Scaling relative step length to sequence length

Home Forums Feature Wishlist Scaling relative step length to sequence length

This topic contains 3 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by Avatar of Adam Adam 9 years, 11 months ago.

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  • #1560
    Avatar of Adam
    Adam
    Participant

    This is something that I’ve rarely seen in any step sequencer or arpeggiator. To have the entire sequence be a fixed length (one bar, 2 bars, etc.) and have the number of steps modify the length of each step so that the total number of steps plays out over this specific fixed length. The result would be that you could have one sequence running in “4 time” while another runs in “7 time” and achieve polyrhythms.

    I can think of two examples of this idea:

    The arpeggiator in the EMU Emax, which can scale the tempo of the arpeggio to the number of notes in the chord (more notes = faster rate).

    http://youtu.be/L-32bF_PNQ4

    Leon Theramin’s Rhythmicon which created rhythms by layering pulsing sounds that increased in rate at harmonic intervals.

    http://youtu.be/HkodVcuPVAo

    Cheers!

    • This topic was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Avatar of Adam Adam.
    #1574
    Avatar of alien_brain
    alien_brain
    Participant

    cant you achieve the same effect by limiting the sequence length of each track independently?

    #1581
    Avatar of Adam
    Adam
    Participant

    You can do that but you end up with something that looks like this:

    T1(5): 1-2-3-4-5-1-2-3…
    T2(8): 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…

    What is like to do is have both sequences last the same amount of time regardless of their step length. Kind if like this:

    T1(5): 1—-2—-3—-4—-5—-…
    T2(8): 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…

    You can kind of do this if one of your track lengths is half of the other one. You can then set the clock division to half on the shorter track to get this:

    T1(4): 1—–2—–3—–4—-…
    T2(8): 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8…

    That’s great if you want rhythms based on multiple/divisions of 2 or 3. I’m looking to be able to work with other more complex polyrhythms.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Avatar of Adam Adam. Reason: Formatting
    • This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Avatar of Adam Adam.
    #1584
    Avatar of Adam
    Adam
    Participant

    Apologies for the numbers on the above post. I can’t seem to get the formatting to display the spacing between the numbers correctly. And now it won’t let me edit it further.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 11 months ago by Avatar of Adam Adam. Reason: Typo
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