Randomly swap notes

[Danny Wyatt]

I don't know if this is possible using the MIDI Transform (or any other way), but let's say I have this:

I would like to randomize the notes left and right, without them overlapping, for example hitting the button to process, maybe I would end up with something like this:

So all notes are the same and their length is the same, they are just in different positions, without ever overlapping.

[Maestro777]

The closest I can think of for what you may be trying to achieve would be to open your MIDI editor window in Piano roll, Select all the notes that you'd like to perform that type of transform on and then from the Functions menu go to MIDI Transform and select "Random Pitch" from the sub-menu.

You'll be prompted to select the pitched range of notes you'd like randomized and once you've completed that; you'll get the random pitches you're after without affecting the note length.

Maybe you could explore the other Transform options available also and experiment with them. Sometimes you may be searching how to do something specific and stumble across other creative ways to accomplish what you're after.

I don't know whether or not the overlapping requirement would be met though. You "may" have to do a bit of manual work there. Not sure.

Good Luck 😀

Edited June 23, 2022 by Maestro777

[Danny Wyatt]

2 hours ago, Maestro777 said:

The closest I can think of for what you may be trying to achieve would be to open your MIDI editor window in Piano roll, Select all the notes that you'd like to perform that type of transform on and then from the Functions menu go to MIDI Transform and select "Random Pitch" from the sub-menu.

You'll be prompted to select the pitched range of notes you'd like randomized and once you've completed that; you'll get the random pitches you're after without affecting the note length.

Maybe you could explore the other Transform options available also and experiment with them. Sometimes you may be searching how to do something specific and stumble across other creative ways to accomplish what you're after.

I don't know whether or not the overlapping requirement would be met though. You "may" have to do a bit of manual work there. Not sure.

Good Luck 😀

I use the Transform quite a bit, already.

What you suggest is something I already do, but that's not what I am trying to achieve. The Random Pitch, it's just that: Pitch.

The idea is that you would be randomizing pitch, but also the rhythm, creating new melodies along with new rhythms.

Also I'm not "requiring" overlapping. It's actually the opposite. I want notes to be swapped without overlapping, while keeping the same length.

[David Nahmani]

I can't think of any quick and efficient way to do this. 

If you don't mind spending the time then you could do it in the Tracks view, for example use the Marquee Point to snap to the beginning of each note and split the region there, then shuffle the regions around in shuffle L or R mode. 

[Danny Wyatt]

11 hours ago, David Nahmani said:

I can't think of any quick and efficient way to do this. 

If you don't mind spending the time then you could do it in the Tracks view, for example use the Marquee Point to snap to the beginning of each note and split the region there, then shuffle the regions around in shuffle L or R mode. 

Interesting. I've never used that Drag mode. When you said "shuffle" I was thinking about the shortcuts that just put all regions together with no gaps, but that's different, because it doesn't swap files like the Drag mode.

Yes, that's a pretty close option. I wish this was possible as a randomization tool...

But good to know about this Drag mode... Thanks for sharing another thing I didn't know about. What's the difference between the L and R? I tried both and they seem to do the same thing. I read this, but even though the explanation is there, I don't experience any difference:
https://support.apple.com/en-eg/guide/logicpro/lgcpf7c0a2ec/10.6.2/mac/10.15.7

[David Nahmani]

Shuffle L and Shuffle R behave the same if your regions are already stuck together and you swap them.

They behave differently however if you resize a region or make a Marquee selection and delete that selection. 

For example let's say you record a classical orchestra and they play measures 1 through 4, stop, start at measure 3 and keep going a few bars at a time like that. You use Shuffle L, marquee select the section between the first time they played measure 3 beat 1 and the second time they play measure 3 beat 1 and press delete. 

[fuzzfilth]

The real difference is that when deleting one Region while Shuffle L is activated, all Regions to the right of that gap shuffle to the left to fill the gap, whereas when deleting one Region while Shuffle R is activated, all Regions to the left of that gap shuffle to the right to fill the gap. Likewise for inserting a Region.

[Danny Wyatt]

1 hour ago, fuzzfilth said:

The real difference is that when deleting one Region while Shuffle L is activated, all Regions to the right of that gap shuffle to the left to fill the gap, whereas when deleting one Region while Shuffle R is activated, all Regions to the left of that gap shuffle to the right to fill the gap. Likewise for inserting a Region.

Ok now that makes sense. Because just dragging one region wasn't showing me any difference. Thanks for clarifying!

