Analogue-sequencer

Hi all,

Couple of questions about time manipulation on the Cirklon. I have read the manual and searched this forum, but didn't find the direct answers.

1 - Is there swing on the Cirklon? And / or groove template type things?

2 - Is there a way to have negative offset on tracks or patterns? I see there is a 'delay' parameter per note on a P3 pattern, but it only seems to go positive. I find it very useful to have negative offset per track, especially for drums.

Thanks!

Nik

>>1 - Is there swing on the Cirklon? And / or groove template type things?<<

kind of.... you should probably put your search terms into the cirklon-beta group messages; there's a lot more discussion there than here. 

one of the things I've been plaguing colin for is something that extracts timing offsets from a live-recorded cirklon pattern & imposes it on other cirklon patterns or even onto the cirklon's P3-type patterns. 

a sort of reverse-quantize.

the idea is that rather than aligning all your sloppily played notes to a strict grid, you bend the grid around the feel of your playing. there is already a control in the cirklon for how much quantisation is applied to a (badly-played) cirklon "recording". this just applies the same math(s) with the logic reversed.

but one glance at the group messages will give you some idea of the number of requests for features & tweaks that the birthday boy got yesterday. :-)

>>2 - Is there a way to have negative offset on tracks or patterns? I see there is a 'delay' parameter per note on a P3 pattern, but it only seems to go positive. I find it very useful to have negative offset per track, especially for drums.<<

+1 on that, & I have also been asking for something like this. 

I see where you're coming from, but there's a problem with slipping the first event in a pattern- do you leave it on tick 0 or push it round to the end of the pattern? & then what happens if you add more bars or change the last step? I used to play with the offset values on my alesis mmt8 to tighten up timing, & watch notes disappear from the first step to the last step of patterns. sometimes it was a real nuisance.
what I've been asking for (& this applies to P3 rather than cirklon patterns, so P3 aswell as cirklon hardware) is a way to have pre-emptive repeats. same problem- what do you do with the first step?

musically, this would allow you to set up triplets etcetera, around or ahead of the beat, a common technique in percussion, & one that would be familiar to anyone (like me!) that's analysed chris franke's use of the moog 960 on "stratosfear".

duncan.

Thanks duncan.

I would have searched the beta group, but apparently no one can read it unless you have bought the Cirklon... not something that I feel is very helpful I have to say - even being able to read but not post to it would be better - not sure why it needs to be behind 'closed doors'. As a prospective owner, I would really like to see all the discussions being held, even if I can't post there.

Regarding negative offset, the pattern should not 'wrap' the first note to the end, the sequencer should just play the pushed note before the start of the bar - IOW it needs to look forward and see if any notes are set to play at the start of the bar, with a negative offset.

Regarding groove and swing, I think just having some templates would be good, either user made or preset. Is swing implemented or not?

Thanks,

Nik



--- In analogue-sequencer@yahoogroups.com, "duncan" <ferrograph@...> wrote:

>
> >>1 - Is there swing on the Cirklon? And / or groove template type things?<<
> 
> kind of.... you should probably put your search terms into the cirklon-beta group messages; there's a lot more discussion there than here. 
> 
> one of the things I've been plaguing colin for is something that extracts timing offsets from a live-recorded cirklon pattern & imposes it on other cirklon patterns or even onto the cirklon's P3-type patterns. 
> 
> a sort of reverse-quantize.
> 
> the idea is that rather than aligning all your sloppily played notes to a strict grid, you bend the grid around the feel of your playing. there is already a control in the cirklon for how much quantisation is applied to a (badly-played) cirklon "recording". this just applies the same math(s) with the logic reversed.
> 
> but one glance at the group messages will give you some idea of the number of requests for features & tweaks that the birthday boy got yesterday. :-)
> 
> >>2 - Is there a way to have negative offset on tracks or patterns? I see there is a 'delay' parameter per note on a P3 pattern, but it only seems to go positive. I find it very useful to have negative offset per track, especially for drums.<<
> 
> +1 on that, & I have also been asking for something like this. 
> 
> I see where you're coming from, but there's a problem with slipping the first event in a pattern- do you leave it on tick 0 or push it round to the end of the pattern? & then what happens if you add more bars or change the last step? I used to play with the offset values on my alesis mmt8 to tighten up timing, & watch notes disappear from the first step to the last step of patterns. sometimes it was a real nuisance.
> what I've been asking for (& this applies to P3 rather than cirklon patterns, so P3 aswell as cirklon hardware) is a way to have pre-emptive repeats. same problem- what do you do with the first step?
> 
> musically, this would allow you to set up triplets etcetera, around or ahead of the beat, a common technique in percussion, & one that would be familiar to anyone (like me!) that's analysed chris franke's use of the moog 960 on "stratosfear".
> 
> duncan.
>

