you, totally. They certainly do things their own way. Often that is so brilliant you wonder why all hardware boxes aren’t made that way. Somtimes it’s just a bit headscratchy.
I don’t know if this is appropriate but it seems like the right place and time to share a shortcut sheet that I designed and made (I print it out A4 and laminate it so I always have it to hand):
You know, that’s just brilliant. Essentially, this is like the functional brief for the next version. Just take all this and put it in an interface that allows it to be great.
When the Deluge first came out, I actually felt the interface was pretty great. It didn’t do all that much compared to today, but what it did, just made sense.
It still does, in a way, just not as much as it used to
But if this industry ever had a bunch of people that were just the good guys, Synthstrom would be those guys.
I think that probably because they are such nice guys they tried to implement too many user requests maybe for the UI to comfortably handle. This coupled with a few not too useful dedicated buttons whose function really could be in a menu, freeing up those buttons for more used functions.
Still, for a debut product I can think of none more impressive, I think it is important to take this into account as already mentioned.
I think it does too much with too little in the way of UI elements, the lack of a proper display is something that probably did not matter in the early stages, but the firmware outgrew it.
I definitely look forward to their next machine too, but that said the Deluge is an excellent machine overall, even in taking into account any criticisms.
I’d love to be able to talk to them about UI stuff, but really who the fuck am I to them.
I am still learning it but the Deluge is so rewarding in very ways that it is a joy to fiddle around with it.
The lack of screen bothered me at first, thinking they should have implemented a screen-less connexion ‘a la OP-Z’…but really what it does to you is you become patient.
You become careful at crafting your sound, you want to care about the details and you are no longer cutting corners …
I love that the Deluge is nowhere near at full potential, it has many unused shortcuts, many features will still come and yet, it is close to being the most comprehensive all-in-one battery powered Groovebox/Sequencer/looper/recorder/etc.
The lack of screen is fine for most stuff, but even a simple graphic LCD would greatly enhance a lot of stuff, like naming, editing, rather than like a flashy touchscreen or any of that cobblers
I’d go further and say there is no close about it, currently it is the most comprehensive. Audio, midi, CV sequencing, arranging, instant loading, long audio file support, etc. - nothing I can think of offers all that in one neat portable unit.
I regrettably sold mine as the lack of a legible screen drove me nuts. The SP-404 has a better screen. How does that work?
I do however think it’s amazing and wish I could have got over my hiccup with it. The looper was so much fun and so intuitive. I’m looking forward to MKII, here’s to hoping it has a small Models like screen at least for loading samples.
I sort of ran out of time to do the video properly (so much going on at the moment!) but I put something together quickly this afternoon.
First half is me playing around with the clips of different lengths. Just some percussion samples and a sine-based simple patch for melodic loop. You can see how it’s playing with different clip lengths. Second half I ‘arrange’ the clips into the Arranger so you can see how it fits together. Hopefully! Any questoins give me a shout.
Neil, that’s fantastic what you did. I can see the potential now to explore rhythmic patterns is pretty much unlimited. Without digging too deep it sounded like a 7/8 and 15/16 pattern and the way they interact in arrangement mode is great. Thanks for doing that.
Pete
