DJ Question: would a "nudge" or "brake"

Sumatra · Post by **Sumatra** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 10:53 pm

I'd love a global implementaation also.

The Elektron MachineDrum (OS 1.19c) has this feature and it's great.

xeb · Post by **xeb** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 8:59 am

the best solution i can see for this is the Redsound Micro Sync

it will analyse an audio signal and produce a midi clock signal that you can then sync live to. it has buttons to increase/decrease the clock speed, as well as nudge it forward or back. Unfortunatly Redsound seem to have stopped production of them in Europe. Several stores in teh states still seem to be selling them though.. I don't know if that means they're avaiable there.. perhaps someone on here could call up one of these stores and find out if they are actually available or if they're just still showing them in stock?

http://www.hollywooddj.com/hollywooddj/microsync.html
http://djshop.com/redmicsynbea.html

AdamJay · Post by **AdamJay** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:45 am

as of 2 weeks ago DJShop.com has them in stock, i shot them an email, was thinking of getting one but i think i'll stick to my plan of putting a Technics M3D pitch control on my custom midi controller and assign it to song tempo.
just think i'd rather use an interface i've used for the last 7 years to match beats than have to adapt to a new way of thinking.

rEalm · Post by **rEalm** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:39 am

I use the Red Sound and it's ok for this, not really ideal. It does pretty accurately detect the tempo of a record, but at times it decides to speed up or slow down on it's own, and that causes all sorts of issues with Live. I use mine mostly to determine the tempo of vinyl as I'm recording it to the PC, makes warping the track a lot easier.

Anyway, if you guys have Micro Sync questions, go ahead and ask, I'm pretty familiar with it, had it for years...

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:14 pm

hmm....

as far as making the feature global-only, i don't think that would be ideal -- since a global "nudge" or "brake" can be implemented now using free software such as PD, simply by momentarily increasing or decreasing master tempo and attaching that to a note or whatever.

the implementation i had in mind when i wrote this thread a few months back was to achieve something that's impossible unless it's coded into Live itself -- to nudge or brake the position of one playing clip relative to another...

rs

xeb · Post by **xeb** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 2:41 pm

thanks AdamJay. how do you deal with pitch nudges though? using the fader? somone in another thread said you can nudge using shift +/-... will have to give that a go

thanks rEalm... not what i wanted to hear but what i was kid of expecting

ideal solution for me would be syncing live to a midi-clock unit similar to the one on the Xone 92 ctrl.... tap in the approx bpm, and then fine tune that with rotary fader and nudge if needed. havent' been ablet to find anythnig like this though

SongCarver · Post by **SongCarver** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:41 pm

yes I see two problems here:

one is the fact that tempo is difficult to control overall.

the second problem is that a clip, once fired, is stuck in time - there is no way to correct a missfire other than refiring.

Let's look at the first one.
-----------------------------
There are two things we need to control: the tempo, and also the song position. Our most likely problem is that our tempo is VERY close, and our song position has slipped a little due to this slow build up of error.

What would be ideal to me would be a pitchwheel assigned to a temporary 15% - /+ in tempo. Also, at the extremes of the CC, the tempo which we return to would be affected, say by 0.3 - 2 bpm.

ASCII and MIDI keys could control this too, if 'held down' the 'return to' tempo would be affected.

A bit of testing could bring up a nice little forula on this one.
--------------------------

The other possibility is that we are WAY out, and need to yell "beat ONE is HERE" to Live. A midi trigger for 'FORCE LOCK TO BEAT ONE' would be great here. A big jump, different to TAP tempo.
--------------------------

Second problem

If you play a wrong note on a trumpet in a tune, no worries, just quickly go to the right one.

But if you trigger a long loop in live out of time, too bad. How can we correct mistakes on the fly?

I think there is problems with the architecture in live with regards to this, hence no MIDI control on clip loop positions etc.

