Hi,

Yesterday I received a copy of an email from a friend (a TYROS user) regarding 'Step' recording / sequencing.

If Nigel will allow, I'd like to speak out on behalf of all users who 'Step' record their work. There are a number of us who, through medical or personal reasons cannot accurately co-ordinate our left and right hands and their fingers. I'll be honest; I've got epilepsy, which after a seizure leaves my hands looking like a mass of Jelly (Jello). I use this method of recording because I have to. I admit it can, at times, sound like it's being played by a robot; but, there is a solution (for Technics, I don't know if this applies to Yamaha, Roland, etc.)

In Technics land it's possible to adjust the timing for each individual note; we base ours as follows.

Less than 1/4 beat - STAC (Staccato)
1 - 1/4 beat - NORM (Normal)
More than 1 beat - TENU (Tenuto)

This seems to give a more 'human' sound to a recording. If you want to 'Step' record why not give it a try.

Anyway, regards to all, and to Nigel; thanks if you published this.

Mark

Step recording is really an amazing skill and should be admired. It takes a lot more thought than realtime recording. I tend to record MIDI realtime but then go back and edit parts that I didn't quite pull off. I have known people that had no keyboard skills yet could put their musical ideas in using step time sequencing and produce some truly inovative music.

I managed to get the attention of Nigel himself; very grateful for his comments etc.

Mark

Hmmm...
Say...are you gonna be grateful for my attention too? If yes, then I'll post my reply.

-ED-

Ed, please stop with the disruptive behaviour and show some God damn respect.

-tek

[This message has been edited by Andy Kaufman (edited 02-02-2004).]


^{[This message has been edited by tekminus (edited 02-02-2004).]}

Respect?
Hmmm...
Oh yeah, just like in godfather!
Sure.
ED
RESPECTS
ALL

[This message has been edited by 3351. Edited at gunpoint]

All right you lot,

This topic ends now; ENOUGH is ENOUGH!

Nobody ever set out to get respect; they just wanted other users to understand why and what they do! I'll stick with Nigel's comments. I believe we're still a minority part of the forum but then again we can still contribute to just about any discussion or raise a new topic.

As above, this ends NOW!

Now I'm off to try to record 'Rock Around The Clock'. Any comments or ideas!

Mark

Mark,
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for those who are capable of step recording. It's not an easy thing to do, and you really have to know the technical side of music to use it. Personally I've been playing for over 20 years and can't read a note of music. I'd love to have the ability to step record my music, but I have to rely on real-time recording with a touch of quantizing from time to time.. I'd love to hear some of your work. Do you have any midi files you'd like to share?

Squeak

Mark & Michelle:
Good Luck with your efforts. Step recording can produce some very realistic sounding percussion tracks along with general instrumentation.
I've got an old Roland R8 that I've hung onto just for some of the unique sounds, and I have used the step pattern writing aspect, along with features entitled: "nuance" and "feel". BottomLine:there's nothing wrong with "Step Recording". Why not post some examples of your work, I for one, would love to hear what you've done.
Just my thots....L

Enough he says, eh?
Alright chief.
Here's eddie's take on step sequencing:

I wrote tons of stuff using step-time approach to sequencing. I find that even though I can play just about anything on a keyboard, programming step-time and dealing wiht graphic editors (I'm visually imparired, so it can be a bit of a pain) gives me a different perspective on things and inspires totally different ideas. Not everything that's been heavily quantized or entered step-time has to sound like there is a robot playing. I find that using methods that Mark & Michelle described can make things sound very human. Logic Audio actually offers a transform template called "humanize". It slightly shifts the position and velocity of note events.
Step time is also useful for synths that have a relatively slow dynamic voice allocation. When using Roland modules multitimbraly, I tend to bring the drums ahead of everything else (just by a few tics), that helps a little. Although if your sequencer offers "Track delay" parameter you don't need step time to do that.
Well, that's about it on step time sequencing. Oh, imputing control messages step-time rules. I've created some very rhythmic synth textures by imputing various control messages to modulate and sweep all kinds of synth parameters. That was in the days before LFO sync and all that.

-ED-

[This message has been edited by 3351 (edited 02-02-2004).]