Banned Quantize and Snap to Grid,...

[boosh]

Today I probably broke all European Dance-Music Rules. I switched off Quantize and Snap to grid in my daw.

 

I started working on a track this morning after I watched a video made by Premier from Wu-Tang Clan.

 

I noticed he doesn't Q anything so I switched it off,...WHAT AN EYEOPENER(and ears).

 

Man did my beats come to life after that,...

 

Fundamentals of the track are done,..I'm in Da ZONE. Writing Lyrics now,...

 

This weekend I'll let it go airborne on my band's FaceBook Page. Free for Download. Lyrics are in Dutch but if eneough people dig it I'll do one with English Lyrics too.

 

Old School Hip Hop ,...Wu-Tang, Public Enemy Style(although I could sence a bit of Rock Steady Crew in there also).

 

I'll never ever use the Quantize function again. I promisse.

 

Booshy

[Lee Knight]

Yeah, no grid definitely brings the hip hop feel rather than the euro dance thing. For machine dance music, it's fun to mix grid with human feel.

[Anderton]

It's a tool...can be used for good or evil. But generally, I virtually never use audio quantize. When I use MIDI quantize, I usually quantize the kick and either not quantize the other parts, or do a quantization strength of something like 75%.

 

Quantization strength for me is the best compromise between keeping human feel and having decent timing. Bear in mind I'm not a "real" drummer, so no way I'll be perfect with my timing. Quantize strength makes my timing better, but keeps my "intention" (hitting early, hitting late) intact.

[Lee Knight]

I can remember those NWA records and how the timing on some of them was... suspect. It just sounded wrong at first. Then, I sort of warmed up to the hacky rhythm as loop concept and it has grown from there. It's a sound. It's wrong but you repeat it! So... it's right. Sort of. Turning off the grid allows that stuff and of course well played stuff to come through too.

[UstadKhanAli]

If I am programming beats, I'll do it to a click or loop, but I'll have everything turned off. I'll get something groovy, and if I need to, I'll nudge something a bit to get it to where I like it. I seem to have better luck this way than with quantization, but YMMV.

[boosh]

That's exactly what I did today.

Sounds so much better.

 

 

If I am programming beats, I'll do it to a click or loop, but I'll have everything turned off. I'll get something groovy, and if I need to, I'll nudge something a bit to get it to where I like it. I seem to have better luck this way than with quantization, but YMMV.

 

[LeonardScaper]

It's wrong but you repeat it! So... it's right. Sort of.

 

Heh. Been writing stuff like that forever...........

 

Maybe I should be quantizing.

[techristian]

You have to be careful with Quantize too. Sometimes it will pull the soul right out of you music. Sometimes it will even change your music. If you have a bit of syncopation in a rhythm and don't set it to the proper division, for an example 1/8 notes, it could make a very funky or latin rhythm just mechanical 1/8th notes.

 

But, if it is a techno and you want that, then go for it.

 

Dan

[sventvkg]

Quantize has it's place for certain things. I don't mind using something as a goove template and I will do that but I REFUSE to use Beat Detective on real drums. I just use a good drummer who can groove!

 

Good for you Boosh.

[blue2blue]

 

I can remember those NWA records and how the timing on some of them was... suspect. It just sounded wrong at first. Then, I sort of warmed up to the hacky rhythm as loop concept and it has grown from there. It's a sound. It's wrong but you repeat it! So... it's right. Sort of. Turning off the grid allows that stuff and of course well played stuff to come through too.

There's D'n'B, glitch, and then there's just plain, outta time.

 

I'm not so much thinking about the NWA stuff... I was never a fan because it was about all I ever heard pounding out of bump jeeps in my neighborhood for a year or two (at least I learned where the Uzi drops were so I stopped ducking...)

 

I have to say that remixers who don't get the rhythm of the songs they're remixing really drive me batty. Some of those Blue Note remixes from 5 or 10 years ago are great -- but some of them make me want to fill my ears full of concrete. Some remixers just don't have a sense of rhythm. Of any kind.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Very good idea !!!

 

I am sure Booshy has a timing like Herbie Hancock, or Vincent Colaiuta.

[boosh]

I wish,........

 

 

Very good idea !!! I am sure Booshy has a timing like Herbie Hancock, or Vincent Colaiuta.

 

[Lee Flier]

Quantize has it's place for certain things. I don't mind using something as a goove template and I will do that but I REFUSE to use Beat Detective on real drums. I just use a good drummer who can groove!

 

I think Beat Detective is awesome.

 

 

.... for generating a tempo map so you can line up sequenced parts to whatever a real drummer played.

[Anderton]

I think Beat Detective is awesome. .... for generating a tempo map so you can line up sequenced parts to whatever a real drummer played.

 

I think in general, audio quantization is not a good idea, even to line up other parts with a drummer. For example, if the bass hits a shade early compared to the kick, you'll have more of a "feel" of melody but if it hits late, you'll have more of a "feel" of rhythm. Good players will actually manipulate that kind of timing to create particular effects, either consciously or subconsciously.

 

I do find audio quantization invaluable for one application, though - sample libraries. Any loops or samples have to be dead on in terms of pitch and timing, that's what people are buying. They can always alter the pitch or timing if they like, but it has to start from a known place. Hey! They can even line up the parts to the tempo map generated by the real drummer

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

I quantize and design the {censored} out of everthing, I think today for that super sound it is unavoidble to design everything - rhythmic quantizing however is for the foxes and minimal DJ', sort of Digithal vs. Neanderthal machine groove.

[sventvkg]

I think Beat Detective is awesome. .... for generating a tempo map so you can line up sequenced parts to whatever a real drummer played.

 

 

Right, that's what I use it for! Groove template and lock other stuff to the groove of a REAL drummer!

