question - WHY must swing=percentage?

why other than out of history should swing=a percentage?
why isn't it just a number?

Antonym wrote:why other than out of history should swing=a percentage?
why isn't it just a number?

Good question...don't know the answer. Posted to check later.

say your TC was at 1/8, you have anywhere from 0-48 ticks til you're technically in the next 1/8th note

but if your TC is in 1/16, you have anywhere from 0-24 ticks til you're technically in the next 1/8th note.

say you wanted to swing your tracks so each upbeat was a little swingy. you'd think SWING would be like SHIFT: a number of ticks you wanted "swung"

ie:

TC=1/8 SWING=3

so that a note repeat of this Tc would record as follows:

1.00
1.51
2.00
2.51

but instead we have percentage...why? not to nitpick, but isn't the whole percentage thing a little superfluous when the notation we're TRULY working with is TICKS, not %?

Antonym wrote:why other than out of history should swing=a percentage?
why isn't it just a number?

most likely so that it can be translated easily between different resolutions. 65% swing at 96ppq is the same as 65% swing at 9600ppq.

but if you think about what swing really is, it should be a percentage.

if you put 50% swing on 1/16th notes , every even 1/16th note will be half way between the 1/8th notes, or 50% of the way between them. change that swing to 60%, and the even 1/16th notes move to be 60% of the way between the 1/8th notes.

it probably come from analog instrument that used voltage control for those purposes, it was probably more user friendly...

mkl... wrote:it probably come from analog instrument that used voltage control for those purposes, it was probably more user friendly...

lol.. ok...

swing is nothing more than an attempt to mimic a human drummer's natural tendency to play certain notes late. it just made sense to make it a percentage since the notes are moved in a percentage relative to the notes around it.

Mike Feedback wrote: swing is nothing more than an attempt to mimic a human drummer's natural tendency to play certain notes late. it just made sense to make it a percentage since the notes are moved in a percentage relative to the notes around it.

Finally I understand the logic of this. So that's why it's set to 50 % by default.
One note sits RELATIVE in between two others exactly in the center, wheras 60 % for example shifts the second event to the right a little more, we all know that, sure, cause we can hear it...

See the whack visualization below: ~| = event, ---- = timeline

~|----~|----~| (50 % Swing)
~|-----~|---~| (60 % Swing)
~|------~|--~| (70 % Swing)

Therefore, percentage totally makes sense. But I also like the Idea of using a click-oriented swing setting, where the 'old' 50 % setting is set to 0 and you could then change from -48 to +48. Okay, I agree, +/- 48 would replace the earlier or next event, but I just wanted to explain the point here

Edit: Found an ill thesis about "The role of tempo in groove and swing timing." This is a tough scientific text with about 77 pages. But for those who are into science and music theory and stuff, I think this might be interesting. Plus it's free and brand new (June 2007)
http://cf.hum.uva.nl/mmm/papers/Haas-MSc-Thesis(2007).pdf

I think swing is a percentage because it relats more to what it actually is. Think of a drummer swinging a beat... it's more of a feel thing... those who play the drums may relate to this better. It makes sense to me that it would be a percentage because you should be thinking of it in terms of how much swing, not necessarily how many ticks.

If you want to be able to adjust by tics, you could do it in grid edit, or put all of your notes that are on the off beats on a different track and use shift timing. Kinda tedious, but it would work.

Best solution: Up your pad playing skills and skip the quantize. It will sound more natural that way anyway.

Obvious question: Why is it always 50%-70%?

Why not 30% - 70%, defaulting to 50%

tombola wrote:Obvious question: Why is it always 50%-70%?

Why not 30% - 70%, defaulting to 50%

because drummers generally "swing" notes towards the following note and not the previous note.

yeah this makes sense
but it still seems kind of counterintuitive from the get go, because that percentage is immediately changed into ticks upon being recorded. i know and like the percentages just fine and wasn't proposing to change it, cuz we're all comfortable...but it seems like since "shift timing" is done by ticks, it'd make sense for "swing" to be by ticks too.

it seemed kind of like a store that sells bulk grain charging by the kilogram, but only using scales that read in pounds - a disconnect between the display and the actual notation.