However, how would we LIKE it to work? probably similar to global tempo, except a different controller for each clip?

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:14 pm

hi SongCarver and others,

a few months ago, right after i wrote this original thread, i wrote a refined version that proposed, in addition to "nudge" and "brake", "pause" and "unpause" buttons per track.

"pause" and "unpause" would serve the dual purpose of making it even easier to correct mistakes, and it would add creative possiblilities ("mary had a little lamb" could instantly become "mary had a lit Tle LAMB!")

***********************************************************

the thought has also crossed my mind that a "snap to beat one" function would be good. my questions are, though, "beat 1 compared to what?" and "would a pause and unpause function approximate this functionality, even if the feel would be a little different?" (probably not)

would it somehow takes its cue from the master location to determine which "1" to snap to (IMO, bad idea) or would it, depending on whether you were closest to the front or back of a measure, snap to the previous "1" or the next "1"?

$0.01,
rs

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 3:39 pm

I really don't see what it is you all need.

You can nudge the master tempo for your live set by clicking on the bpm display and hitting up/down arrow to move in whole numbers (ie. 120 to 121 or 119) or by 1/10ths of 1 bpm (ie. 120 to 120.10 or 119.90) with shift+up/down arrow.

Trying to beatmatch to a dj seems a little backwards to me though, wouldn't you have them beatmatch to you and then they can break/nudge all they want?

As far as mis-triggering clips, you can set the quantization for every clip in your set under the launch settings for each clip. With the right settings you should not be mis-firing and launching clips early or late.

It seems to me that if you mis-launched a clip and it was say exactly 1/16th note early, that in a live situation with the flexibility live 4 offers, you should have no problem correcting that mistake. Here is one idea, if you have the spare cpu power you could always throw a simply delay at it and set it to:
1/16th note delays (left and right)
feedback - 0
sync - on (of course)
then gradually slide the wet dry knob over to the 100% wet position and BINGO problem solved.

If you learn to think outside the box and compare the "features you must have" and the limitations and strengths of live you should be able to find a way around whatever you get yourself into.

matt ob · Post by **matt ob** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:11 pm

ejectorset wrote:You can nudge the master tempo for your live set by clicking on the bpm display and hitting up/down arrow to move in whole numbers (ie. 120 to 121 or 119) or by 1/10ths of 1 bpm (ie. 120 to 120.10 or 119.90) with shift+up/down arrow.

If you're playing along with vinyl, it ain't pretty. The granularity is too big

ejectorset wrote: Trying to beatmatch to a dj seems a little backwards to me though, wouldn't you have them beatmatch to you and then they can break/nudge all they want?

True - but what people here are talking about, I think, is how to run Live alongside decks for DJ'ing. Therefore at some point in the set you will have a record playing and will have to sync Live to that. In order to do this effectively you need fine control over the tempo.

ejectorset wrote: If you learn to think outside the box and compare the "features you must have" and the limitations and strengths of live you should be able to find a way around whatever you get yourself into.

No disrespect but the solution you proposed sounds way too fiddly.

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 4:32 pm

last things first, try the simple delay solution it works out pretty well.

second, like i said before, you have a turntable and a laptop running live and you need to adjust/break one of the two to match the other, grab that spindle and give it a spin or a pinch and you are done.

done.

no reason to have any other features built into live for this, you would never get the precise control that you get from your finger actually physically interacting with the record/platter/spindle.

You would simply have a feature that would be just as likely to leave your audio still a bit off and it would probably lead to more confusion and more problems for people that aren't trying to slave live to a turntable (people trying to use a nudge feature to get around warping their songs for example).

on this thread it seems like people have been discussing two issues, slaving live's tempo to a turntable (again, backwards) and other people talking about having more "dj like" controls to fix mistakes that the chances of them happening could be limited a lot with some careful planning and setting of clip launch quantizations.

there is no valid reason (that I can think of) why you would need to "nudge" a properly warped track unless you are trying to slave live to wax, or am I missing something?

