2024-MAR-01 Info: Check out Songwriting Competition 079 if you're into "Synthwave" music making.

SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Winners announced

Thematic Songwriting Competition - recurrence: monthly
TrojakEW

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#61

Post by TrojakEW »

MarkS wrote:
Sat Apr 27, 2019 13:06 CEST
What i am doing wrong with syncopation in my melodies? Some people: say it's too robotic, when i go right on kick drum. But when i use syncopation , some people say it's off. So i try to have some light in this matter. This is a answer with a question but i hope you can get it.
Syncopation is the way to add variety to the rhythm. You have to also choose right place and right time for syncopation. It is not that you just throw it somewhere randomly. It all depend on context and composition.

Also what I usually do (quite often) is avoid 100% quantization of notes. Sometime it works better then syncopation. There is no way in reality to perfectly play on instrument especially in ensemble. There is no way all players in ensemble start playing every note at the exact same millisecond. There is always some delay. ALso important is velocity per note.

So here is small not so good example I just made to show you what I mean and what I don't like. Same melody but two different approach. First is perfectly quantized part with same velocity per note no syncopation. Second one is with gentle syncopation, without quantization and note velocity based on play.

So the first one is is totally mechanical without emotion - robot like. But I'm not musician it is just what I feel when listening. No matter what instrument type some emotion have to be implemented or you get morse code.
Leonard Bowman
Posts: 74
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 00:09 CET

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#62

Post by Leonard Bowman »

edit: didn't see trojakEW's post before writing this.
MarkS wrote:
Sat Apr 27, 2019 13:06 CEST
What i am doing wrong with syncopation in my melodies?
Good syncopation is about mixing upbeats and downbeats (in my opinion). There are some moments in your track where the main rhythmic elements are all on upbeats so it's hard to find the pulse. Or some of your melodic elements play some interesting rhythms but there is nothing to anchor it down to the main beat (metaphorically) because the downbeats aren't strong.
For me, I like to use a lot of dotted notes in my syncopated stuff, that way you can jump between these feelings of upbeats and downbeats. those turn-arounds are what makes syncopation powerful. In general, syncopation comes by feel for me rather than by plotting it out. Make a beat, sing along to it, and write out that rhythm.
Also, have a look at "son clave" and other common syncopated rhythms.

Maybe an extreme example, but this song lives on syncopation:
phpBB [media]

There are a lot of things that hapen only on upbeats but the overall rhythm is strong enough that the listener can still nod along to it.
MarkS

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#63

Post by MarkS »

thanks for your both answers TrojakEW and Leonard Bowman , it will take some time for me to understand but i will get it.
donkey tugger

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#64

Post by donkey tugger »

All good advice there, and there's also simple little things which musicians do, which are often forgotten when recording/programming. Probably more applicable to pop/rock stuff than to this contest, but having a think about the mechanics of an instrument and how it's actually played in a real world context can go a long way when you're trying to program something. A few general observations on drums (not rules - they're for fools...);

Drummers are simple, excitable creatures and will play way ahead of the beat in rolls (when I used to play in bands sometimes I could see the rest of them looking at me as they struggled to catch up). Don't be afraid of nudging the notes back quite a bit in fills.

Keep in mind the buggers only have two arms and legs, so always keep an eye on what's feasible and what isn't - e.g. you wouldn't be able to go straight from some big fill finishing on the floor tom back to the hi-hats on the next beat - if in doubt leave a gap.

Swing is your friend. As outlined above, in terms of real instruments, very little is actually played absolutely straight on the beat. Even a little bit of swing adds loads to the feel of a song. Mr Bonham played absolutely everything with swing...

Velocity and volume variation and automation are key. Even if you're going to reduce the dynamics with compression etc later, any good sampled kit will have a number of velocity layers so use this to your advantage to emphasise both sections in your song, and also use automation to build things within sections. In the real world, as well as playing louder and harder, drummers also tend to do things like gradually open the hi-hat pedal a bit coming up to chorus etc to build things up.

Use the articulations in the kit. Good sampled kits/drum vsts will have a number of articulations for most drums (e.g. hi-hats with varying degrees of openness, snare and toms played in the centre and as rimshots etc). If you mix these up a bit (being careful that it doesn't sound unrealistic - things like rimshots are more generally used for emphasis rather than as the default snare sound) then it makes a lot of difference.

Arghh - writing all that has made me miss playing again, much as I do like the challenge of programming drums. I'm sure the neighbours wouldn't mind if I bought another kit... :hihi:
MarkS

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#65

Post by MarkS »

Thank you donkey tugger for advice.( your story is quite a thing, so lively yet very informative)
i am so green in drums, but i'll try to keep in mind your words.
donkey tugger

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#66

Post by donkey tugger »

MarkS wrote:
Sun Apr 28, 2019 12:49 CEST
.( your story is quite a thing, so lively yet very informative)
Glad you found it so. In a previous life part of my job was teaching (basic music technology and simple IT stuff) and I quickly found that boring people isn't the way to help them learn!
Clueless
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2019 12:54 CET

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#67

Post by Clueless »

donkey tugger wrote:
Sun Apr 28, 2019 02:21 CEST
All good advice there, and there's also simple little things which musicians do, which are often forgotten when recording/programming. Probably more applicable to pop/rock stuff than to this contest, but having a think about the mechanics of an instrument and how it's actually played in a real world context can go a long way when you're trying to program something. A few general observations on drums (not rules - they're for fools...);

Drummers are simple, excitable creatures and will play way ahead of the beat in rolls (when I used to play in bands sometimes I could see the rest of them looking at me as they struggled to catch up). Don't be afraid of nudging the notes back quite a bit in fills.