[Danny Wyatt]

1 hour ago, David Nahmani said:

For example let's say you record a classical orchestra and they play measures 1 through 4, stop, start at measure 3 and keep going a few bars at a time like that. You use Shuffle L, marquee select the section between the first time they played measure 3 beat 1 and the second time they play measure 3 beat 1 and press delete.

You made it sound even more complex that it is hahaha
@fuzzfilth reply made more sense to me I guess the issue was just that dragging the regions manually wasn't making any difference. Now I got it

[David Nahmani]

11 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

You made it sound even more complex that it is hahaha

What I described was a real use case scenario from back when I recorded classical orchestras. I wanted to share a concrete application for the Shuffle mode, not just describe its behavior. 

[fuzzfilth]

18 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

a real use case scenario

You use Shuffle R when cutting spoken word without stopping. If you used Shuffle L, everytime you deleted something you'd have to wait fro the upcoming audio to buffer, since it just moved. Shuffle R moves what has been played already, so there's nothing to buffer. Also, Markers that have been placed while recording stay in sync with the yet unedited audio they point to, which they don't with Shuffle L.

Edited June 24, 2022 by fuzzfilth

[Danny Wyatt]

23 minutes ago, fuzzfilth said:

You use Shuffle R when cutting spoken word without stopping

Interesting approach. I don't do that kind of work, but I can see how that can be useful.

[Danny Wyatt]

47 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

What I described was a real use case scenario from back when I recorded classical orchestras. I wanted to share a concrete application for the Shuffle mode, not just describe its behavior. 

I had to read that like 10 times now to really understand what you were saying... haha
I guess I got it now. Maybe an image/GIF would make it simpler to understand. Pretty much you just delete from the beginning of the first measure 3, to the beginning of the second measure 3. In this example I'm using beat 3 as if it was measure 3, to make it easier to see the numbers:

[David Nahmani]

26 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

I had to read that like 10 times now to really understand what you were saying... haha
I guess I got it now. Maybe an image/GIF would make it simpler to understand. Pretty much you just delete from the beginning of the first measure 3, to the beginning of the second measure 3. In this example I'm using beat 3 as if it was measure 3, to make it easier to see the numbers:

It's hard to just create a gif of it.... basically the orchestra would play the piece two or three measures at a time. There's no relationship whatsoever to the grid in Logic either, so it's not like you can use the ruler for that. 

So I end up with one single long recording of many little 2 or 3 measures passages that need to be stitches together. Let's talk only about stitching the two first passages. 

• Passage 1: The orchestra plays from beat 1 of measure 1, makes a mistake in measure 3 and stops playing.
• Passage 2: The orchestra resumes playing a little before beat 1 of measure 3 and continues for a few bars.

I figure out where beat 1 of measure 3 is inside Passage 1, that's edit point A, and where beat 1 of measure 3 is inside Passage 2, that's edit point B. So while in Shuffle L mode:

1. Marquee select from A to B.
2. Press Delete. 

Done!

[Danny Wyatt]

16 minutes ago, David Nahmani said:

It's hard to just create a gif of it.... basically the orchestra would play the piece two or three measures at a time. There's no relationship whatsoever to the grid in Logic either, so it's not like you can use the ruler for that. 

So I end up with one single long recording of many little 2 or 3 measures passages that need to be stitches together. Let's talk only about stitching the two first passages. 

• Passage 1: The orchestra plays from beat 1 of measure 1, makes a mistake in measure 3 and stops playing.
• Passage 2: The orchestra resumes playing a little before beat 1 of measure 3 and continues for a few bars.

I figure out where beat 1 of measure 3 is inside Passage 1, that's edit point A, and where beat 1 of measure 3 is inside Passage 2, that's edit point B. So while in Shuffle L mode:

1. Marquee select from A to B.
2. Press Delete. 

Done!

Yeah, I used the grid, but because it's visually easier to understand where it cuts.

So it's just a simple cut, that remove everything inside and brings the regions either to the left or the right, depending on the mode, like @fuzzfilth said. It's a very simple concept. Maybe it will be useful for me as well, eventually. Always finding new Logic gems after all these years! Gotta love that!

[David Nahmani]

37 minutes ago, Danny Wyatt said:

it's just a simple cut, that remove everything inside and brings the regions either to the left or the right, depending on the mode

Yes. And it also works when resizing a region, which allows you to adjust the edit I  just described while keeping the regions against each other (no gap, no overlap):