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Comments
Yes it is 4 repetitions starting on a low d then ending on a d# an octave higher. The riff is 25 notes, I would like it to repeat 12 times
My issue is recording into a DAW, what do I set the time signature to?
See my previous message requesting a version that is one perfectly looping repetition of the riff and I can give a better answer than I could without it. Especially if you also upload the requeste beat track (you tapping out the pulse on a separate track).
Didn't I just loop it perfectly 4 times? And you said no click track correct?
Maybe I heard that first beat as a pickup beat. Is it the last note the missing note in my file?
I think this is what you are asking for
First just the riff
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qb3gv9g9tk7f7mk/Techno 3 riff.m4a?dl=0
Second just the pulse
https://www.dropbox.com/s/axd3v1sa6rw2p1s/Techno 3 pulse.m4a?dl=0
Third both together for reference
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tmcfcd0mdta5bby/Techno 3 riff with pulse.m4a?dl=0
I am able to loop play this in Cubasis2 with no issues
It is not recorded to a click and not quantized so there may be some variation sorry
That's 4/4 mate going by listening to the first file.
Um I don’t think so, there a 10 beats and 25 notes and it did not work in 4/4 in my DAW
Something is real whacky in your file the 1st note is missing and it sounds like there is and extra note before the D#2 the last note is correct
I figured it was just a wonky edit lol because the feel of the riff is 4/4. Then with the pulse is just off sounding but if that's all intentional disregard all of this. Whatever floats your boat
Main part is just 4/4
as in
D1 D2 D1 D2 D1 D2 D#2
1--------2--------3--------4---------
I listened to your clips and it is clearer now what you are hearing. It was kind of hard to hear in that first file you posted.
So it is sounding like 3+3+4 now. I was indeed off by one, I originally heard 11.
I won't be able to download the new version till tomorrow (probably).
But, the version that I was responding did not loop correctly. If you download the audio and loop it in AudioShare or the like, you will see what I mean. There is a reverb tail after the last note.
i trimmed it so that it looped to my ear, but since that trimming involved my judgement, I wanted to make sure to hear a version that looped correctly to yours.
It sounds like CracklePot is concurring with my earlier analysis. I'll check out the new upload as soon as I get a chance.
What is your reasoning for making it 3 + 3 + 4 ?
If anything with the pulse it sounds like someone trying to do a 4 over 3 polyrhythm.
Simple. Based on the version I trimmed and looped (see my notes above). When I loop and tap what I hear as the pulse, the phrase repeats every 10 taps. Within those 10 beats there are 'submotifs' that stand out as organized as 3+3+4
With what I hear as the beat, the major accents all line up with beats (or offbeats depending on whether you hear the phrase as starting on 1 or the eighth that precedes the beat).
I would be curious to hear you your version. I.e his phrase with your 4 or 8 beat pulse that loops with it. Not saying it can't be done. But I don't hear it that way.
Ha I actually didn't try it out, just vaguely listened but yeah you're right. After actually playing it as a whole just then I came to the same conclusion.
Cool idea when looking at it that way. I should of paid more attention because my mind was pushing it into 4/4.
I listened to the Riff 2 file and here is what I say. Assuming your first not is a pick up note, then I have 6/8, 6/8, and then 9/8. I was counting it all with a pulse per note, calling each pulse and with note and then 4+2, 4+2, 4+5. That is what I think anyway. Maybe I could count to the file for you later if you need.
@ralis: just had a chance to download the last set of loops. I stick with my analysis that it makes most sense as being counted in 10.
For the sake of figuring out the time, it was beneficial that you recorded without quantization or click.
My advice when trying to figure out the meter of something like this is to start by using Loopy to record a “perfect” loop as you hear it. The great thing about Loopy is that as long as you can play your phrase, you don’t need to know what the meter is. You just start recording, play your phrase and stop recording when the second phrase would begin. Once you have that loop, you can record yourself tapping or singing the pulse. You can then drag those loops into your preferred recording app. Then, in your DAW adjust the tempo until those loops are a precise number of measures. For example, I dragged your loops into Auria Pro, set the meter to 5/4 (since AP doesn’t have 10/4) and played with tempo settings till the loops were exactly 10 beats long—which happened at 123.39.
I will say that Cubasis can be a challenging app for recording music like this if you are not used to playing to a click because it has an invisible 48 pulse per quarter note grid which applies to the piano roll and audio edits. So, if you don’t record to a click, you may not be able to trim audio events precisely enough to get them to loop or lime up with the beat. If you can get used to recording with a click that won’t be so much of a problem.
In the good old days when I started recording, before portastudios or affordable multitrack, I couldn’t lay down a click. I would just lay down my first track with the most solid rhythm I could (sometime listening to a metronome through an earphone). That is to say, if you don’t know the time signature, you can just lay down your track and ignore your DAWs bar lines.
I recommend practicing at least 10 minutes a day playing to a click or metronome. You don’t need to know the time signature, but you do need to be able to tap in time to your pulse. As long as you run your metronome without an accent pattern the time signature doesn’t matter.
Once you can record your loops in Loopy, you can figure out a reasonable time signature by treating the pulse you tapped as the beats. In this case, you had 10 beats. There are times when it makes sense to think of those 10 beats as being sets of 5 but that discussion is more esoteric than it’s worth for now.
