Feature Request: Quantized Swing

Swing works on subdivisions, not on downbeats. Thus, I‘m pretty sure the timing variations shown in the video are not related to MPC Swing but rather artifacts and irregularities of event handling by a low speed CPU. As can be observed on many hardware sequencer, groove box and synth. Even DAWs used to have a „groove“ back in the early days.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/172431#Comment_172431

I was referring to the effect this causes - and used the word swing to describe it. So yes, it's all about the groove.

So, you basically want what is often called „Humanize“ - minimal random timing variations during playback which are different on each repetition of a Pattern.

Or would you prefer to have Groove Templates which can be chosen as virtual grids for Quantize?

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/172615#Comment_172615

Humanize approach would be good with the minimal timing variations during recording (not playback).

Not sure how the groove template approach would work. How do you see this working? Would you have to select a grid before recording? If so, I'm less interested in that approach for myself.

Like you described earlier, it's about adding the irregularities - the human side - and using the tech to make this possible.

Update: (Maybe a library of grids or random timing variations that could be applied to a track after recording could be interesting)

@dmori added:

Maybe a library of grids or random timing variations that could be applied to a track after recording could be interesting

That would basically be a library of Groove Templates.

I don’t remember where and when Groove Templates were introduced first.

The idea was to capture a drummer‘s performance of e.g. a 16th hihat pattern, and be able to selectively and gradually apply that performance (accents and timing) to your own programmed hihats. Those Groove Templates could then be chosen instead of a straight grid for the Quantize function. They were hip before drum plugins came with an abundance of actual rythms performed by real drummers, and made Groove Templates redundant.

Today, the same principle is applicable to audio files and is generally used to adapt the timing of several recorded tracks to a lead track, such as a the background vocals to the lead voice or bass and guitars to the drum track. This makes the recording sound tight but not mechanical.

Kai doesn't usually respond to feature requests… Also, this already exists.

The Maschine Variation/Humanize engine has "Time Shift" already, it basically nudges notes back or forward randomly based on a percentage, sounds exactly like what OP is asking for.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173303#Comment_173303

I know this exists, but does this work on recording? Can you show how this works when recording a pattern..

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173303#Comment_173303

Indeed Humanize is available, but the available parameters are rather odd. In general, you don’t want to force all your events to be shifted in time to also have random velocities within a certain range. Instead, you‘d probably like the velocities to vary by a certain positive and/or negative amount starting from the initial value. And often, you‘d want the time shift to happen only in one direction (pushing or pulling), and probably use milliseconds or ticks instead of percentage of the currently selected grid step.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173336#Comment_173336

What do you mean "on recording" ? Real-time? No, nothing can be ahead of time in realtime, only delayed otherwise it would be time travelling. :D

It's a post precessing kind of feature applied to already existing notes.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173338#Comment_173338

Yes, it's really annoying that this cant be applied while also keeping the current velocities. I agree with everything you said except for the one direction thing, thats more how classic swing usually works on Drum Machines, if one is looking for general modern humanisation then both directions is a great option, a drummer will naturally fluctuate both directions too.

@D-One explained

if one is looking for general modern humanisation then both directions is a great option, a drummer will naturally fluctuate both directions too.

I found it to be more realistic to have asymmetrical values for negative (rushing) and positive (lagging) deviations. Which is actually more human than perfect symmetry, as I found by analyzing recordings of drummers and guitarists. And it can even vary for different drums in case of a drum set, such as the kick being rather early and the snare being rather late (or the other way round depending on the groove). Naturally you can apply humanize and then shift all the notes by a couple of ticks, but asymmetrical values for humanize are more convenient. I really like this feature of the Cubase MIDI Modifiers.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173464#Comment_173464

It's nothing to do with time travel.

You should watch this video to get what I'm talking about. Describes exactly how it worked - and he worked in a big NYC studio in the '90s for top artists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A86yuEXfvYs

Watch from 8:00 - 10:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A86yuEXfvYs

Before then he talks about: Midi beat clock

8:20 - "…the akai, even without swing on, it would fluctuate…."

It's actually worth watching the whole video.

Then you can see the differences in the original video I posted at the top.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173514#Comment_173514

It describes some stuff, far from everything… Theres videos and blog posts out there of Roger Linn himself explaining some stuff related to groove. Back in the day these topics were discussed heavily here the forum, the mpc forum, gearspace, etc… I've read most of it, more than a decade ago.

You're quoting something then answering based on something else…

I was referring to it being able to do it live, like you asked, "it" being the feature in Maschine that adds a note fluctuation back and forth in position. This was the topic not bpm fluctuation, drift, or the simple fact that old MPCs had different PPQ's, if an MPC60 only has 96 PPQ then notes will be shifted around a lot more than on an MPC 400 that has 10x the resolution at 960 PPQ.

To that add the fact that MIDI clock itself has a super low PPQ, (20 something) and was unstable very often causing even more drift. Heck I had an MPC3000 and it was unable to play two sounds always exactly at the same time, if i used two kicks with the exact same MIDI the low end phase would change slightly from note to note when doing Kick layering. Some of this stuff wasent even on purpose, it was tech limitations, code issues, etc…

Regarding time travel the logic is: How can your hear Pad press before you press it? How does a device know when you gonna press it to be ahead of time? It cant, it can however delay it; unless it's a note repeat function and even then the first note will never happen before you press something. If you're referring to playback drift and all that … well that is not Live / Realtime, its… playback.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173510#Comment_173510

It will depend a ton on genre, I been chopping drum breaks and analysing them against a grid for about 25 years, full songs too since I am a mostly sample based beat maker. From the drums I personally sample it goes both ways but overall tends to have things lagged (soul, funk fro the 70's). For someone analysing Rock or Latin genres it might be very different.

Early snares, late kicks, different swing values per drum piece is for example J Dilla in a nutshell, someone highly regarded for changing worlds view on perfect timing on drums to this day.

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/173622#Comment_173622

Good explanation but you're missing my point. Of course you can't record something before it's played - but how what you play is recorded and printed can be changed via tech/timing.

Also can you explain what you mean here: "You're quoting something then answering based on something else…

I never used the word live - you used this word. I said on recording. I think the video talks about recording too.