Elektron-Users

jngpng wrote:
Apologies if I sound offensive, but as an actual scientist your self-assured psuedo-scientific bullshit gets my back up.

that was my favourite dismissal =)

hoho

b0unce wrote:

jngpng wrote:
Apologies if I sound offensive, but as an actual scientist your self-assured psuedo-scientific bullshit gets my back up.

that was my favourite dismissal =)

hoho

Forgot that one - pure gold - I don't think I have ever heard an 'actual' scientist refer to themselves as such.....

Once again - opinions are like ars*%$es - everybody has one - you just have to filter the wheat from the husks....

Respect as always - David
www.innerclocksystems.com

wrong thread

From the Elektron mailing list on yahoo:

"Re: advice Monomachine and Machine Drum or Spectralis
Posted by: "daniel_elektron" daniel@elektron.se daniel_elektron
Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:44 am (PST)

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, ehdyn81@... wrote:

> As for the user wave elektron, what ever became of the internal timing
> issue? Some people on the forums were complaining of noticeable clock
> jitter. Hard to believe as A.E. have really precise timing. But then
> again,

I've always claimed that the Machinedrum is dead tight if you run it
on its internal sequencer, and I don't want to back of.

People have measured sample delays on individual hits, which is not
what I meant. There are some "magic" put into the timing of the
Elektron instruments, can't disclose all, but I suggested in the
thread to do a listening test and see what feels tighter.

Not always your ear want to hear the most dead spot on note, the ear
is more complex than that. Many of the legendary beat boxes have a
special grove to it, and I think that people would feel a hard-to-tell
lack of something if we made everything sample tight.

When we designed our own magic we went through all legendary drum
machines , especially the MPC-60 to get an idea of the "magic swing".
It's not a swing per as, but some notes we noticed where perceived as
more catchy if put a few samples forward or, most often before in
time. That's what people have been measuring. I don't want to go in
detail as we put a lot of effort into this other that to say - do
listening tests. Try a sample tight (computer sequencer) and take some
of your favorite beat boxes and see which result you prefer real life.

It was a big thread and I just had time for one post to state our view
on this, so it can easily get lost.

If you want rigidity, computer is the way to go, but we want to do
something more.

Note also that there is no delay between patterns, so the tempo is
kept dead tight over time. As a matter of fact we've had it run
alongside Protool for hours with any delays.

What you prefer is always individual, but there are reasons behind the
small, _almost_ unnoticeable timing of the different notes in the
16:th and 32 note realm.

Note that the MIDI clock out is always exact on the spot and when
running the internal sequencer (as well as standard MIDI can do it),
and that the internal "magic" (that's our view of it at least, I
respect others that prefer exact sample accuracy) is only applied when
you run on internal clock on the internal sequencer and is/can not be
applied to incoming MIDI triggering data.

Daniel, Elektron"

:-o

that's really weird....

so why not giving us the option to switch that timing behavior off????

:-o

If you want rigidity, computer is the way to go, but we want to do
something more.


Daniel, Elektron"

:-o

Thanks for the response Daniel - it's a tough issue and you have made your point clear enough although I disagree on a number of fundamental points though all the same and because I initiated this thread I felt it only fair that I respond after so much healthy and, at times, heated debate.

I don't think there is any 'magic' beat box feel - vintage or contemporary. What gives any rhythmic pattern 'feel' is how we anticipate where sounds fall in time and because every individual hears subjectively it makes practical analysis and criticism of timing performance in sequencers very difficult. This I well understand.

What I do feel strongly is that adding any random element to step/event placement in any sequencing device does not create feel. All it serves to do is blur the edges of the groove.

The exact opposite applies when deliberate Push/Pull placement of steps/events against a strict quantised tempo grid is used to customise feel - pushed hats, late snares and of course shuffle/swing.

You use rigidity as a way of describing the interest many musicians have in tighter event timing and suggest using computers for such tasks. The term rigidity has negative connotations for most musicians but I must stress again that a desire for precision and consistency in sequencing is not about rigidity or stiffness at all. Quite the reverse in fact.

Feel is all about rhythmic anticipation ? and that very human anticipation demands that if a snare is deliberately placed 5 ticks late it must always sound 5 ticks late to faithfully maintain the groove. The potential feel in any rhythm becomes less focused when the snares fall 3 ticks late sometimes and 7 ticks late other times in a pattern or loop when the timing variation is of a random nature.

This is not human feel. It is not feel in any sense because the timing variation is random ? this is simply software and hardware not keeping time.

Remember that my initial tests were not analytical to begin with ? I could hear things shifting around which made me look closer. This was something I could hear.

If you had implemented a secret 'groove template' in the SPS-1 I could appreciate that to a point although I would have liked an option to switch it off. What leaves me unconvinced is the random nature of the push/pull. If it was a deliberate process to add a 'feel template' - wouldn't the step push/pull variation be consistent across a complete pattern?

I guess I am a little disappointed as I love what the MD can do and had hoped the timing could be straightened out a little.

At the end of the day ? it?s a very beautiful machine and makes beautiful music. That was never in any doubt. I just asked the question to see if it could be tightened up a little.

Regards and deep respect as always,

David.

I'm with Daniel on this one. I think that perfectly quantized timing is for robots and all I hear is a bunch of nitpicky crybabies in this thread. The MPC-60 DOES have magic and so does the Machinedrum in my opinion. If it is that big of deal and you want perfect assembly line robot music, use an external sequencer. Or just sell your MD and never return, which is what I'd prefer.

First, the MPC does not have any "magic". Its timing is just tight, almost to sample level. Do you own one? In that case you should do like many MPC users (me included) have done and measure its timing. You'll see that the magic everybody is talking about is just mathematically exact tightness.

Second, if the MD timing irregularity is a "feature" (sorry, but I have my doubts on this... I really hope I'm wrong though..) I want the option to turn it off, even for these two reasons alone:

- It makes syncing the MD to other gear a less than ideal experience.
- It makes editing audio loops rercoded from the MD harder than it should be.

Isn't the MD supposed to be the most advanced drum-machine ever made?

Surely we can have a "Magic Timing' On/Off option, given it's all on purpose. Then we can all be happy.

For all the people who posted on this thread and dismissed the notion that 2.5 milliseconds is esoteric when discussing tempo variation and well outside the range of human perception - here is a direct quote from the well respected John Klett from a published and detailed article from a few years ago called 'Delay in Large Format Digital Music Consoles'

?Feel is a very subjective thing. Let's define feel as the "relative placement in time of rhythmic elements". The character of each element will make its placement in time more or less a factor in the overall feel. The Snare drum has a large contribution to overall feel in your average pop mix. The only data we have on this at present is empirical. At one time Roger Nichols (Engineer for Steely Dan, Donald Fagan) is said to have defined the limit of feel perception at around 250 microseconds for key elements. My own experience watching how certain producers place elements in time on digital audio workstations brings me to the conclusion that this perception limit is more like 100 microseconds. In any case, people who are very "feel conscious" will agree that we are looking at timing shifts well under a millisecond as important and affecting feel."

Even if you take Roger Nichols' figure of 250 microseconds -the acknowledged SPS-1 random timing variation of 2.18 ms between consecutive steps is over 8 times the perceived human limit of feel.

The entire article is here if you like a solid read:-

http://www.technicalaudio.com/reading/digitalconsoledelay.html

Roger Nichols is a legend in his own right and has a great website of very informative articles published in EQ magazine over many years.

http://www.rogernichols.com/index.html

Regards as always ? David
www.innerclocksystems.com