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:52 pm

hi ejectorset and others, thanks for replying!

i don't use quantization, and IMO quantization eliminates a lot of nuance -- loops should "hang off each other" in subtle ways sometimes, at least to my ears.

the "tempo tweaking" solution only works if you are trying to correct the phase of the entire live output with the phase of some other source (it may or may not be a turntable, it could be a sequencer, a drummer, a cello player, whatever.). even then, it's awkward compared to trying to "nudge" something into submission IMO.

about the other proposed solution:

having to relaunch a clip with warp markers altered seems like a step away from "live", IMO. however, i want a solution, and i'm willing to experiment with this one...

as best as i can tell, though, here are the steps it would involve--
you've realized your clip is a smigde ahead or behind. so, you:

1) copy the offending clip to a new slot in a new track.

2) figure out how far you are into the offending clip (rather, figure out how far you will be into the offending clip when you hit "go", and use the mouse to advance to that point.) when the time comes, hit "go".

3) blend from the "bad" clip to the "new" one and listen. if it sounds on-time, and provided there are no effects involved, you're done.

4) if there are effects involved (i've always got EQ going on if nothing else), match the effects settings of the "replacement channel" to the effects settings of the "offending channel".

if those buttons were there, instead of the steps mentioned above (i'd be surprised if anybody could do this in less than 2 measures), the problem could be solved almost instantaneously.

i understand the reluctance to add more buttons when learning to use what's there would suffice, but in this case i think this is a functionality that is genuinely missing not just for DJ use, but for general live use. i think it would add not only error-fixing, but also more open-ended creative possibilities.

again, i'm not just thinking in terms of using Live as a DJ tool -- i'm thinking in terms of what it needs to be more of an instrument.

the more "live" you make it, the more mistakes that are going to happen, and IMO a good instrument allows for slight corrections...

$0.0001,
rs
www.vato9.org/improv <---doing this kind of stuff makes you brainstorm for new features real fast

matt ob · Post by **matt ob** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 6:12 pm

ejectorset wrote:second, like i said before, you have a turntable and a laptop running live and you need to adjust/break one of the two to match the other, grab that spindle and give it a spin or a pinch and you are done.

Why on earth would I want to start fucking around with the track that people are listening to?

ejectorset wrote: no reason to have any other features built into live for this, you would never get the precise control that you get from your finger actually physically interacting with the record/platter/spindle.

Agreed, you wouldn't be able to emulate the record / spindle etc but AdamJay has posted a solution using a slider on a midi controller which can emulate moving the pitch control on a deck. That works pretty well for me, although having a nudge / brake option would be nice. Not absolutely necessary, just might make it easier to correct the pitch once you have it locked.

ejectorset wrote: You would simply have a feature that would be just as likely to leave your audio still a bit off and it would probably lead to more confusion and more problems for people that aren't trying to slave live to a turntable (people trying to use a nudge feature to get around warping their songs for example).

People can choose not to use it. Or they can abuse it and get creative with it. I don't see why this would cause confusion.

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:08 pm

matt ob wrote:Why on earth would I want to start fucking around with the track that people are listening to?

dj's that use tables do this all the time, I always kinda thought it was the basis of dj-ing, otherwise if you are playing two records they just keep drifting further and further apart from being on time.

ryansupak · Post by **ryansupak** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 7:20 pm

i've been messing with the simple delay nudge-brake trick.

it is a clever workaround, but IMO it's kind of expensive, and it's limited.

it costs a send track per correction, and when you're done with the offending clip altogether you have you get back to your main track seamlessly. that's a lot of extra moves as opposed to pressing one or two keys a few times and hearing the results instantly, all without having to deal with more rerouting...

also, as far as i can see, you can only correct a track that's "too far ahead", not one that's "too far behind". (you can't delay forward in time, of course).

rs