Akai EWI 4000m Electric Wind Instrument Akai EWI 4000m Electric ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

VI feature 44 VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS Bent Clicks Using the tempo track to enhance performances by Paul Gilreath It’s curious how someone can spend countless hours choosing articulations and tweaking individual notes, while ignoring one of the most essential elements of a living, exciting musical performance: variations in tempo. Sometimes it can take a little time to introduce these tempo variations, but it’s very easy and well worth it. When any musician plays without a click track, slight variations in tempo occur naturally throughout the course of the piece. If your performance skills are up to it, you may be able to simply turn off the click and play; those variations will be there by default. After that, different sequencers have different ways of lining up their beats and barlines to coincide with your freely-recorded performance. However, playing without the click isn’t always possible or necessarily even desirable with the sample libraries we have today. Especially the larger ones are set up to be “programmed” as much as played completely in real time. So we’re going to analyze why, when, and how to program these tempo changes into MIDI compositions after the fact. We’ll assume the music was recorded to a static click track or step-entered with the transport stopped. Where Slowing down (ritardando) or speeding up (accelerando) can make a phrase more musical or expressive. These deviations from the piece’s set tempo can fit in many places within a phrase, such as: where the melody is particularly touching; where the most tension occurs, often right before it resolves; and just before an emphatic downbeat (where the tempo usually resumes. Ritards often mark the ends of phrases, sections, and pieces as well. Obviously some pieces want more variation than others—an orchestral march will have a more rigid tempo than perhaps a waltz or a more delicate piece; it’s usually just a matter of interpretation. Tempo tracks Most MIDI sequencers have two playback modes: using a fixed tempo setting, or following a variable tempo track that you’ve programmed. The fixed tempo setting may be a working mode that you only use while recording the parts. It’s easy to evaluate various tempi, or perhaps slow down the piece to play a difficult line.
The tempo track has various names within different sequencing programs—it’s the Conductor Track in Digital Performer and Pro Tools, the Tempo Track in Cubase, Nuendo and Logic, and the Tempo View in Sonar. In all four programs, changes can be incorporated using a graphic editor (where the tempo changes are shown linearly and can be drawn directly on the track) or an event editor (where the changes are shown numerically in a list form just like MIDI note data). The following examples use Steinberg Nuendo, but the technique is exactly the same no matter which software package you use. How it’s done Different musicians work different ways, but programming changes is one of the last things I do before mixing. Working one section at a time, I go through the piece to “spot” where the changes should go, dropping markers as I go. Then I work phrase by phrase. My preference is to use the graphical editor to make changes. This editor plots tempo on the y-axis against time on the x-axis (in either seconds and minutes or bars and beats), so a piece with no tempo changes would be represented as a single straight line. (Fig. 1) To implement a change, you simply draw a new point on the timeline. If you draw a single point, you will get an abrupt change; if you want a gradual change (as in a ritard or accelerando), you will need to insert several points. Let’s look at a couple of examples. First, let’s apply an abrupt change. Decide on the new tempo (in this case 90 BPM), insert a point with that value, and you have a completed tempo change from 60 BPM to 90 BPM. (Fig. 2) Now let’s look at the more common change, a ritard. Usually you’re going along at the set tempo, the music slows down, and then the originally tempo is resumed. We need to insert points on the tempo editor that correspond to these three events. First, we define where the original tempo ends, going into the ritard. In this example, there’s a tempo insert point at bar 14 beat 3 (Fig. 3a) at the original tempo. Next define the end point of the ritard where the original tempo will resume. This is done by placing a second tempo insert point at bar 15, beat 1 (Fig. 3b), again at the original tempo. Finally, we place a tempo insert point somewhere between these points to program the ritard. This point will represent the last two instructions: how much change happens and how quickly it occurs. Usually the tempo gets slower and slower during the ritard until just before the event is over and the first (or primo) tempo resumes. Consequently, you’ll see the point entered near the end of the ritard as shown in Fig. 3c. Notice that I’ve changed the curve option to ramp instead of jump. This allows the tempo to change gradually between the points VI feature Fig 1. Graphical tempo editor with no tempo change and tempo at 60 BPM Fig 2. Graphical tempo editor with change from 60 BPM to 90 BPM Fig 3. Graphical tempo editor with end point of first tempo bar 14, beat 3 (15.4b) VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS 45
Page 1: USA $4.95 CANADA $6.50 MUNGO GIVEAW
Page 10 and 11: 10 14 16 20 December/January 2006/7
Page 12: VI letters Letters write to: nb@vir
Page 16 and 17: VI launch Launch Introductions, upd
Page 18 and 19: VI feature Let’s Make Some Noise!
Page 20: VI feature Fig. 2: Frequency Modula
Page 23 and 24: change the tone of the carrier is c
Page 25 and 26: Now when you load the Rack preset i
Page 27 and 28: quickly between the Browser and Att
Page 29 and 30: Fig. 1: 7GB on one machine, and it
Page 31 and 32: and click on the IAC driver. Make s
Page 33 and 34: lets you route the software signal
Page 35: level balance. But this can be conf
Page 39 and 40: Giveaway ultimate virtual drummer Y
Page 41 and 42: the horns’ lower range is as powe
Page 43 and 44: Fig. 2: Fingerings are the same in
Page 45: It doesn’t take long to get comfo
Page 49 and 50: Clicking heels Tempo changes don’
Page 51 and 52: The grand scheme All the complex fa
Page 54 and 55: VI review Review by Chris Meyer Ele
Page 56 and 57: VI interview 54 VIRTUAL INSTRUMENTS
Page 58 and 59: interview VI Fig. 2: This is the pa
Page 60 and 61: VI review Steinberg Cubase 4, $999.
Page 62 and 63: VI review Fig. 4: The Prologue anal
Page 64 and 65: VI interview NATHAN FURST (CONTINUE
Page 66: VI trends Trends VI writers stir th

Akai EWI 4000m Electric Wind Instrument Akai EWI 4000m Electric ...

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?