Creating new musical sequence - complete confusion!

[AGrisWoldXmas]

I am REALLY REALLY lost trying to get started doing a musical sequence. I have an extensive music background, so I'm probably over analyzing this and making it harder than it is.

The beat wizard and tapper wizard are confusing me. It looks like the beat wizard tries to automatically "guess" the tempo? The preview section is what is throwing me off. What are the squares and radio buttons underneath? Do you click the radio button under the amount of boxes the time is (i.e 4 boxes for 4/4 time, 6 boxes for 6/8 time?)

The tapper wizard looks like the one to use, as I can tap the beat to the song.


I used the beat wizard to get something on the screen. This is actually the part that I'm very confused about. It looks like the "tempo" is signified by the columns on the screen and that has nothing to do with the time scale at the top? I guess I'm confused because in playing music you're not really worried about the time scale as much as you are the tempo and time signature.

Assuming the columns are the "beat". How would I sequence the song to animate a sixteenth note pattern? The way I'm reading my screen it looks like the channel would either be on or off for the entire beat. Is there a way you subdivide the column?

I'm sure I'm not using the correct LOR terminology, so I included a screenshot of the "columns" I am talking about.

Hopefully someone can shed some light on this for me. If there are any how-to or getting started guides out there that I missed please point me in the right direction.

I appreciate any feed back.

Attached files

[Don]

The beat wizard does really well on songs that have the same time signature throughout. A song that changes from 3/4 to 4/4 and back to 3/4 is going to mess with the software. You can get around this by doing sections of the song. (Look at the top of that beat wizard pop-up window.)

The 'columns' are really "timing marks." When you run the beat wizard is places a timing mark where it things the note is.

The squares let you 'see' what the beat wizard thinks the beat is. The radio buttons let you change it from 3/4 to 4/4, etc.

The wave form (which you have shown) has never been of use to me. With a musical background, I doubt you are going to need it. (But, that's just my two cents.)

You can subdivide timings. Right click between two timing marks and select "subdivide timings" and you're on your way.

[AGrisWoldXmas]

Thank you! Your advice really helped me out. It's making a little more sense now. One other question I have is about subdividing timings. Can you subdivide multiple timings per "timing mark"? For example, on channel one can you subdivide into 4 (sixteenth notes), and on channel two subdivide into 3 (a triplet) in the same "column".

[Don]

Nope.

But ... look up at the top right part of your screen. Create a "duplicate" timing grid (before any modifications!).

You then have two grids. You'd have to change between the two, but it's the only way you can have two different sub-divides in the same space.

[AGrisWoldXmas]

Ok. I'm probably thinking a little too complex for where I'm at right now. I need to learn how to crawl before I can run! Thanks again.

[bob]

Just a little more in addition to what Don said...

The preview section is what is throwing me off. What are the squares and radio buttons underneath? Do you click the radio button under the amount of boxes the time is (i.e 4 boxes for 4/4 time, 6 boxes for 6/8 time?)

Yes, that's what they're intended for (well, they could be used for other things, too - more on that in a moment). One box will flash per beat. So if the song's in 4/4 time, and you have 3 boxes, it will look kind of weird - the first box will flash on 1, then 4, then 3, then 2, then back to 1. As if a conductor were counting 3/4 to a song that's really 4/4. But if you make four boxes, it will look OK. Similarly, four boxes will look weird if the song is 3/4, but good if the song is 4/4.

About "more on that in a moment": You could use them in a different way, too. For example:

You could use the Beat Wizard to "use a faster tempo". Let's say you tell it to use 4x the detected tempo. So if its naturally detected tempo was, say, 80 BPM, and you would naturally count along with it "1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3" because it's a 3/4 song, then 4x will instead use 320 BPM, which you would count with as "1 e and ah 2 e and ah 3 e and ah 1 e and ah 2 e and ah 3 e and ah".

You could then set it to use four preview boxes, even though it is a 3/4 song, and you would then be using the preview section to display sets of four sixteenth notes representing a single quarter note, rather than sets of three quarter notes representing a single measure.

