Swing and Groove - What the fork?

[Patch]

I'm juuust getting into production. Having lots of fun with it. But I can't seem to get my head around Swing/Groove templates. It all makes sense when I read about it - swing and groove add feeling to an otherwise super-repetetive track.

What I don't understand is - HOW, when swing/groove is applied, does one tune stay in time with another tune when beatmatched? (I'm talking completed tunes here, not tracks in an arrangement).

I'd really appreciate any help here - my brain CANNOT seem to get around this!!!

[SPAWNmaster]

it's not like a permanent offset on your loop...and in fact should be used sparingly on your percussive grooves to give it a more "human" element. you dont want your bongo hits to be dead on for example, because a drummer would never have 100% accuracy. swing adds variation not an offset. as far as when mixing into another track typically any swing won't stand out as it's not so evident...use it sparingly to adjust the overall groove and sound rather than to influence the sub-mix, you'll just muddle your percussion if there's too much swing happening at every level.

[jeskola]

Also try playing your drums in with grid turned off for a more live effect.

[Patch]

I ***kinda*** get what you're talking about. For instance - when you set a swing setting to 16ths, does that mean it will apply an element of swing on EACH 16th note, or once on every 16 notes?

Thanks for the reply!

[chrysalis33rpm]

Me too, confused.

So swing doesn't offset the percussion by a set amount (like I thought)?

[Mesmer]

As my jazz teacher explained it:

IN JAZZ, besides de generalized compliment about having swing, swinging really means, affecting the eigths in the melody line, such that every other note sounds shorter than usual. IN THEORY there's a specific conversion going on (don't have my notebook with me right now, so I won't post misinformation now). IN PRACTICE you'd delay every other note (one on one off) so as to Gel/Lock in to the accompanying beat best. Giving it that Heavy/Hughe/Fat GROOVE sound.

It's effects turns a metronomic train:
Tat - Tat - Tat - Tat - Tat -Tat
into a swung hooky:
Tadat - Tadat - Tadat

Extrapolating that to Electronic/DAW music, I _would_imagine_ that swing just means performing a very specific reverse-quantization, that affects only specific beats and in a somewhat specific range of sub-beats: This pseudo-randomisation should also stay within a few musically pleasing delay "pockets" before the down-beat of the next one.

I guess it's only the experience of some expert consel, for the programming team determining what exactly is that "musically pleasing" thing.

This is the best I can describe this topic.

[pabloaugustus]

As my jazz teacher explained it:

IN JAZZ, besides de generalized compliment about having swing, swinging really means, affecting the eigths in the melody line, such that every other note sounds shorter than usual. IN THEORY there's a specific conversion going on (don't have my notebook with me right now, so I won't post misinformation now). IN PRACTICE you'd delay every other note (one on one off) so as to Gel/Lock in to the accompanying beat best. Giving it that Heavy/Hughe/Fat GROOVE sound.

It's effects turns a metronomic train:
Tat - Tat - Tat - Tat - Tat -Tat
into a swung hooky:
Tadat - Tadat - Tadat

Extrapolating that to Electronic/DAW music, I _would_imagine_ that swing just means performing a very specific reverse-quantization, that affects only specific beats and in a somewhat specific range of sub-beats: This pseudo-randomisation should also stay within a few musically pleasing delay "pockets" before the down-beat of the next one.

I guess it's only the experience of some expert consel, for the programming team determining what exactly is that "musically pleasing" thing.

This is the best I can describe this topic.

This is a good non-technical explanation! Swing applies to the grid of the subdivision of the notes, and doesn't effect placement of the beats (where you tap your foot) just the off beats (in between). Metronomic 16ths/8th are a precise grid, in units of two, like the squares in ableton's midi input window. At the extreme end of 'swing', triplet, there would be three units in the grid of each beat, and triplet 8ths would be the first and third cells of the grid. (count: 1-2-3-1-2-3-etc to establish groove, then repeat leaving the two silent, that is triplet swing of the eighth notes). You can subdivide the beat further, and have for example straight 8ths (1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &, tapping foot on the beats, the &s are in between), where the divisions (16ths) in between the eighths are swung. (these triplet are called 16th note triplets) Slower temps will often swing @ the 16th, faster tempos 8th, (if they are swinging that is), but it depends on the feel & groove.

When people talk about swing or degrees of swing what they are talking about is the gray area between straight time and triplet time, in other words between the triplet grid and the duple grid. (duple: multiples of two, i.e. two or four, etc.) This placement is what determines the 'feel' given by a certain drummer/certain groove. If you listen to jazz drummers ride cymbal beat, they all have a unique way the swing the ride. Some guys are pure triplet, some are straight 16ths, and most have a feel that is somewhere in between depending on tempo. It is subject of much debate (mostly among scholars, players usually just go for it) whether these nuances of feel are quantifiable with a rhythmic grid, and whether its even worth analyzing 'feel' and whether the analysis will help you play with said feel. Thankfully with live you don't have to trip, just find a drum groove you like and use that as your groove template, your entire track will then have the feel of that drummer. Or you can play around with quantizing things to % of swing or global groove and find what feels good for your tune. You may also find good results grooving only certain tracks of your song and leaving others straight.

