Octatrack swing vs. MPC swing and others

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#36

Here’s a recording I just made of the same pulse sample loaded in both the MPC-1000 and the RYTM playing back a pattern of 16th notes with 60% swing. Both machines are running on their internal clock at 120BPM and were started by hand. The only editing done was some cutting at the beginning of the recording to make the first pulse in both channels line up.

The MPC-1000 is on the left channel, the RYTM is on the right channel. Maybe my ears are broken, but the timing sounds pretty much identical to me:

CloudApp

You can download and inspect the original wav by clicking the menu on the top-right corner of that page. You can also get the pulse sample from http://cl.ly/2X3m2A3h2P2I/pulse.wav if you’d like reproduce this. Also, here are “screenshots” of the settings used:

FullSizeRender.jpg640×943 112 KB

1 Like
#37

RYTM swings deeper (approx 182 samples) than MPC

rytmpc.png842×587 4.04 KB

Btw, i don’t care about swing differences of OT & MPC etc. I think that there is no magic in one-dimensional skewing of events.

#38

Yes, I noticed that too. It’s only a 4ms difference though. This difference might be because the MPC-1000 has a resolution of 96 PPQN while the RYTM has a resolution of 384 PPQN.

My point exactly. As Roger Linn describes in that interview, the swing implementation does nothing more than delaying every other 16th note.

#39

Furthermore with OT you can point out what notes to delay

#40

Furthermore with OT you can point out what notes to delay[/quote]
Same on the A4/AK and the AR. Lovely feature. It’s also non-destructive, so you can easily try out different swing levels.

#41

I suspect that most people who love the MPC swing, actually forget that usually, the sequences are played in, and that therefore, the velocities have an important impact on the overall feel. In fact, it’s possible to make a sequence groove JUST by changing velocities, and leaving its timing completely tight.
The trimming of samples also plays a major role, especially once you have a few sounds playing off each other. If your kick is really tightly trimmed, but your snare has a few milliseconds of silence before its attack, then you are, already, introducing “swing”.
Furthermore, and this is especially well known for the 808, when sounds play together, there is a certain “synergy” that creates combined transients. An 808 kick won’t sound the same on its own, and when played with a snare and cowbell (on an original 808 that is).
I imagine that the way the transients interact on an MPC may be very different than on the OT.
What I’m trying to get at is that swing is definitely not the only factor that made the MPC the groove monster that it is. It’s mostly due to the people playing it, and an infinite number of un - quantifiable variables.

As far as Elektron goes, they decidedly do not want us to use swing much. Their arps do not swing, which is absolutely ridiculous. That, in and of itself, make the OT a really dodgy machine if your music relies heavily on swing and arps.

Cheers !

#42

What the hell are you talking about?

t said "I think this is what people refer to when they talk about the “groove” of a 606 or 808; even though the sequencers in these machines are entirely straight without a swing option, the way the analog circuity is triggered still introduces a distinct variation in sound that’s related to where triggers are placed in the sequence."

I disagree with this. I think it’s false to assume the analog circuitry introduces the “distinct variation in sound that’s related to where triggers are placed in the sequence.” Case in point, the analog RYTM, the very drum machine that prompted me to reply to this thread. And now you’re going to tell me I never owned an 808?? Lol okay dude[/quote]

im not going to school you, just look it up dude your making yourself look like a complete n00b

#43

Yeah t and secretmusic had some great points about timing that make perfect sense, both from a “math and science” and “use your ears” perspective. Thanks for the insight and inspiration. Most of the rest of you might want to re-examine their posts - you might learn a thing or two.

Let’s not make this about how device A is so much “better” than device B (as an excuse to go shopping for new toys) but about how we can put these ideas to use with what’s available to each of us.

#44

You’re not going to school me?? Thank you for showing such restraint lol. What point are you trying to make? If the analog circuitry of the drum-synthesis portion of the TR808 is the reason for it’s “un-machine-gun-like” sound, why doesn’t the analog synthesis of the RYTM do the same for it? Why does the Acidlab MIAMI not have the 808 groove although it’s analog circuitry is based upon the TR808?
Please school me. So far you haven’t added anything of value to this discussion.