Note that these boxes do not affect the actual output of the Beat Wizard. They're just to try to help you see what the Beat Wizard will do.

It looks like the "tempo" is signified by the columns on the screen and that has nothing to do with the time scale at the top? I guess I'm confused because in playing music you're not really worried about the time scale as much as you are the tempo and time signature.

The "time scale" is just there to display the absolute position in the song (e.g. 1 minute and 3.7 seconds). It will be there regardless of whether you use the Beat Wizard or not. You don't have to pay attention to it if you don't want to (in fact, you can turn it off if you want).

Assuming the columns are the "beat". How would I sequence the song to animate a sixteenth note pattern?

Well, first, one thing to note is that what the Beat Wizard detects as the beat may not be the same thing as what you would naturally say the beat is using the time signature that you naturally think of the song as being in. Think of it this way:

Let's say you have a song written in 4/4 time. And the typical person hearing that song would naturally think of it as being in 4/4 time.

That song could be rewritten perfectly well in 8/8 time, or 2/2 time, or 8/4 time, or hey, even 3/16 time. It would be exactly the same song, with no audible difference; the only ways it would be different would be in its written representation, and in how the musicians playing that piece would count along as they are playing it.

Now, the Beat Wizard is not as smart as a person. So we would say "Well, yeah, you could rewrite the song as 3/16, but that would be really weird. Why would you?" The Beat Wizard isn't that smart.

So you might think "This song is obviously 4/4 with 80 BPM." The Beat Wizard's not that smart. All it knows is that it seems to be 80 BPM. And it shows 80 BPM to you, and you would count along with that "1, 2, 3, 4".

But here's the thing: It might not detect it as 80 BPM. It might detect it as 40. Or 160. Or something else. And if it showed you 40 BPM, you would still think the song is 4/4 80 BPM, so now you would count along with the Beat Wizard by saying "1, 3, 1, 3" (or maybe even "2, 4, 2, 4"), not "1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4".

And if so, maybe you would tell it to "use a faster tempo: 2x", which would make it start using 80 BPM. But maybe you wouldn't - maybe you would just leave it at 40 BPM.

So, with all that said, back to your question:

How would I sequence the song to animate a sixteenth note pattern? The way I'm reading my screen it looks like the channel would either be on or off for the entire beat. Is there a way you subdivide the column?

That depends on what you consider a sixteenth note to be, and on what BPM the Beat Wizard detected, and on what tempo (faster, slower, or detected) you told it to use. Maybe you wouldn't have to do anything - maybe it already detected what you consider 16th notes to be.

If it didn't, then maybe you would make 16th notes by using "subdivide timings", as Don suggested.

But maybe it actually detected what you consider 32nd notes, in which case you might sequence to sixteenth notes by using two beats at a time.

Or maybe you would tell it to use a faster or slower tempo than what it detected, so that it will output 16th notes for you.

[bob]

Oh, and one more little suggestion, along the lines of Don's suggestion of duplicating to a new timing grid before subdividing the spot you want:

You can use the Beat Wizard multiple times in the same sequence, and even on multiple timing grids. So, let's say you consider the song to be 4/4, and the Beat Wizard naturally detects what you consider to be quarter notes. Then you could save that as a timing grid called "Quarter Notes".

And then you could tell it to "use a faster tempo: 2x", and save that as a grid called "Eighth Notes". And then "4x", and "Sixteenth Notes".

And "use a slower tempo: 2x", and save that as a grid called "Half notes". And "4x", "Whole notes".

Note that for "use a slower tempo", you might have to fiddle with the "with beat offset" setting. For example, in a 4/4 song with a 4x slower tempo (i.e. using whole notes), the Beat Wizard might naturally start those whole notes on beat 1, in which case everything is good, but it might instead naturally start them at beat 2, 3, or 4, in which case you'd probably want to tell it to use a beat offset in order to force it back to beat 1.

You would then have a bunch of different timing grids, representing the various types of notes, that you could switch between quickly and easily whenever you want.