Agree with the importance of form here. On top of using switches to go through set patterns like you mentioned, I like to send extra triggers in those in-between moments left empty by the backbone structure and make 'em go through a Bernoulli gate so that they only hit occasionally.
And maybe it’s been brought up already, but slightly changing the amplitude of your percussive hits can add some life to your drums. And while modulating volume, why not take this further and modulate other parameters along the way (ex: the release value from your ADSR, the cutoff value from your VCF, etc.)
swing is a pretty mathematical process - as the time between odd > even pulses gets longer, the time between even > odd pulses gets shorter. (Or vice versa)
If you are not liking the swing on Clocked and Topograph, perhaps swing isn’t what you are looking for or expecting?
Is there some software swing in other applications you do like?
I think there was some misinterpretation, obviously i know what swing is and i’m aware that i’m using software, I thought maybe someone had some tips to make it sound more human without me going in for 4 hours moving lines around afterwards or banging on some plastic. It’s fine, i actually sort of like doing that sometimes.
Swing is a built-in option in the Clocked module from Impromptu, it can be applied to the clock pulse going to any destination.
Keep in mind though that when using any of the Impromptu Sequencers, they will ignore swing when they are set to a different internal clock resolution value then the default, which is 1.
For the DRUM SOUNDS I am pretty happy with the combination of Bogaudio Sine Oscillator, NYSTHI AD and Vult Punch and Freak (or other Amps and Filters with Drive/Saturation/Distortion).
For the kick I find it important to have control over the starting phase of the oscillator, to get consistent attack transients.
I have downsized my Drum Synths a bit by using the phase modulation input of Bogaudio Sine and the PW input of Bogaudio Pulse to mix in some noise for snares and hihats.
You can see my drumsynth here, in the lower left corner of the screen:
Another very good small option for hihats is to use two Pulse oscillators and have them modulate each others Pulsewidth, while the classic approach would be to use six pulse oscillators to create metallic hihats and cymbals.
I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t aware you were using software, what I was getting at was whether it is the particular swing in Clocked you’re not fond of (but might like the swing in Ableton for example) or whether it is digital swing in general you don’t like.
Swing created by humans is a different beast as everything is slightly out of time and inconsistent, even within itself.
If you are looking for that then a couple of approaches might be:
• Find some swung drum patters that have been converted to midi files and use them in a midi file player module
• Find some audio of drums with swing you like and run that through an envelope follower and then put the resulting envelope through a comparator to generate gates you can use for your drums.
You can add a very small amount of drift to the BPM with something like BogAudio’s Walk or my BrownianBridge, which on top of a set swing makes things considerably more organic in my opinion.
One thing I learned in the past is to shift individual drum lines relative to each other. Particularly rides can have a big effect. Pulling them a little ahead can add urgency, pushing them back adds a lazy loucheness. But just splitting out the individual drum triggers and running them through differing delays could well add some of what you are looking for.
i’m thinking of making a pattern in ableton every 32 then apply on it a swing that i like (notator) then open It in a player and combine It with a vcv drum seq using a trigger buffer
You could use the free entrian player: drummer. Set up a Midifile in Ableton with different clock divisions for the notes C4 to E5 (Notes from the C-Major-Scale) and quantize that to your swing in ableton. Then load that into the entrian player and the different gate outputs correspond to the different clock divisions.
Yes, but: Entrian has a gate output for every note (clock division) and Velocity. [Wrong: and can handle longer files]. So if you want to use a groove from ableton with a little variation (random parameter of a groove in ableton) and baked in velocity entrian would be a more conveniant way.
I would like to share the midifile, but .mid is not allowed here…
