Much finer groove control

[colb]

We discussed this in a 'General Questions' thread, and there is no conclusive solution, so I'm following through with a request

It's important to me to have finer groove control, the division of steps into 6 sub steps is limiting.
The only current solution within Nerdseq is to raise the BPM to vey high rates, and even then the granularity is still coarse IMO - and you have to deal with the negative impact of having the ruler strip running at a silly speed, so synching stuff is tricky etc. far from ideal.

I can use an external clock with groove, but I really want to use Nerdseq as my master, and also not have to waste extra hp in my rack with a separate clock generator.

So please can we have some more advanced subtle fine grained control over groove.

Ideally this would be per pattern as it currently is (for improved phasing tricks etc.), but even if it is global, that would be an improvement.

Thanks Thomas, Nerdseq is awesome!

[XORadmin]

Yes, the main thing is that the NerdSEQ runs at 24ppqn internally. I had in my 2do list to experiment with 48ppqn, but i have to say that i am a bit scared about that. People praise the NerdSEQ for it's clock stability and that is of course something i don't want to put at risk in any way....

[colb]

Yes, the main thing is that the NerdSEQ runs at 24ppqn internally. I had in my 2do list to experiment with 48ppqn, but i have to say that i am a bit scared about that. People praise the NerdSEQ for it's clock stability and that is of course something i don't want to put at risk in any way....

Stability is #1 priority for sure.

Anyway, to illustrate my request, I made a little example of a simple bassline and drum groove in Reaktor that starts with no groove, then each time the pattern repeats it adds/subtracts an extra tick of groove, until on the ninth time round it is the equivalent of a Nerdseq 7/5 groove setting. This is based on having each step divided by 48 instead of 6. I'm not asking for that level of granularity in Nerdseq, but I hope it does demonstrate how more subtle changes in the groove could be valuable and very useful:

https://soundcloud.com/colray/groove-example2

[colb]

Yes, the main thing is that the NerdSEQ runs at 24ppqn internally. I had in my 2do list to experiment with 48ppqn, but i have to say that i am a bit scared about that. People praise the NerdSEQ for it's clock stability and that is of course something i don't want to put at risk in any way....

Have no fear - you can definitely do this, and I know my Nerdseq really wants to try!

[DJ Tap Water]

Yes, the main thing is that the NerdSEQ runs at 24ppqn internally. I had in my 2do list to experiment with 48ppqn, but i have to say that i am a bit scared about that. People praise the NerdSEQ for it's clock stability and that is of course something i don't want to put at risk in any way....

Have no fear - you can definitely do this, and I know my Nerdseq really wants to try

Other sequencers can run at lower ppqn and still have subtle degrees of swing. Maybe there is another approach... It's important. 

[XORadmin]

Yes, the main thing is that the NerdSEQ runs at 24ppqn internally. I had in my 2do list to experiment with 48ppqn, but i have to say that i am a bit scared about that. People praise the NerdSEQ for it's clock stability and that is of course something i don't want to put at risk in any way....

Have no fear - you can definitely do this, and I know my Nerdseq really wants to try

Other sequencers can run at lower ppqn and still have subtle degrees of swing. Maybe there is another approach... It's important. 

Of course i can do this. But basically we are talking about finer groove settings which would need a increase of the ppqn. The fact that you can generate a swing out of it is one of it's functionalities.
Other sequencers generate swinging/groove in a different way.
I think it makes more sense to add a special swing/groove command here if it's only for that.

[colb]

Hi Thomas, thanks for getting into this when you should be ignoring it completely and enjoying a holiday

I think it's important to maintain the open flexible functionality of the groove column.

e.g. For creating long slow phasing sequences, the current groove settings don't work, but with finer settings, it would be possible to experiment more with having patterns that take many cycles to re-sync with each other. Using this to work towards minimalism style results. It can be a really interesting compositional technique, but having some baked in top level groove clock would not allow it. Also I'm imagining using a pattern to gate the signal feeding a delay where the pattern it is running at a very slightly different speed to the other patterns, and also sending a trigger output to sync the delay time.
Stuff like that for me is what modular is all about - options to experiments without limitations. Rather than baked in features that apply to one specific function.

It's sometimes nice to have different patterns running with different grooves. So the drums and the bass might be swinging, but the melody might be straight, or there might be some straight background arps. Or some different groove.... snares pushing the beat with hats hanging back a bit. But for stuff like that to work, it has to be subtle, and you need per-track control of the groove.

[ural]

I think it's important to maintain the open flexible functionality of the groove column.

e.g. For creating long slow phasing sequences, the current groove settings don't work, 

you already can do almost all Raich's "phase" pieces on Nerdseq easy. I think for phasing you should use "short" and simple sequences what become complex because of phasing. then it is easy to catch that simple melody and how it changes.

[colb]

I think it's important to maintain the open flexible functionality of the groove column.

e.g. For creating long slow phasing sequences, the current groove settings don't work, 

you already can do almost all Raich's "phase" pieces on Nerdseq easy. I think for phasing you should use "short" and simple sequences what become complex because of phasing. then it is easy to catch that simple melody and how it changes.

Yes you can use phasing techniques, but only using workarounds like running the internal clock at a very high rate, or using an external clock.
Running the internal clock at a high rate works, but only at close to maximum bpm, and at that rate syncing tracks starts to get tricky because the ruler indicator is flashing across the screen so fast - it's a proper workaround for sure
Using an external clock works, but for me, a big part of what something like Nerdseq is about is that it can be the foundation of a track, it shouldn't require to be controlled externally unless that's required for other reasons (DAW synchronization etc.)... and the ruler still runs too fast.

I think you are kind of missing the point of this request though - it's not just about phasing techniques, that is a single example to support it. It's about the fact that the two fundamental elements of music are pitch and timing - and it's arguable that timing is the more important of the two. Nerdseq has limitations in terms of the control it offers over timing. That's what this request is about - giving us composers more flexibility and control over one of the most fundamental components of music.
If it's not possible due to technical limitations, then we have to accept that, but if it is possible, then IMO it should be a high priority.

[colb]

Hi Thomas, I unfortunately missed the live stream to couldn't ask any annoying questions. So I'll do it here instead

Do you have any news about possible developments of the groove functionality to improve the timing resolution for better shuffle and swing control. I'm really not getting as much use of Nerdseq as I otherwise would because of this.

It would be great as a per track thing, but even as a global setting type of thing it would make a huge difference.

Thanks.