Re: [microsound] AI & rhythm perception - 'groove' heuristics?

[David Powers <cyborgk@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/21/06, Damian Stewart <damian@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Unless you're using excessive compression to make particular
> things duck using side chains (cf Rhythm & Sound/Basic Channel), but that
> means using compression at the composition end to mechanically specify your
> velocities for you, rather than using it as the kind of compression
> normally associated with mastering.

Well, but this is my point: this IS precisely how many (probably most)
techno producers do use compression. When I build a bassline I
consider the result of how the kick and bass will compress together -
it's NOT the same rhythm/groove without the compression. Likewise,
sometimes after doing a test mastering, I have to go back and change a
velocity or timing in a high pitched rhythm, or the characteristic of
the sound itself, because of something that occurs happens to the
rhythm after compression, which I was not aware of before hand...

In techno/mnml/dnb/idm etc. it's no longer possible to distinguish
entirely between composition and production/engineering anymore.
Moreover, the whole (post-compression) is indeed different than the
sum of the individual parts. And that means you have a problem for the
analysis you propose, because it's much harder to quantify a
finished/compressed beat that combines many sounds into a single
entity, than it is to analyze a set of individual elements that might
make up such a beat. So I'm basically saying, in the style of rhythmic
music I work in most often, an analytic process of breaking the whole
into seperate parts is not going to work.

Maybe some kind of other cognitive/gestural approach might work better.

To address your initial idea though, if you WERE going to stick to
analysis, I'd suggest an approach that deals with some kinds of
analysis of frequency bands within mastered beats (maybe stuff you
could do with bonk~ and fiddle~ in pd)...

~David

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