left some comments in the soundcloud…
Very interesting discussion.
@namnidor and @mekohler : 1000 thanks for the docs !
I love using 5/4 or 7/4 signature. I found that if you create such pattern and work on the loop, searching for melodies or rhythms for other rhythmic tracks, you end finding it natural, like when you’re stuck with a melody in the end.
Do this often enough, and you’ll end finding these time signature less and less weird.
(But maybe it’s just my mind.)
There is a book called Rhythmic Vocabulary: Musician’s Guide To Understanding and Improvising with Rhythm. I took it out from my local library and photocopied a bunch of useful pages. It is a good way to work through Afro-Cuban sorta rhythms from the basics into complex cross rhythms. Best part is that unlike a lot of rhythm books at the library; it used a step sequencer styled grid instead of musical notation.
Yeah !!! 5 and 7 are great ! 5 is for instance fucking Turkish or Moroccan trance 
7… Ravenica goddess !
I personally also love 9 and 11, but if you want good resolution, it’s too long, cause 18 and 22 are more than 16, thus you can’t have 4 bars.
Also experiment ternary, and better, 4/4 with ternary polyrhythms using micro timing
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I use a lot of afrocuban and Brazilian claves, such groovy/funky feelings. This is where 2 & 3 intervals shine !
Try some samba clave for instance !
X…x…x…x…x…
X…x…x…x…x…
X…x…x…x.x…
X.x.xx.x.x.xx.x.
X.x.x.x…x.x.x…
Then shift left or right, double trigs, accents, etc… Infinite madness !
And this is only 4/4…
Will definitely check your book
I got pretty obsessed with odd time sigs for a while 7, 9, 10 and 11 my faves. I think this ones 11 http://youtu.be/waDq9SNwBVM
Euclidean sequences are pretty nice, that squarp thing does em. Most world rhythms can be derived from Euclidean seqs
@Takadoun: your soundcloud demo evolves to an awesome groove, very well done! I appreciate that the kick gets straight, in the beginning it’s a bit too percussions focused/shuffly for my taste. Straight kick and maybe hats, then the rest can go wild. That’s what you’re doing in the second half! Not just ‘doing’, ‘showcasing’, nice skills…
Wow love this one ! Is it live or with daw ?
Can’t wait to master retrig, scenes & perf to try such things.
Yes to Euclidean rhythms !
I tried Strom to find some, but I got the impression it always gives the same combinations for a given length and depth. Am I wrong ? Do you a tool to give all of them and with readable user interface ? You can pretty much find all of them by hand, even randomly, but sometimes it’s just the one you never tried.
@Mk7 : Thx man, will try new set of patterns when back home in two weeks, more space or scifi stuff.
By the way, does someone live in Istanbul or Bursa or London ? Will be in Istanbul tonight til saturday, then Bursa Saturday to Sunday or Monday, then Istanbul til Tuesday, then Paris for 2 days, then London & England til end of month. If you happen to know good underground music places, I would be pleased to meet you or to know your places Or just hanging out and talk about our GAS !
holy fuck! … pretty sweet piece of art! … congrats on that mr BIN … wish to see your workflow how to come to those results! … is that hardware or software… modular, DAW? cutting pasting a lot, or a formula? …
fits perfectly into “understanding drums” thread
holy fuck! … pretty sweet piece of art! … congrats on that mr BIN … wish to see your workflow how to come to those results! … is that hardware or software… modular, DAW? cutting pasting a lot, or a formula? …
fits perfectly into “understanding drums” thread [/quote]
I used a sequencer/time stretcher/sound shaper made in max msp, meta-sequenced from logic, jungle style.
[quote="“Bin”"]
I used a sequencer/time stretcher/sound shaper made in max msp, meta-sequenced from logic, jungle style.[/quote]
aah,… thanks… sounds complicated… no “miracle in a box tool” cheers
Hi! Pretty impressive, but after I read that you are studying darbuka before listening I was expecting some really good grooves and,damn, they are awesome!
How many patterns/kits you used on that recording? Did you randomly put trigs or there is some scince behind? 
p.s. I am also learning to play darbuka but never came up with such great grooves, teach me, hahaha
here is a video me playing along with analog rytm, not so clean and with marks, but thats what I have so far
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Thx a lot ! There’s nothing specific to darbuka here, just general grove.
Most of the time I start with the kick or toms-like sounds to create bass melodies or just bass shots. Then either I record live CH/OH and SD/RS/CP and add percussive sounds or other with CB/CY and TOMS, either I try to put random trigs, either I put specific trigs to shape groves I know work or specific trigs to fit something playing in my mind.
And in every case I adjust everything to leave room to everyone, ie I don’t place triggers with same frequencies on the same steps to prevent from phase problems, or I EQ carefully, I don’t fill each track too much so that each one can be added progressively and add complexity to the tune, like keeping headroom for the grove, and very important I leave headroom for levels to prevent from unwanted saturation.
Leaving headroom in frequencies, levels, grove, enables to hear everything distinctly and our ears like that Even the most saturated hardcore tune is so fucking well EQed that you will hear everything, though you could think it’s only white noise filtered in a guitar distortion pedal.
Regarding rhythms, experience and listening are of course very important, cause I know which step intervals and step patterns I like, but I also love to play random trigs very often to be sure that I don’t reproduce the same rhythmic patterns again and again. Then if I find a cool grove, I adjust and go on with it, adding complexity and variations with other tracks.
When it’s not random, a lot of my stuff comes from Africa for 6/8 or South America for 4/4, because they have awesome groves and claves. Then I adjust to be personal. But in the end you know them so well that you can shift or alter then directly in your head and put corresponding trigs with controlled random and it almost always sounds cool. And if you put your own sounds, it doesn’t sound like specific African or Latin music, it’s just you, that’s a bit of magic, here !
Last advice, be patient. It takes years, sorry, there’s no shortcut for you mind to compile all of this and be comfortable in days. Like sport, music, juggling, paintings, science, sex, etc… For me rhythms start to come easily, but now I have years again to master live AR technics
Just start simple, then slowly add complexity… When I started electronic music I was so thrilled that I just never ended a pattern, whatever piece of gear I was using. I was never satisfied because it didn’t sound like pros ! But hey, just wait and practice !
One trick I use a lot is playing rhythms while walking or running. The beauty of it is that you can’t lose the pulsation with your feet, so you can train and experiment with your tong, hands, keys, coins, or whatever. Your feet give you a solid marks, you can also count to train cycles and not get lost in your patterns when playing live. You can experiment odd rhythms and work big cycles and always start on the 1 with the same foot. Also change pulsation, double, quadruple, then back to slower, etc, etc. so many fun games which will improve your skills.
The magic in rhythms is also that it’s related to many things like respiration, sport, mind games, mathematics, physics, etc, so there are so many ways to do complementary things and improve even more without being aware of it sometimes.
It’s cool, so you seem to know what you’re doing with the drum, just try to transpose it to AR sequencer. Isolate a one or two bar grove and put the associated trigs, then double some strokes, remove some (silence is golden), use retrig to simulate rolls, and you will shortly mimic real groves. Use accents to emphasize strokes, and you’re done. For some people like me, the most difficult is the first ones, because you have to find your workflow. Sometimes it can take up to 10 patterns, or 100, before you find it, but then the gear becomes a prolongation of your mind
thx for explanation. btw is there a good source of interesting african rhythms?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33852257/200-Drum-Patterns-for-Drum-Machines#scribd …
wouldnt mind a pdf of this
holy moly! I found a copy of this book on my bookshelf the other day! I can’t remember buying it and I don’t know how long I’ve had it. I will have to program some things from it.