The specific placement of certain beats can also effect feel. Many funk drummers play the backbeat (2&4) just a hair late compared to kick or hi-hat, creating a great feeling groove, or pocket. You can nudge backbeats slightly after the beat to create this effect in live. The Neptunes have said that they do this with many of their beats.

The 1e&ah (one, e, and, ah) stuff is the standard rhythmic nomenclature and is represented visually in ableton by the four grids in between each beat in the 16th grid. That way you can talk about each specific 16th note in a bar (e.g. can you give me more hi hat on the ah of each beat, or bring out the snare accent on the e of beat two).

A couple of more rhythmic definitions that are commonly confused: beat: where you tap your foot. off-beats: moment of time in between each beat. Downbeat: the first beat of a measure (beat 1). Upbeat: the last beat of each measure (in 4/4 time, beat 4)

Some of these definitions are relative, for example: 'give me off 16ths on the hihat' would be asking the drummer to play only the e and ah, the 2nd and fourth 16th of every beat. (not an easy groove to keep as downbeat oriented 8ths/16ths are what we typically play in western music.)

Being familiar with these subjects can save tons of time and allow accurate communication between musicians/composers/producers when discussing rhythm.

Peace!

[Tone Deft]

nice posts mesmer and pablo, there's been talk of note theory but not much on timing theory.

[chaircrusher]

Another easy way to think about swing:

16 sixteenth notes in one measure/bar.

If you swing 16th notes, and you number your 16th notes 1 through 16, the EVEN 16th notes are played late. The more swing. the later they get.

You can swing negatively -- i.e. move the even 16th notes earlier, This doesn't swing, exactly, and starts sounding like crap at a smaller amount than swinging positively, but a slight amount -- a few percentage points, can be interesting in the right track.

[pabloaugustus]

Another easy way to think about swing:

16 sixteenth notes in one measure/bar.

If you swing 16th notes, and you number your 16th notes 1 through 16, the EVEN 16th notes are played late. The more swing. the later they get.

Great definition of swing, thats beautiful man!!

This has given me some new thoughts that tie in with my thoughts about duple/triple rhythmic grids: as you push the swung notes forward/late in super small increments you will be hitting spots in time that perfectly line up with subdivisions of the triplet and duple grid. To visualize this draw a big square (seriously, get out your pen and draw this, it makes so much sense!) and divide it in half horizontally, making two squares. Now divide the bottom square into vertical halves (one line for the geometrically challenged), the top square into threes (two lines). Imagine these two squares from left to right as a rhythmic division of the entire length in time of the 16th note; this division is at the 32nd note 'resolution', because we are dividing a 16th note.

Imagine the 16th notes (the even ones as per the definition) placement in time as a vertical line beginning at the left edge of the squares. As you delay or swing the 16th note that line moves to the right. As you delay it further in time, it will pass through the first line on the box divided into three making a perfect triplet (@ the 32nd note division/resolution), farther delayed to the right and it will line up with the duple division, then the triple again.

Now divide the top boxes all into three again and the bottom boxes into two again. We can exactly describe the swung notes placement in time as either being right on the triple or duple grid. If the 16th notes (even ones!) are nudged even just a little late, by 'zooming in' on the rhythmic grid by chopping up the boxes into further threes and twos we can figure out where it lines up, and with which grid. You can also 'zoom out' by imagining the box as an eighth note divided into 16ths or quarter note divided into eiths and moving the vertical line of the notes placement twice or four times as far from the left.

After all this I'm not sure of what relevance this is really, but I'm sure its significant! The grid that the placement lines up with (and at what resolution) is just a tool to analyze/describe where it is in time, but my feeling is things will have a more 'swung' feel when they line up with the triplet grid. Of course the difference in perceieved swing between the triplet placement & scooching the placement over to the next duple marker would diminish at higher resolutions (128th, 256th, etc) & depending on tempo.

If I had a sequencer that could function at that resolution and that could switch between triplet & duple grids, I could figure this out! (and you wouldn't have to use % of swing and groove amounts, you could place your swing amount EXACTLY!) I'll have to talk with my afro-cuban friends who totally study this overlapping grid stuff all the time and get back to you guys! (or not if you ask nicely! )

Now try to say THAT in one sentence!!

[chrysalis33rpm]

OK, coming into focus.

But, is swing a definite amount, like an offset or a quantize? Somebody above mentionned it was more of a variation.

[Mesmer]

OK, coming into focus.

But, is swing a definite amount, like an offset or a quantize? Somebody above mentionned it was more of a variation.