When you have a non-3, non-4 beat, it can be helpful to see if you can find natural groupings that you can explain to the other musicians. I this case I hear 3 + 3 + 4. But there are tens that are 5 + 5 and some that are 4 + 4 + 2 and so on. You could hear yours as 3 + 3 + 3 + 1 but most people probably hear 3,3,4.
A tip that I was taught is to count on your fingers in times as you listen to the loop and use a little trial and error to see if there are groupings that feel more right than others.
I hope that made sense.
Aoooooh I am really confused now, I see multiple things from different people. 3's and 4's and 10's and 5,s plus 1s ???
I am just looking for the time signature so I can input the time signature into a daw and create a click track then record the riff.
I have no issue recording to a click when I have a correct click to record to. I know this is not 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 , or 5/4. I tried those
I think I understand time signatures less now than before
Maybe you guys are messing with me? Because I don't know any better?
It is more like 3 and a half because the D#2 is inbetween beats
This won’t help
https://bouncemetronome.com/
What really helped me understand time signatures in my young and fresh years was listening to Rush songs and programming my little Roland TR-707 drum machine where I could easily set the "last step" in a pattern from anywhere between step 2 and step 16.
That step grid must have gotten engraved into my brain back then, still stuck to pattern-based sequencing today
BTW, if you want to mix patterns with different time signatures, you can do that in Modstep.
If you prefer a linear timeline, Nanostudio 2 has a bpm and a time signature track that allows for bpm and time sig changes during a song. Both great for experiments.
What is confusing you?
As I said, your riff has 10 beats.
There are multiple ways of dealing with that since your DAW probably doesn’t have 10/4 as an option. In a way the question is less “what is the time signature” and more “how do I deal with a time signature my DAW doesn’t handle.” But let’s wait to go there until we’ve straightened out whatever was unclear in my previous response,
Rather than confuse you more, I ask that you carefully re-read my previous message and insert questions where you are confused by what I wrote.
I don’t think anyone is messing with you, the the time signatures are certainly all over the place. I tried to record my counting next to your riff to see if it makes sense. It’s late here so it was nearly inaudible and I have no more time left today. To me there seems to be a pick up note and also the 3rd time around doesn’t complete? I guess I only hear what I hear. I don’t know what you intention is, but either way I’m counting this pulse per pulse.
I hear it as 3 measures long: with lengths 3 then 3 then 4.
To count the pattern of notes say this aloud:
(for the + say "and")
or Try this to keep track of where you are:
ONE and Two-e ah-Three and
TWO and Two-e ah-Three and
THREE and Two-e ah-Three and Four and
This is based on the system of counting 16th notes as 1e+a 2e+a...
The Indian Ta - ke - ta stuff won't help teach syncopations like this when the + is
omitted. To omit the + I wrote a "silent" - place holder for that middle 16th in the + slot.
A syncopation is a rhythm where a note in a strong position is silent like these "And" slots.
Time Signature for bars 1,2 is 3/4
The 3rd bar adds an extra beat (4 +) to the pattern so 4/4
Many have described the pattern lengths as 3+3+4. Some added them all call it a 10/4 pattern. Most DAW's won't offer the 10 option so 3,3,4 would be the most likely.
To make this work in a DAW use 3/4 for 2 bars and switch to 4/4 for one bar. You can also just pick a BPM and lay out the patterns and ignore barlines. If the bass player plays the quarter note pulses and counts 3,3,4 the patterns will match up.
I'm assuming this 10 pulse pattern repeats for the duration of the song. If not then just recording in sync with a pulse is the best bet and make a sheet of the 3's and 4's for the bass player to follow along.
@mcd: 10/4 would probably best be done as 5/4 where you treat your measure of 10 as 2 measures of 5. And you'd use either an accentless click (since the feel has its accents on 1, 4, and 7 which would feel weird if the click had an accent every 5 beats), or you would lay down a two bar quantized groove you played or entered to use as your click.
Treating it as bars of 3, 3, and 4 would be really cumbersome. As someone above posted, the Indian method of counting compound rhythms like this can be worthwhile.
Sorry if that last comment came across too strong. This is one of those musical situations where there are multiple ways of translating a feel to a time signature.
Since time signatures and bar lines are all about giving you a framework that is easy to follow, the "right one" depends a lot on what feels right to you.
I’ve uploaded some files that demonstrate how I hear the pulse. I’ve included a kick pattern that you might find useful (or not), a mix of my kick pattern with your riff, a mix that includes my voice counting out the beats three different ways and the kick pattern by itself at 123 bpm (as opposed to the 123.xx that I used for the other loops which is what was needed to match the tempo of the provided loop.
I’ve also included notes in the zip that explains more about the counting variants.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5swkyinxtd73ol3/TenFourRiff.zip?dl=0
In my DAW, I used 5/4 as the time signature since it doesn’t have 10/4 as an option. Two measures of 5/4 are being use as one measure of 10/4.
@ralis: “acting” you as you might not have been notified about my replies.
Let me know if you have further thoughts and questions. Btw, if you don’t have th LUMBeat MidEast Drummer app, you might find it very worthwhile. It has a large library of grooves in compound time signatures.
Yes. Excellent idea to simplify the DAW effort with a "time signature" setting that fits 2 bars to the pattern. I do like music where the ONE is in doubt (for the listener) but the musicians should really know when it's coming. A DAW could care less. In Reggae and some Latin (Samba) genres they just avoid playing anything on ONE at times: For me that's a type of syncopation. Syncopations confuse the listeners expectations and engage them in a form of
aural puzzle solving.
For dancing most people prefer 4 on the floor.