>>As a prospective owner, I would really like to see all the discussions being held, even if I can't post there.<<

I'm sure colin's thought about this.... thing is, there's quite a lot of stuff for him to deal with already... I'm not sure what the answer is unless he manages to find time to come here more often. this is, after all, a generically-named group that just happens to be mostly about the P3. it says "cirklon" up there aswell now, I notice.

>>Regarding negative offset, the pattern should not 'wrap' the first note to the end, the sequencer should just play the pushed note before the start of the bar - IOW it needs to look forward and see if any notes are set to play at the start of the bar, with a negative offset.<<

yes, but how does it anticipate you pushing "go"? :-)

>>Regarding groove and swing, I think just having some templates would be good, either user made or preset. Is swing implemented or not?<<

yes, it is, at track level. which means it affects all the patterns in a track, rather than individual patterns. 

what I was getting at was more to do with the cirklon patterns, which are entered by live-recording & can be edited with a grid-view.

you can, of course, quantise these so that your keyboard or drumpad fumblings are pulled towards the gridlines to a greater or lesser degree, so that they are properly in time with step-entered P3 patterns. 

what I wanted to do was the exact opposite, using the same underlying technique, to "unquantise" the P3 parts, & to match the timing of multiple cirklon parts to a single "groove template" derived from whatever cirklon pattern you regard as having the essential feel for a song.
I think there's some mileage in this, especially if the master cirklon part is a percussion/drum part & has a particular groove to it that you'd like the other "instruments" to follow. I also think it would be a unique feature of this hardware. is there a s/w sequencer that lets you do this? logic, maybe?

d.

> >>As a prospective owner, I would really like to see all the discussions being held, even if I can't post there.<<
> 
> I'm sure colin's thought about this.... thing is, there's quite a lot of stuff for him to deal with already... I'm not sure what the answer is unless he manages to find time to come here more often. this is, after all, a generically-named group that just happens to be mostly about the P3. it says "cirklon" up there aswell now, I notice.

Yeh I guess it is more of a 'keep the faith' type thing, Sequentix are probably 'shifting enough units' in any case, without having to go into great detail about the sequencer... still feels a little like I am in the dark here though... what is being discussed in the secret room!

> >>Regarding negative offset, the pattern should not 'wrap' the first note to the end, the sequencer should just play the pushed note before the start of the bar - IOW it needs to look forward and see if any notes are set to play at the start of the bar, with a negative offset.<<
> 
> yes, but how does it anticipate you pushing "go"? :-)

The sequencer just starts with 'pre-roll' when something has negative offset. If it was synced externally, you'd program a blank bar to start.

> >>Regarding groove and swing, I think just having some templates would be good, either user made or preset. Is swing implemented or not?<<
> 
> yes, it is, at track level. which means it affects all the patterns in a track, rather than individual patterns. 

Sounds good to me, globally per song would be ok as well.

> what I wanted to do was ... to match the timing of multiple cirklon parts to a single "groove template" derived from whatever cirklon pattern you regard as having the essential feel for a song.

I like the sound of that! Nothing like a bit of space-time manipulation!