Question - Too - BroAd, BraIN - MEltDoWn InmiNennT in 5, 4, 3, 2...

jk,

Here's _My_ answer:
From the perspective of an arranger, then YES it is variable. This means you'd probably be wise to "swing" some parts of the song this way, and other's not swung at all... maybe, in a huge song,( a full blown salsa with "verse", "chorus", "bridge", "moña" and "verse-alt" comes to mind) you'd like to swing this part this way and that part another way.

From the perspective of a session drummer, then NO. For this part that we are swinging right now, I'd like to keep the delays constant (+/- trace amounts of human variations -- should be insignificant, yet I follow the "this-makes-it-feel-real" camp).

@pablo:
I really like your construction-paper excersize, makes it so tangible it's great!
but if I may say one thing; I don't think you _have_to_ _necessarily_ switch on a "triplet" grid mentality when trying to swing. Wouldn't delaying by a dot (half your sequence's base note) also produce an agreeable 'swing' sound? Delaying the next note by half it's value, is really switching on a "doubled" grid mentality. Techno guys know this switch mentality as "dropping super fast snares, dude" just before the end of a big break - when they produce almost always four beats of a snare train at half or even a quarter of it's normal former value. Maybe in tropical music it's commonplace to overlap trinary and binary for swing purposes, that I have to admin I Don't Know! But just wanted to say, you can swing with binary delays too.

Also, your "draw a line, any line" excersize pushed me towards a simplistic eigth-grade-fractions calculation; here's what I find:

for eigth notes
the delay describes should exactly be
(1/8)*(1/3) = (1/24)
==> 4.2 % of a beat, aproximately.
Drummer's are awsome, if they can pull that off consistently!!!

[Mesmer]

that's funny:

one third BY one eight EQUALS one twentyfourth.
Where the full beat (compass...how do you call it in English? ah yes, a measure!) ahem, where a Measure is 100% ... the delay comes to: four point two percent aproximately (it's really 4.16).

-spent,
-h

[Khazul]

Hers my attempt at trying to illustrate and explain swing:

At its most basic, you get swing within a time signature by delaying every other note unit.

So in a 4/4 bar on a 16ths grid, if you were to stick a closed HH hit one every 16th, and they select every other hit starting with the 2nd and manually delay the start point (alt+drag right on the start), then you would be applying a 16th swing factor.

The convention I understand from swing in the context of 4/4 16ths is that 0% swing is straight 16ths, while 100% swing delays every other not to align with the next line of a triplet grid.

An excercise
- Set Live swing factor to 0, ensure the groove type is set to straight.
- create a midi track, create a 1 bar clip in it, switch it to 1/16ths grid
- now fill each of the grid point with a single hit.
- now swiotch to 1/32ths grid and shorten all the hits so they are 1/32ths in length
- now switch back to 16ths grid, and switch on triplet grid mode

If you look at the start point of every other hit starting with the second, you will see that each is well in advance of the 24th grid lines.

If you were to now select every other hit, starting with the second and manually move them right to allign their starts with the 24th grid lines that were under them - you have just created a 100% swing groove.

Now this is where Live IMHO gets it badly wrong. I have allwys though of 100% swing as effectly an alternation between straight hits and triplet hits.

The global swing factor in Ableton Live to correspond to this is actually 75, not 100. Of course you value only goes upto 99 anyway. In Ableton Live continuing with the 4/4 on 16ths grid, a swing value of 100 seems to correspond to delaying the note by an entire 32th, not some fraction (2/3rds) of a 24th.

If you want to verify this, then create a new midi track, go through the clip create steps above, but DONT manually delay the starts, so that you have simple straight 16ths

Now you hsould have two clips in two tracks - one of which is full swing aligned with every other hit aligned to a 24ths, the other is simple straight 16ths.

Now change the groove type opf the straight 16ths clip to "Swing 16".

Reduce the global tempo down to 30-40 - ie very slow.

Stick a suitable midi instrument on each midi track with the same sharp percussive sound on each. Now play both clips.

You actually get quite an interesting pattern - kind of african driving drum pattern, particularly so if you choose a couple of different poitched tom/conga/bongo type samples for the clips.

While they are playing, slwly crank up the global swing factor in live. By 50% you can hear the hits starting to close up. When you get to 75, the close are in sync. By 99 they have opened up the other way going back to a sound of the original driving paterrn as it was at 50 (well 51).

For the other swing options in Live, then is simply delaysing alternate 8ths in swing 8, or 32ths in Swing 32 which gives you options for half rate and double rate time signatures - handy for some hop-hop and drum and bass etc. You can get some intesting effects with low swing values and using different combos of swing8/swing16. Note on a 4/4 with hits on 16ths, in swing 32 mode you wont get any groove as only tevery other note is present from a 1/32ths perpective.

Hope that make some sense to someone

BTW this whole excise is very useful if you conduction it on every DAW and sequencer you have to find other how the swing factors translate from one to the other - setting swing factor of 30 in one sequencer is not the same as setting 30 in another. Also Logic (I think) has some specific point in the overall swing range that are easily selectable that corresponding close to a number of common feels suitable for house, jazz etc etc.

[chrysalis33rpm]

Thank you all.