Keep in mind the buggers only have two arms and legs, so always keep an eye on what's feasible and what isn't - e.g. you wouldn't be able to go straight from some big fill finishing on the floor tom back to the hi-hats on the next beat - if in doubt leave a gap.

Swing is your friend. As outlined above, in terms of real instruments, very little is actually played absolutely straight on the beat. Even a little bit of swing adds loads to the feel of a song. Mr Bonham played absolutely everything with swing...

Velocity and volume variation and automation are key. Even if you're going to reduce the dynamics with compression etc later, any good sampled kit will have a number of velocity layers so use this to your advantage to emphasise both sections in your song, and also use automation to build things within sections. In the real world, as well as playing louder and harder, drummers also tend to do things like gradually open the hi-hat pedal a bit coming up to chorus etc to build things up.

Use the articulations in the kit. Good sampled kits/drum vsts will have a number of articulations for most drums (e.g. hi-hats with varying degrees of openness, snare and toms played in the centre and as rimshots etc). If you mix these up a bit (being careful that it doesn't sound unrealistic - things like rimshots are more generally used for emphasis rather than as the default snare sound) then it makes a lot of difference.

Arghh - writing all that has made me miss playing again, much as I do like the challenge of programming drums. I'm sure the neighbours wouldn't mind if I bought another kit... :hihi:
^^ ^^
This is excellent advice :)
Additionally.
If you use a synth for drums check your midi length, try a value lower than 16 , say 32/64 & increase your release time, this can create an extension to your snare/hats and give extra liveliness to drumming. You can also try this on drumsynths as I have had some disturbing/good results using Image line drumax :D

Good luck in you midi programming quest.
MarkS

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#68

Post by MarkS »

thanks for
Clueless wrote:
Sun Apr 28, 2019 21:41 CEST
Good luck in you midi programming quest.
but i'll consider that as,, good luck in drum programming,, since i dont use a vst drum instrument. I am programming my drums in beatbox 2 from magix , which has a lot of features as: different drum kits(electro,acoustic, hip hop,etc.) with 16 instrument lines, pan,volume,velocity,pitch for each instrument, grid for 8,16,32 notes,shuffle. So i'll try your advice.for release i think i'll use some delay with a high-pass filter to achieve that. but maybe i will try in future a midi drum vst since now i try to use as few instruments as possible to learn them better.also this keeps me from trying a lot of instruments and effects. This in past ended even a little desire to make music, since you encounter new interface, controls, synthesis type, etc.
TrojakEW

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#69

Post by TrojakEW »

MarkS wrote:
Mon Apr 29, 2019 00:11 CEST
I am programming my drums in beatbox 2 from magix , which has a lot of features as: different drum kits(electro,acoustic, hip hop,etc.) with 16 instrument lines, pan,volume,velocity,pitch for each instrument, grid for 8,16,32 notes,shuffle.
This is first time I hear about this and I don't know about all features in this, but what I see on youtube this thing looks limited. Are you talking about this:
Image
From what I see you can't turn of qantization. You can just fill those patterns? Is there any way to add triplets or use different time signature for different instruments - rows? Does it have round robbins and velocity layers in samples? If not, is there a way to apply filter or any effect to note velocity as source of modulation and randomize sample start offset? I'm sure I will not able to do anything good in this :lol:

You should consider to use something else if those basic things are not possible. I don't use any other sequencer for drums just DAW and any multikit or synth if needed. You have far more control of everything.

BTW thank you all for joining the conversation. Every information is usefull even for me so thank you Leonard Bowman, donkey tugger . :tu:
MarkS

Re: SONGWRITING COMPETITION - SWC020 April 2019 - Voting until 01-05-2019 11:59pm GMT+2/CEST

#70

Post by MarkS »

TrojakEW wrote:
Mon Apr 29, 2019 07:54 CEST
what I see on youtube this thing looks limited
Maybe, but I don't try to compare it to superior drummer or steven slate drums. Because i don't need for now these kind of
possibilities. I am more now for using drums programming as you can do with a drum machine.for things you can do with
beatbox 2 i'll highlight these:1.you can make two or more(remember there are only 16 lines)copies of an drum kit element and its
pattern, let's say snare, for every copy you can change pattern, velocity, pitch, amp envelope,volume, pan, so you can make
impression of playing a real one( :) never played an real drum kit so maybe i am wrong, but i think so it works ), also
some kits have two version of same snare and a rimshot; 2. you can draw velocity lines, or any automated parameter which
drum kit element has; 3.when you move grid line from 8 to 32 you can fill these squares to get a more accurate rhytm( example you
can make a clap to be slightly after or before the snare, not only right on it); 4. for grid/quantization off you can use shuffle, maybe it
works like swing or humanize effect i believe. how i work with it , i make as much copies of this instrument as drum kit elements
i used for drum pattern. I bounce them to audio and i have possibility to make some more accurate changes.So maybe it's not all you want,
but you can do something. also i'll take your advice into consideration too.
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