How do I set up the step sequencer for 7/8 time?

If you change it like this:
Beats: 14
Steps: 4
And have the "fit to quarters: On" and the number to the right set to "7"

Will this give you what you want, or have I misunderstood what you're after?

7 beats 2 steps. that gives you 16th notes. 7beats 4steps gives you 32nd notes.

robert_e_bone


I do odd meters all the time, and the Step Sequencer does NOT have any way of having a meter base of 4 - so to represent 9/8, I have to do it as 9/4, with the tempo doubled for the duration of the odd meter. 

It's not that 9/8 is particularly radical either, its a slip jig and pretty common in Irish traditional music.

I don't use step sequencer much but when I did I was running in to this sort of issue. I thought it was just me not knowing how to use it properly.

swamptooth


7 beats 2 steps. that gives you 16th notes. 7beats 4steps gives you 32nd notes.

In a meter, the upper number represents the number of beats per measure, and the lower number represents the value of the note that gets the beat.  So, a number of 4 on the bottom means that a quarter note gets counted as 1 beat, and if you had a 7 on the top, it would indicate that the measure has 7 beats in it.

(Your example of 2 steps = sixteenth notes is incorrect, by the way, dividing a quarter note in half gives you eighth notes).

Anyways, if I have some printed music in front of me, and it has a measure of 7/8, and I am sequencing it into Sonar using the Step Sequencer, to do it right I should be able to enter a meter base (number on the bottom) of 8, rather than 4.  There is no way to specify an eighth note as my meter base.

This causes quarter notes to get the beat, so if I set the number of beats to 7, no matter how many steps to beat I have it set for, I will have a measure that is 7 quarter notes long. (I need a meter change for the song too, to insert a meter change to 7/4).

I cannot simply enter the notes as half as long, because I do not have an even number of notes to divide.  Dividing my 7 in half would result in having 3 1/2 beats per measure - not possible.

So, that's why I came up with doing it - working around the fact that my beat value will always be a quarter note - by entering it as 7/4, 9/4, 12/4, or whatever, and doubling the tempo of the song for the measures entered with the eighth  note base.  This plays back each of the 7 quarter notes as eighth notes in duration, sort of accomplishing the playback goal of having my 7/8 measures sounding correctly - it's just that each such measure takes TWO measures of space in the song.

It's really a matter of accuracy, but since I am for example an entire song of faithfully entered drums from a Bill Bruford tune, I would like that to be able to be represented if someone were to print out the notation for what I entered.  

I therefore plead with the Bakers to take a look at actually implementing this change.  If their code does its thing when playing back Step Sequenced parts by using the number value in that particular parameter, then simply adding the ability to change that value should be pretty simple to implement.  If on the other hand their code has that 4 hard-wired, then they should really rethink their approach to coding.  :)

Bob Bone

I know - I just couldn't resist poking at you a little.  :)

Bob Bone

Interesting. I had thought that setting it up for the time signature I wanted would be a no-brainer. When I couldn't work out how to do it, I had thought that someone else would be able to tell me "oh yeah, you have to do X, Y and Z" - I didn't for one minute suppose there was no way to do it (without Bob's workaround - and I think doubling the tempo would discombobulate me to the point where I'd question whether or not I really wanted to write a 7/8 tune to begin with ). 

It seems like yes, this should be easy to implement since it's just numbers and so one meter is much the same as any other where computer code is concerned. Bit disappointed in Sonar in this respect. The DAW should not be restricting my rhythmic decisions! 

Oh well, I guess I will just use the PRV for this one. I do like the step sequencer for certain things though. 

swamptooth


oh, weird... 6/8 time seems to be displayed incorrectly in the time ruler on my system. how about you, sharke??? even editing midi notes in prv. .. esp apparent with metronome on. 

No it's displaying right in the time ruler - 7/8 time gives me 7 beats per measure. 

sharke

swamptooth


oh, weird... 6/8 time seems to be displayed incorrectly in the time ruler on my system. how about you, sharke??? even editing midi notes in prv. .. esp apparent with metronome on. 

No it's displaying right in the time ruler - 7/8 time gives me 7 beats per measure. 

And the issue is not in getting it to do 7 beats per measure, it has to do with having 7 beats per measure with an EIGHTH note meter base, rather than a quarter note meter base.  That is why I do the doubling of tempo, so that it all plays back as if it WAS entered as 7/8. (caps added for marginal emphasis, and please do not think any anger or loudness was intended).


Bob Bone

Brian - I have been asking for this change to Step Sequencer for LITERALLY YEARS NOW, and it just may never happen.
 
I play progressive music all day, every day, and work in all kinds of 8th-note meter based time signatures, and THIS DRIVES ME NUTS.
 
It just never seems to get high enough on the list of things to do, and so it never gets implemented.
 
BAKERS!!!???!!!?????!?!?!?!?!!??!?????????
 
Bob Bone
 

Well, there IS a way to represent odd meters in Step Sequencer.  It's just not 'pure'.
 
What I do is I use a meter base of 1/4 note, because that is all you CAN do in SS.
 
SO, to enter a clip of lets say 2 measures 7/8, I create the clip to be 14 beats, but since the meter base is a quarter note, it would play back half as fast as it should.  So, I simply insert a tempo change for that clip's duration only, to double the tempo, which then plays the clip back twice as fast.
 
The end result of the above is that it plays back as 2 measures of 7/8, even though it was initially entered as 2 measures of 7/4.  Doubling the tempo makes it play back to sound like 7/8.
 
I don't LIKE it the above way, but is does allow me to use SS for my odd-meters.
 
Bob Bone
 

The SS is the only thing that has really given me grief (personally) with X3. I got Geist based on a forum recommendation, and it cycles sales at $99 every few months (normally $249). The UI is not as clean to work in for certain tasks, but is a very capable sequencer (with a lot more features). It is also a sampler/slicer and has a built in plug-in called "spitter" that you can route audio to the sampler from any track (which is a nice feature for things you cannot outright import, like AD sounds). Geist can be used either as a MIDI trigger to something like AD, or pull the sounds into Geist and layer pads there (i.e. Geist firing off audio instead).

Well, I just got used to dealing with the idiotic need to double tempo to turn 7/4 into 7/8, so that's what I do, and yes, that means that any other clips I create in the same time span also will be at that double tempo, though if they are captured live it doesn't matter - you are just recording along with the playback of the drums and don't then care what the tempo is.
 
BUT, I still wish the Bakers would grant me and others like me this change to SS to support having an eighth note as a meter base.  I would be SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO grateful.
 
Bob Bone
 

Maybe we can convince the Bakers there's a bug with 'Covert Midi Clips to Step Sequencer', If you create a 7/8 time in piano roll and convert, it changes it to 4 Beats, which is a faulty conversion.

this is one of those problems, too, where it seems from the user's perspective to be a fairly trivial fix.  As far as I can tell, the step sequencer basically just creates a special version of a midi clip with groove clip looping turned on, right?  So switching the meter base should just make a different midi clip - the step sequencer doesn't seem actually to interact with the project other than getting tempo information from it.

I use oddball meters from time to time,, I see no problem, I set the metronome to the closest equivalent and I play along. Triplet has always worked great for me, half my music is in triplet time. I play it, I quantize it. no big deal.