why no swing on 3rd notes?

i was in the car the other day, listening to some beat on a mixtape, and i was listening to how they freaked some congas on there. It sounded like an mpc with note repeat on 16/3 time sig

sounded robotic kinda but cool


i started to wonder why you cant apply swing on the 3rd notes? 8/3 16/3 or 32/3

just something that was buggin me yesterday

I could be wrong but sounds like a music theory issue.

i was informed that triplets or 3rds are considered they own swing in a sense, what do yall think about that.


thanx for responding mrcrappypantson

it is a music theory issue.....just try to tap a swingin 3/4 beat

I was 99% sureI was right but couldn't explain it...

16/3 is the same as 16ths at %75 swing.. to swing your 16/3 use 16ths and swing at %75+

thanx incurable

man thats some thing I never thought about the 16th swing and the 16/3 feel. Im going to have to give it a try

yo, the mpc 2000s swing setting doesnt go past 75, so in essence, you cant swing triplets i guess. bummer

incurablebeatlust wrote:16/3 is the same as 16ths at %75 swing.. to swing your 16/3 use 16ths and swing at %75+

cool thanks for the info

Which MPCs can swing past 75%? 1000? 4000?

this is making my brain hurt.

Actually, I think that triplets are around 66-67%

(You can do a test to check by playing some triplets with the quantize set on 1/16T.....then go on another track and play the same triplets with the quantize set at 1/16 with the swing at 67%.....and you'll see that they match up pretty much exactly.)

It makes sense math-wise too since 100 divided by 2 is 50 (straight 16ths)........but if you divide by 3 (triplets) then two thirds of 100 is 66.6 (between 66 and 67 percent)


So if you go over (say to 75%) you will be "over swinging" which I guess would amount to the same as if it were possible to apply swing to notes on 1/16T.

nice, thanx man