steevio wrote:
yeah, i never even consider for a second whether something is 'right' or 'correct', infact i usually go out of my way to do things in a way they arent normally done, but if something isnt grooving, then it isnt grooving and thats all there is to it.
i think with minimal music, the individual elements need to work in their own right in some way when exposed on their own.
for me the best grooves are a combination of other more minimal grooves which work as they are but when combined are even better.
right on. it's either grooving or not that's it. i always bring new mixes around the girlfriends of my buddies, sometimes just out of laptop speakers. if they bop their head i know it's working. as confident as someone can be, you can never get the 3rd person perspective. at least before 11pm which is when i start drinking and that usually helps
one effective thing i discovered some time ago is that quantizing is not as straight forward as people might think. watch what happens if you enable the triplet grid on a 4/4 pattern. the grid lines, fall at different places in time. the mathematical physics of meter will show you the 4/4 time signature is actually supposed to consist of three sets of triplets and not what the standard 4/4 grid is showing you.
those of you not using ableton that have the ability to adjust your PPQN (parts per quarter note) will notice that based on the various divisions available, will cause the actual notes to fall in a different place on the grid, even if not in triplet mode.
the cheaper mpc's had a 96ppqn and most people double timed them to get more resolution. so 192 ppqn. if you divide that into a quarter note you can work out where the 8th notes, 16ths will fall in time. Most sequencers default to 480 ppqn and you can see those numbers are not evenly divisible so the hard quantized grid is DIFFERENT and will sound different with a hard quantized pattern. the mpc 2500 and up have a 960 ppqn which does evenly divide to 192, where 480 doesn't divide evenly
i urge you guys to do your own tests to understand this. try taking a midi sequences that are the same 4/4 hard quantized at different PPQN settings and see if they null out. one 4/4 kick pattern is fine to test. it's also fun while doing the null test to adjust swing to see how it changes the amount of phase cancellation.
anyway, i strongly suggest you guys research this. the mpc forums are a great place to start. the point of this being you can get a groove the pushes and pulls with beats that are on a grid, just use a couple contrasting grids. this is actually what polyrythm is as opposed to polymeter which is what most people think of when they hear that term. but just using contrasting meters on top of each other wont work as well since the grid lines are still all the same