[Lee Flier]

 

I think in general, audio quantization is not a good idea, even to line up other parts with a drummer. For example, if the bass hits a shade early compared to the kick, you'll have more of a "feel" of melody but if it hits late, you'll have more of a "feel" of rhythm. Good players will actually manipulate that kind of timing to create particular effects, either consciously or subconsciously.

 

 

I agree completely. I don't ever quantize audio. Like I say, the only time I've used anything like Beat Detective it's to get MIDI sequenced stuff to chase a drummer so we don't have to do it the other way around.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

Right, that's what I use it for! Groove template and lock other stuff to the groove of a REAL drummer!

 

 

 

that's just another kind of quantisation to the drummers time feel

[Anderton]

that's just another kind of quantisation to the drummers time feel

 

But the difference is that it preserves a particular feel rather than alters it to some abstract standard.

 

I just did a rough of a song that has no quantization and it sounded fine, so I left it alone. All that really matters is if something sounds "right." If something sounds in time, whether it is or not from a technical standpoint, leave it alone. If something bugs you because it sounds out of time, then fix it

 

I wouldn't NOT fix something just to maintain some particular philosophy of purity, nor would I fix something that didn't need to be fixed because I'd be led to think that everything MUST be quantized. I don't avoid audio quantizing because I think it's wrong, I avoid it because there are disadvantages beyond the feel issue, like audio fidelity. If I re-do the part, or do composite recording, I can get it right without having the problems inherent in applying DSP to audio (particularly sustained guitar sounds, where DSP has a really hard time).

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

I can't totally agree with that Craig.... the time feel is the main thing which tells who the musician is, is he a sausage or is he sympathic.

 

Actually a musician can play total nonsense, but when he does it with a sympathic time feel then it sound just right to most people.

 

And when a bunch of musician, each with a sympathic time feel, play together, then the differences are still huge between the musicians, and all that micro chaos together make an enjoyable performance. I would even go that far that some overtrained musician kill the music with their too precise time feel, and some sloppy band are just fabulous compared to that.

[Lee Flier]

Yeah, I'm with you Rudolf. I think Craig is mostly on the same page, except it sounds like he doesn't mind quantizing as much. I'm pretty adamant about not doing that - the most I'll do is move a single note a little forward or back if it's really bothering me, and even then, we're talking maybe I'll do that 2 or 3 times on a whole album. I want the record to reflect what the musicians played, not what we pretend they played. And as you say, it's oftentimes the "quirks" that really make a performance take off.

 

If somebody needs that much "doctoring" that they have no groove unless I quantize them, then I really don't want to work with them, and they probably don't wanna work with me either really.

[Anderton]

 

Yeah, I'm with you Rudolf. I think Craig is mostly on the same page, except it sounds like he doesn't mind quantizing as much. I'm pretty adamant about not doing that...

 

 

But you don't do music that DJs play, as far as I know. When they're beat-matching two (or even more) different cuts over a what can be a long time, like maybe up to 30 seconds or more, the flamming that happens if things aren't quantized is problematic. OTOH the song I alluded to that had no quantization was a rock song that I highly doubt would ever work its way to a dance floor.

 

On the other extreme, I "anti-quantize" sometimes for soundtracks so that certain things will hit earlier or later than they should to line up with the visuals. If you listened to the music by itself, you'd think the timing was wrong, either by "metronomic" OR "feel" standards. But, the visuals mask (for lack of a better word) the timing, and as the music lines up with the visuals, it seems right.

 

I gotta say, though, that kind of tempo mapping is a real PITA. It's much easier to cut picture to the soundtrack but I can't always get away with that.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

no matter how we process, transform and alter the time feel (I often do that with vocals in melodyne, more for the dynamics, to carve a little on the dynamic line), at the end it just mustsound enjoyable, however all those worklows are cramps no matter what the music style is. I think since 20 years about how a minimal techno or house tune would sound played by musicians.

 

Even the producer who work in my company in the house, minimal, trance and techno department makes lateral movements to the time gravity, doze midi event forth and back, however it sounds all like a antique automat:

 

 

 

 

mo matter what he tries, only difference he has all synths mechanoid, all in mono of course since in a club nothing is stereo or surround..... just like my son, I told my son to make a mix while I go to the kitchen making a coffee, when I came back all fader where total up and I ask him: "How does it sound?" he said: "Ugly!" and runned out of the studio.

[Lee Flier]

 

But you don't do music that DJs play, as far as I know. When they're beat-matching two (or even more) different cuts over a what can be a long time, like maybe up to 30 seconds or more, the flamming that happens if things aren't quantized is problematic.

 

 

Yep... well that is why I don't get into any of that. I appreciate that it opens up creative avenues for people, but I don't like the result. It sounds too mechanized even if it's a live DJ changing up the tempo and such in real time. I can enjoy seeing somebody do that who's really good, once in a blue moon, but I certainly wouldn't want to spend any time doing production work of that type.

 

 

On the other extreme, I "anti-quantize" sometimes for soundtracks so that certain things will hit earlier or later than they should to line up with the visuals. If you listened to the music by itself, you'd think the timing was wrong, either by "metronomic" OR "feel" standards. But, the visuals mask (for lack of a better word) the timing, and as the music lines up with the visuals, it seems right. I gotta say, though, that kind of tempo mapping is a real PITA. It's much easier to cut picture to the soundtrack but I can't always get away with that.

 

 

I once saw Napoleon, the 1927 silent film, with a live orchestra doing the soundtrack in real time. Now that was something.

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Well, the club is rather a place to show off and get some {censored} for the night, nobody really cares what the guy at the turntable makes as long everybody gets hot.

 

I usually rent a bodyguard, one butler and three hostesses when I go to a club, this just that nobody thinks Rudolf goes to the club for {censored}.