Then we took a “clave” rhythm on our DB-90 and overlaid it on a quarter-note click, and it felt infinitely better! Apparently I had been playing my bassline in a clave rhythm, but the drummer was playing to the quarter-note rhythm, and a big part of the groove was that interaction.

@mattbot: if you make [ringometro] will you post about it here? i’m thinking i might try and build something separate where the master clock comes from a human drummer, and other objects pull the midi for the remaining parts in/out of time in response. it’ll be easier once max for live comes out..

“is there an easy way to create a tempo track from something you’ve played in on ableton live?”

Yes. Any clip in the arrange window once warped can use its tempo (however elastic) to drive the entire arrangement. It’s the “master” or “slave” button in the clip view. You could give John Lee Hooker’s groove to Juan Maclean if you want.

My girlfriend LOVES Metal (yes I do realize the irony considering some of my previous remarks on CDM)… especially the complex avant-garde stuff. While I appreciate the technical skill involved with playing rhythmically challenging music I can’t really relate to it when I’m listening.

I guess it comes down to taste. There is no single “right” way to do music (but a whole lot of wrong ways). There is always stagnation when music becomes too homogeneous in one way or another. If we were all playing off beat “natural” sounding music with acoustic instruments again I would be bored as fuck with it. But then again when even Country acts are doing songs with house beats as backing its gone way too far in the other direction.

@ james Sounds like we need a Echo Nest API call that isolates the bass tempo and so we can plot a new line on the graph. :) [RingoMetro] could drive another [transport] object with a slight delay that sets the tempo for the bass track. CAN in a can!

it’s a unique and special thing about bands or groups playing together – the fact that variation is a bidirectional interactive thing. just thinking, because i make music with inanimate objects due to a lack of friends, like every other electronic producer (joke).. is there a way to simulate this?

i’m thinking a max patch (or whatever) not to make the shaky ringometro object, but to put inbetween the midi and the synths that realises “oh the drummer’s sped ahead” and reacts to it like a person would – slightly overcompensating then drifting back. or whatever it is that people do. so then i’ll hear that and probably fluctuate myself, and the whole thing’ll spiral into the worst sort of sozzled hippy-jam.

there’s something in the way people react to musical timing changes that makes it special isn’t there? it’s certainly more than the ‘coming together’ feeling when a dj pulls a slightly out record into sync. time to learn python and stick some jazz through the musicbrain thing.

Can the analysis performed by the articles writer separate this process of “correcting” the recording from having recorded to a click track? I’m guessing not.

The reason I feel this distinction is important (as a drummer) is that in one case, it is still a fully live performance recorded, with a drummer hearing a click through his headphones, while in the latter case what you hear is in a sense analogous to singing with autotune, ie, a bit of the “soul” is lost.