Need for master time signature!

[Lars D. Terkelsen]

This morning I have worked on a (beautiful ) slow 3/4 piece. Suddenly it hit me as a hammer, that a global time signature is needed!
The thing is: If I work in 3/4, I typicly mute all steps in colomn 13,14,15 and 16. It is a bit tedious, but it works. Problem is, that whenever any kind of allign function is performed, the Octopus alligns to what it thinks is the downbeat. And since you are in 3/4 and octo is in 4/4 the rhythm will (very likely) be disturbed.
Example: You are working in a page of 3/4 drumtracks, when you decide to chain two tracks. This action also alligns tracks, and instantly the beat is dropped on the floor. This is not good if you ever go other places than 4/4. It can be dealt with in a studio setting (stopping and starting again), but I would forget about playing live in other than 4/4.

Off course this problem persists in all non-4/4 time signatures.

I also tried to setting the lenth of the page (in grid) to 12 steps (3/4), but this does not help the beat getting upset at allign, as the octo firmly believes that it is working in 4/4.

I guess it shows something about the widespread use of 4/4, that this subject has not been talked about a lot. However I feel it should be given high priority, as I think it is a bad case of "time signature discrimination" that has slipped through here.

I could go on discussing how to implement a global time signature, but I would like to have some kind of confirmation of these problems with non-4/4 time signatures. I guess I am still hoping that I have overlooked something.

Post edited by: LDT, at: 2009/06/19 11:50

[john Kimble]

I’m still hoping for a .75 track multiplier to work in 3/4 time

http://genoqs.net/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=50&func=view&id=713&catid=3

cheers
ripe

[Lars D. Terkelsen]

Quote:

I’m still hoping for a .75 track multiplier to work in 3/4 time

That would be nice to have. Why I want a global time signature is because it seems like the only thing that would allow to maintain your usual workflow no matter what time signature you happen to choose.
Even if there was a .75 multiplier I would be going: Ok, 808 page track 1: set multiplier. 808 track 2: set multiplier etc up to track 10. Repeat this for the other drum page. And the bass page and so on. Very tedious compared to setting a global sig; BAM.
A global time sig would probably also be the only way to do odd sigs like 5/8 and 7/8. By that I mean that I am not sure that the clock resolution will allow for a track multiplier that plays 14 steps in 16 steps time.

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