#45

I also think people are talking about two different things here; the “swing” function that offsets certain steps of the pattern, and the inherent looseness of the feel of the sequencer with no swing applied. I’m talking about the latter, and I agree with the OP because I’ve noticed it. I’m just comparing drum machines I’ve owned over the course of the last 15 years. I’m inclined to believe it has something to do with the CPU as an earlier poster stated. All the older drum machines have this less tight timing that is perceived as more “groovy” by some, even the sample based ones (LinnDrum, Drumtraks, Oberheim DX, etc). But yeah, that’s where I start speculating because I don’t know enough. Maybe MFB uses a similar CPU for their drum machines?

#46

Lol grown men getting all heated up over a drum machine.

What a flamers paradise this place has become.

I once was producing a collaborative techno track with a friend and he was totally anal about getting the kick to hit at -6db on the master track, to the point where he wasn’t actually using his ears anymore - it was a math equation. Here’s where science in isolation loses logic - just because a kick at -6db sounds good some of the time, or just because it always works for producer X and Y, doesn’t mean that it will work all of time, or for producer Z.

You have to trust your ears, your gut, because these are parts of your biology and as music is a sensorial language your senses, wonderfully flawed in the same way that a UA1176 is flawed, are the true measure of what is what.

When people think of swing from old MPCs though they primarily think of drums, and I am adamant that the gain staging, AD/DA and envelopes of these instruments, combined with the swing algorithm, are what we refer to when we say old MPC swing.

My $0.02

#48

micro timing, vol/start/delay plocking will give some swing to a pattern, will it not?
layering as suggested will Change the groove
would ot vinyl sampling with analog hits create a subtle groove

not sure what the issue is with elektron swing

couldn’t one not use an sp1200, mpc3000 groove template and apply vintage swing from abelton into an elektron box

#49

^^ this nails it for me :slight_smile: love to hear someone ‘scientifically’ answer…

#50

I can’t wait for someone who’s never tried any of these drum machines to chime in and tell me it’s all in my head. I’m not even going to bother to respond.

#51

Marketing? This thread makes it more than clear that people believe in the magical swing fairy, so it makes sense to offer a lot of options even though they’re not inherently different.

#52

This is actually one of my primary complaints about most software these days; it’s so easy to add an almost unlimited number of presets that developers end up putting a huge number of identical presets in without wondering if that’s even musically useful at all.

#53

Bingo.

#54

I was concerned about the RYTM swing, thing is, with micro timing it has made swing largely redundant to me. I used to consider swing really important on a drum machine, micro timing is much better way of getting a nice groove.

#55

I’ve spent the better part of the weekend now building tracks in Tempest, Octatrack and Tanzbar, using drum samples from the Tanzbar in the Octa (as well as some from Vermona DRM). I’ve played some with the Volca Beats as well. All instruments perform very well. But they all have a different groove.

Bottom line - swing is a feature. That feature is part of an instrument’s groove, which consists of much more than just the swing feature.

Perhaps the swing feature as described by Linn, is an algorithm that doesn’t really make much difference from developer to developer (though I doubt it - unless they copy paste each other’s code, micro optimisation for example should make a difference). Even so, he’s just laying out the idea behind it, not the actual architecture or implementation. That would likely take hours to explain. So there has to be differences in implementation on this swing feature alone, that makes some kind of impact, detectable or not by measuring instruments but certainly by ear.

Disregarding this, for the sake of argument that maybe swing as a feature is identical on all machines, the groove on them are different. Ears and gut beat measurements by calibration, and swing is part of what makes a machine groove, but swing is not the only thing.

Velocity, timing, sample trimming, and swing of course, the musician’s own finger drumming skills, details in quantisation, the converters, just add to the list.

The point of this thread was to establish, is there a difference in the groove of different instruments? The swing feature is part of that but not the only part, and certainly not the question to answer.

So my bad for using that word, but let’s focus on the main question:

Is there a difference between how these instruments groove?

#56

This might be interesting for some of you:

[http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New%20ICS%20Litmus.html](http://www.innerclocksystems.com/New ICS Litmus.html)