Timing - Note Delay Vs. Groove Settings

Help, Support & Bugs
1

I’ve tried several times to put some swing on to a track and of course I tried the groove settings first to do so. Though it never sounded really convincing to me.

Now try this, pls:
Fill all lines of a 16 step pattern with a percussive sound. Activate and set the groove settings to: 25%, 0%, 25%, 0% - Then listen to it in a loop @ about 125bpm or something like that.

Afterwards open the note delay colum of the pattern, set each second line to value 40, de-activate the groove settings of the song and listen again.

A quiet obvious difference. But when I don’t get anything wrong actually both variations should sound exactly the same, with the same groove. Well, they really don’t and in fact they don’t even sound like having anything in common. While the second variation with the note delay has a perfect timing, the first variation using the groove settings seems to be stumbling randomly all the way.

Is there any explanation for this behaviour?

2

You have misunderstood how the groove settings work. You should set all 4 sliders to 25% in this case to get the desired effect. (Actually, a groove setting of around 38% more closely matches a delay value of 40, for whatever reason)

http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Song_Settings#Groove_Settings

3

Seems indeed I did then. Thanks. :) So with a LPB 4 the second and the forth slider just define the delay amount for the second and fourth line again, though the delay is already set with the first and thrid slider!? Just to make sure I get that right now…

If so, the diagram is IMHO pretty confusing or at least kinda incomplete. To me the diagram looks like when I set a value on the first line, the second line is automatically affected by this setting (which also seems more logical to me). So again… When I got it right now the 1st and 3rd row in the groove settings show an amount of added note lenght and the 2nd and 4th a delay. Maybe this should be made more clear even within the groove settings then. Otherwise one might think the 2nd and 4th sliders are responsible for note lenght, too. That’s some weird stuff. :D

Edit: I’m still watching the diagram and according to “Note that the numbers 0&1, 1&2, 2&3, 3&4 only apply to line numbers when using a Lines Per Beat Setting of 4.” I still don’t get the logic behind this, because either the diagram or this description seems to be wrong then. :D Well, anyway… it works now. Time to get some sleep. ;)

4

The groove settings are indeed weird, but here’s another way to think about it that will hopefully help a bit more.

Imagine the following short pattern using the delay column:

  
00 C-4 -- --  
01 C-4 -- 20  
02 C-4 -- --  
03 C-4 -- 40  
04 C-4 -- --  
05 C-4 -- 60  
06 C-4 -- --  
07 C-4 -- 80

To get the same results with no delay commands and using groove instead, you would set the groove sliders to:

0 & 1 = 19%
2 & 3 = 38%
4 & 5 = 57%
6 & 7 = 76%

The 4 sliders are just there to let you create more interesting staggered grooves I guess. Most of the time I just set all 4 to the same value because I only want a basic shuffle, but it can be interesting to explore this stuff.

5

I create grooves by rapidly switching between two (or more) LPB’s every half beat or fourth beat, etc.
Don’t know if that’s exactly the same. But I’ve been doing it for quite sometime and I like what it does. :)

6

Well, in this way it makes sense and would be quiet easy to understand. But then “Note that the numbers 0&1, 1&2, 2&3, 3&4 only apply to line numbers when using a Lines Per Beat Setting of 4.” doesn’t make sense at all. Just like the referenced numbers of the notes in the Diagram. And what would the groove settings for a groove with a delayed note on line 02 or 04 of the pattern look like then? Seriously, IMHO there’s at least logically something going way wrong with that stuff.

Edit:
And you are right with the 38%. Direct sampling the groove shows in the sampler the groove settings don’t work accurately. With a groove setting of 25% the second note of the test pattern kicks in @ between 12 and 13 of the samplers timeline. But actually it should kick in at exactly 14. I tried the same with groove settings of 37% and 38%. With 37% it kicks in slightly before 14 on the timeline, with 38% behind it. It’s not even possible to hit exactly the 14 (real 25%) timing point.

So there’s definitely also something wrong with the groove’s timing.

@Taktik:
Is it possible the percentage values of the groove settings at some point are internally interpreted/used as hexadecimals by accident or something like that?? To me it looks like that or something similar.

7

I am curious as well: What is the status of this one?

8

pfff hard to wrap you brain around but very interesting stuff :)