Time Signature Lookup - Free Cheat Sheet

[davestasiuk]

I enjoy using odd time signatures when I am creating and playing, but as we all know, most grid sequencers favor 4/4 beats, with each page being one bar split up into 16th notes. So it gets to be a bit of a hassle counting out beats and measures across different pages. Many of us have been requesting a “steps per page” feature for our beloved Elektron boxes, but alas no such OS upgrades have arrived for the older devices, and it hasn’t been included on the new firmware platform either. And now with 128 steps to work with on the DT2 and DN2, there should be that much more we can do with odd time signatures.

I remain hopeful that Elektron will figure out a way to let us more intuitively work outside of 4/4 at some point, but in the meantime, I’ve put together a collection of cheat sheets to help me more quickly and easily work in odd time signatures on my new DN2. I’ve produced lookups across 8 pages for 3/8, 5/8, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, 11/8, 13/8, 3/4, 5/4, 6/4, 7/4, 9/4, 11/4, and 13/4 times.

I tried to make the setup as simple as I could. Here’s an example, the first four pages of 5/8 time:

Because I’m working primarily with Digis, I’ve stacked the 16 trigs per page into two rows of 8. The current page is highlighted in the little diagram to the left. Directly above trigs is a numbered bar showing the beat count within the current measure. I’ve lightly highlighted the “one” of each measure in gray to more easily locate it (It also somehow seems to help me stress it in my head when counting out what I want to do). Then above the beats is a numbered yellow bar showing the measure count. Under the trigs I’ve included the cumulative number of steps for the entire set of pages, which can help when you want to set your track length.

I hope these can be useful for some fellow 'nauts! This PDF has all of the time signatures mentioned above.

Digi Sequencer - Odd Time Signatures.pdf (77.2 KB)

[shigginpit]

This is really generous of you to share your work dude, thank you.
Very clearly laid out too, really cool!

[Matan]

Feature Requests for all Elektron Machines

PAGE LENGTH Per Pattern time signature that will affect the number of steps per page. For example - 3/4 = 12 steps 5/8 = 10 steps 7/8 = 14 steps And so on up to 15/16 i guess… That way it will be easier to follow the sequencer in non 4/4 time signatures when switching pages. And the new pages functions in AR/ST will make more sense

[B_LD]

OT

I keep reading

[Old Time Signature Lookup - Free Chat Sheet]

True story. Confusing.

Sheet looks super useful.

[davestasiuk]

@Matan There’s this whole thread as well:

Sequencers : Please add steps per pages!

The thing i really don’t like on all Elektrons sequencers : you cannot set the number of steps for each page. Silly example : you work in 3/4, then your first bar is the 12 first steps of page 1. Second bar is 4 last steps of page 1 and 8 first steps of page 2, and so on… I know it’s not just Elektron, but come on, this is so not musical. Do you guys deal with it ?

[pumpkin_head]

Definitely something I’ll use! Thanks!

[chapelierfou]

That’s quite generous from you, thanks.
But in all honesty, I doubt it’s really helpful when you’re actually programming on the machines, is it ?
Also, the problem is super important when you want to improvise… and I can’t see myself having dozens of printed sheets while I’m performing !
Guys at @Elektron should at least see this topic and how people desperately try to make solutions for this.
No offense, I really appreciate the effort !

[davestasiuk]

@chapelierfou

I doubt it’s really helpful when you’re actually programming on the machines

I guess depending on workflows, maybe not, but I find them super useful, pretty much exclusively in grid recording mode. If I’m in 7/8 time and am adding variations on every 5th beat, this makes it so much faster for me to fly across pages and set it up.

I find when improvising it’s just much easier to count anyway. I’m not looking at the sequencer when live recording. But for cleanup after some sloppy keys work, again in grid mode, I use this stuff a lot.

[NeonMelk]

I’ve learned to exploit the lack of proper odd time signatures on my Elektrons.
It can lead to interesting variations for trig conditions.

That being said, thanks for the effort and for sharing it.
Nice.