Swing quantize / groove pool

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oboemaroni
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:37 pm
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Swing quantize / groove pool

Post by oboemaroni » Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:51 pm

I use Live as a traditional DAW in the arrangement view, having from a Cubase/Sonar background, moving to Live as I like the drag and drop workflow. However I'm now working on a piece that I need to swing quantize and the way it's implemented in Live is baking my brain.

I'm aware that I need to use a groove pool to apply the swing, but if I record a midi track where I tap in a swing rhythm, and I want to tighten this up with quantize while keeping the swing feel, I'm having the following issues:

- which of the swing presets should I choose from the groove pool? Like what is the difference between say 'swing 8-15' and 'swing 8-99', and how do I know given that there's no audition feature?
- I'm not sure the groove is actually having any effect on the midi, as some parts still sound out of time - to test this I quantized a midi part to remove the swing totally, and applying the groove didn't seem to make a big difference
- The grid doesn't reflect the swing timing, so if I want to move individual notes with reference to it for any reason I can't see a way to do that
- if I use the quantize function in the groove pool, which apparently is to pre-quantize notes before the groove is applied, it seems to completely remove the groove feel the more I go towards 100%

I'm aware that I'm atypical in the way I use Live but I don't see why they couldn't just add a swing function to the regular quantize feature, the way they've implemented seems to totally overcomplicate it if you're not working in the session view... Anyway, if anyone could give some advice on any of the above I'd appreciate it!

romariozen
Posts: 63
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2019 3:47 pm

Re: Swing quantize / groove pool

Post by romariozen » Wed Dec 08, 2021 3:00 pm

In order to make .agr work properly you have to 1) make your pattern as close as possible to the swing file you want to implement 2) choose a proper "base" parameter. As a result you will have more live and groovy swing. That's the purpose of the groove file. If you want to initially make it work fast, just drag .agr file onto the midi track and that's it.
2)the more the number is, the more exaggerated the groove. 80 is stronger than 10.
3)I highly recommend you to just experiment, I found all above out myself, tutorials on YT don't explain shish, I huess people on YouTube don't know themselves how it works.
4) Quantization is just the quantization. Youwill getyour notes qquantized to the grid as you would do it any other way.

oboemaroni
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2008 4:37 pm
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Re: Swing quantize / groove pool

Post by oboemaroni » Wed Dec 08, 2021 6:56 pm

Thanks romariozen, I think I'm getting a better grip on it by experimenting as you suggest, results are coming out a bit more workable now which is a relief. I've been making music for years but weirdly have never had to use swing very much in the past...

jlgrimes
Posts: 1773
Joined: Mon Jan 22, 2007 1:55 am
Location: Atlanta, Ga

Re: Swing quantize / groove pool

Post by jlgrimes » Wed Dec 08, 2021 8:44 pm

oboemaroni wrote:
Wed Dec 08, 2021 2:51 pm
I use Live as a traditional DAW in the arrangement view, having from a Cubase/Sonar background, moving to Live as I like the drag and drop workflow. However I'm now working on a piece that I need to swing quantize and the way it's implemented in Live is baking my brain.

I'm aware that I need to use a groove pool to apply the swing, but if I record a midi track where I tap in a swing rhythm, and I want to tighten this up with quantize while keeping the swing feel, I'm having the following issues:

- which of the swing presets should I choose from the groove pool? Like what is the difference between say 'swing 8-15' and 'swing 8-99', and how do I know given that there's no audition feature?
- I'm not sure the groove is actually having any effect on the midi, as some parts still sound out of time - to test this I quantized a midi part to remove the swing totally, and applying the groove didn't seem to make a big difference
- The grid doesn't reflect the swing timing, so if I want to move individual notes with reference to it for any reason I can't see a way to do that
- if I use the quantize function in the groove pool, which apparently is to pre-quantize notes before the groove is applied, it seems to completely remove the groove feel the more I go towards 100%

I'm aware that I'm atypical in the way I use Live but I don't see why they couldn't just add a swing function to the regular quantize feature, the way they've implemented seems to totally overcomplicate it if you're not working in the session view... Anyway, if anyone could give some advice on any of the above I'd appreciate it!
Keep in mind any pattern that says Swing8 swings on the 1/8 notes. If you want to swing on the 16ths, choose a Swing 16th pattern. I think any ambiguous preset name will most likely swing on the 16th.

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