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I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

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Re: I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

#31

Post by Jeff_Brown »

glimshe wrote: post #21
luluganeta wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tidalcycles actually runs SuperCollider as its sound backend, through the SuperDirt library: https://github.com/musikinformatik/SuperDirt/

Nice! But why shouldn't I just use SuperCollider directly?

They have different aims. SuperCollider gives you outstanding timbral control, but patterning at the melodic or chord level is awkward. TidalCycles is a language for musical patterns, not for generating waveforms directly. If you want to mess with both, I'd recommend starting from the definitions of the synths in SuperDirt, the collection of SuperCollider synths that TidalCycles uses.

TidalCycles does offer a lot of ways to control the timbre -- there are a bunch of effects, including some magical granular stuff. And merely triggering samples at sufficiently high frequencies, particularly frequencies that vary over time, can generate some cool sounds. But SC will give you much more control over that kind of thing.

Re: I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

#33

Post by Jeff_Brown »

a_simple_dev wrote: post #13
Jeff_Brown wrote: post #6

If you're interested in this, there's a good chance you would enjoy the TidalCycles language for generating music. It's been a mind-expanding experience for me, particularly w/r/t polyrhythms. The landing page: https://tidalcycles.org/ An example of some music made live with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlUOWjC5fpY

This is so dope! Love seeing the analog rytm used in a coding project like this. Want to see if I can get it to work with my mk-II, should be basically the same. those are some incredible tones you're working with in the video. are they being generated by the rytm or samples or something else?

That video is of Mike Hodnick, not myself. But to answer your question, the timbres are generally a combination of both things you mention. At its core TidalCycles triggers synths and samplers in SuperCollider. It also controls the effect chain they go through, though, so you can pattern "clean DISTORTED clean clean DISTORTED" as easily as "kick hat snare hat". And sufficiently high-frequency control of the synths will have timbral consequences, too -- alternate, for instance, between two constant frequencies sufficiently quickly and you've built a simple FM synth.

Re: I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

#35

Post by dekhn »

dredozubov wrote: post #2

I’m a guitar player, and I use tablature notation editors such as Guitar Pro a lot. However, it gets complicated fast when I write polyrhythmic/polymetric drum parts, because shifts tend to go over the bar lines and it’s hard to make sense it’s correct visually (may be even harder if you listen to it). The other property of such parts is: it tends to unfold from simple ideas such as “I want to create a drum part that…

I have only familiarity with western musical notation, and it too me a while to get there. Tablature and track notation (digital audio workstation) both were completely intuitive to me. Is there anything that argues for learning Western musical notation- IE, does it help express some things eloquently/efficiently/naturally? Every time I ask classically trained musicians (who started with a piano and a music book) they look at me like I'm crazy and dumb.

Re: I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

#36

Post by jcpst »

dekhn wrote: post #35
dredozubov wrote: post #2

I’m a guitar player, and I use tablature notation editors such as Guitar Pro a lot. However, it gets complicated fast when I write polyrhythmic/polymetric drum parts, because shifts tend to go over the bar lines and it’s hard to make sense it’s correct visually (may be even harder if you listen to it). The other property of such parts is: it tends to unfold from simple ideas such as “I want to create a drum part that…

I have only familiarity with western musical notation, and it too me a while to get there. Tablature and track notation (digital audio workstation) both were completely intuitive to me. Is there anything that argues for learning Western musical notation- IE, does it help express some things eloquently/efficiently/naturally? Every time I ask classically trained musicians (who started with a piano and a music book) the…

I like to think of western music notation as not the most intuitive choice for a lot of popular styles of music. But it's kind of like when people talk about X programming language "making hard things possible".

It's like math notation. There is a canon of work over a very long period of time that can be used as a foundation for expressing many different intricate ideas in a compact way. And in the 20th century tons of non-traditional notation styles have been thrown into the western mix.

Re: I made a command-line tool to assist me with writing polyrhythmic drum parts

#37

Post by Jeff_Brown »

dekhn wrote: post #35
dredozubov wrote: post #2

I’m a guitar player, and I use tablature notation editors such as Guitar Pro a lot. However, it gets complicated fast when I write polyrhythmic/polymetric drum parts, because shifts tend to go over the bar lines and it’s hard to make sense it’s correct visually (may be even harder if you listen to it). The other property of such parts is: it tends to unfold from simple ideas such as “I want to create a drum part that…

I have only familiarity with western musical notation, and it too me a while to get there. Tablature and track notation (digital audio workstation) both were completely intuitive to me. Is there anything that argues for learning Western musical notation- IE, does it help express some things eloquently/efficiently/naturally? Every time I ask classically trained musicians (who started with a piano and a music book) the…

Music notation is like any natural language -- i.e. super fucking dumb dumb dumb, and yet, uniquely, it lets you communicate precisely with other musicians, which is awesome.
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