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an odd glitch

8 replies [Last post]
Mon, 06/04/2012 - 08:09
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

Hey all,

 

I'm working on a new song which switches from 4/4 time to 6/8. The song is about 5 minutes long at 141bpm and I'm using my own samples & kit(not ready for production yet as EQ has a long way to go- h2kit forthcoming). At about the 104th measure (~3:30 into the song) during a 6/8 measure Hydrogen drops the 4 and 5 beat and goes right on playing as if nothing was missing.

 

I've tried copying the beat and modifying the arrangement, but it does the same thing. What is very odd about this is the original beat worked fine. I can't figure out what's wrong.

 

I'm running OpenSuSE 12.1 on a Dell Dimension 4550 with 2Gb ram and a M-Audio Delta66.

 

I didn't see any known bugs in the forum regarding this.

 

What else should I provide to fully describe the problem?

 

Thanks in advance,

Ben

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Mon, 06/04/2012 - 11:37
#1
thijs
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Joined: 04/20/2010

Hi Ben

can you tell us what version of H2 you are using?

also: do the dropped notes have any lead/lag configured ?  there is a known issue where notes that have a large (negative) lead/lag get dropped in some occasions

do you use the pattern with the dropped notes elswhere in the song?  does it play ok there ?

grtz

Thijs

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Tue, 06/05/2012 - 06:45
#2
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

I'm using version 0.9.6-svn. For this tune I didn't use any lead/lag at all. The pattern works fine the first time it plays and the second time it just skips the last 2 beats of the measure.

 

Thanks for your prompt reply.

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Tue, 06/05/2012 - 06:53
#3
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

I found something else to report which seems relevant. I'm using multiple pattern overlays to make fills sound more interesting. The main pattern in question is a drum fill in 6/8 time and the overlay is in 4/4. Played at the same time the default measure seems to be the 4/4 one, though the first 4 beats of the main pattern plays. I eliminated the 4/4 measure overlay and everything works fine now, I think. Still have to render the track and put it in the mix to see if everything times correctly.

 

This fixes the drum song, so my problem is solved for now. I can do without an extra snare hit. The drummers that hear my programming already give me the blue man group sideways stare. Don't want to freak them out too often, you know.

 

Thanks again.

 

Ben

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Tue, 06/05/2012 - 13:45
#4
thijs
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Joined: 04/20/2010

this might have something to do with the order in which you add your patterns to the song

could you try to add the 4/4 pattern first and then the 4/6 (and vice versa) and see if you can recreate this issue?

btw: the 'blue man group sideway stare' rocks !!! ;-)

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Tue, 06/05/2012 - 19:49
#5
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

That's exactly how it occurred. The intro beats are in 4/4. I use two main patterns for the beat and one additional pattern to augment the snare voice. During the 6/8 parts it seemed apropos to reintroduce the snare backbeat which worked great for the first fill despite the time signature difference. The second time was where the glitch happened at measure 104. I took it as a sign from the drum machine saying "You know a real drummer needs 3 arms to play this, right?" In any case, I think Terry Bozio is booked up.

I need to re-record the guitar and bass tracks tonight. I'll make another copy of the h2song for reference and analysis before then.

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Thu, 12/06/2012 - 10:36
#6
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

The drumsong in question worked just fine after I stopped trying to break the program. I have an excellent guitar player working the new track but I'd still like to have a human play the drums because my programming is a little stupid and disturbing.

I may have a track working now that recreates the issue. If the time signatures are aligned to the first 1 of every beat and overall are aligned to the set of measures playing, where the dominant meter occurs, the leftover beats seem to be truncated at some point.

So if this is correct, a 5/4 pattern might stop playing on the 4th beat of a 4/4 pattern when they are arranged over each other?

Yes? No? Maybe? There is something I am missing here? I don't have much time to work these things out, but if a set of criteria are defined I can try to reproduce the experience.

I am attempting to create a pickup kick beat using the deathmetal drumkit (which is excellent, BTW!)  using 1/4, 2/4, 4/4, 5/4, and 6/8 time signatures. At some point I need to define a measure which overlaps one time signature and plays into the next one without being truncated. At this point I can say it might be a problem with my sequencing and it might be a new feature of the program.

If this is an interesting undocumented feature, let me know. For this song I am willing to provide all the related samples, drumsong, h2kit and whatever. My songwriting style might actually prove to be useful for a change.

Also:

Is there an insert feature for the entire drumsong? I mean, if I want to add a measure/pattern in the entire drumsong at a specific point, is there an edit feature that can do this? I ask because it may help to isolate the problem I keep having with sequencing multiple time signatures over a whole drumsong. If I can define an insert point and a measure of say 4/4 against overlapping 6/8 and 2/4 time signatures it might approximate a polyrhythmic method that advanced percussionists use but is not present in most sequencers. Wetware drummers may like this kind of flexibility.

 

Thank you again for setting me free. Beers for the coders are forthcoming.

 

Much love,

Ben

 

I'm not even sure if any of those questions make sense. All I know is right now, my wrists hurt from trying to type them on this old dusty keyboard.

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Thu, 12/06/2012 - 11:56
#7
mauser
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Joined: 03/30/2010

Hi Ben!

Wow, that was a long post :) I'm trying to answer the core of it: Yes, if you have patterns which are playing at the same time with different lengths, the patterns are truncated to the length of the shortest pattern. So a 5/4 gets truncated to a 4/4 pattern. As far as i know, hydrogen is not able to handle different sized patterns at the same time without truncating them..

For the inserting: Well you can select all blocks which are to the right side of the inserting point and move them one block to the right in the song editor by using the select tool and drag'n'drop. Maybe this helps?

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Sat, 12/08/2012 - 07:04
#8
ben_Zene
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Joined: 04/17/2010

Thanks! Let me try that out. I'll get back to you and let you know.

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thx.