Polymetric in Logic

[MartinIR]

Hi!

Is possible to write polymetric in Logic?

For example: I want a track in 5/8 time and another track in 4/4 time.

Thanks!

[Dewdman42]

no

[Elazmo Hiftenfifter]

But, there is a little trick -- for example, to get 9/4 over 5/4 (easy quarter notes for this example):

Lay down five quarter notes with the time sig set to 5/4.

Next track, lay down nine quarter notes, starting at the same time/beat as the 5/4 track, making sure that the region ends where the tenth one would be.

At the bottom right corner of the nine quarter notes' region, press option and compress the nine notes (drag to the left) into the one measure length of the 5/4 region above. Now you have 9/4 over the same time period that the 5/4 region fills. Of course, you can do this with any part, not just with quarter notes.

[fuzzfilth]

True, but once you open the score editor, you're in a very uncomfortable place.

[Elazmo Hiftenfifter]

In the case of scoring multiple simultaneous time sigs, the master score would be a nightmare to produce (even with Finale, Sibelius etc), and I don't know how a conductor/MD would approach that. The individual printed parts would just be whatever time sig the individual player needs. Unless one person would be required to play two time sigs simultaneously, which would be showing off.

At least you can compose and play back as many simultaneous time sigs as you can stand. Try that with live musicians! The DAW can be a tool to do things that can't be handled by live performers. I think J Dilla did some beats using this concept, what I hear as the "oblong wheel effect."

[zevo]

I don't have live musicians to take care of very often, thankfully, but I do this kind of thing periodically with a little bit of thought and some math.

Been a while though, so as a result of the thread I jumped off and whacked together a set of '7/8, 3/4 and 4/4' (these entirely picked randomly). Kind of got lost in it and forgot about the thread, actually.

This simulates, roughly, the way some polyrhythmic/polymetric sequencers work:

• one track of loops at '3/4' (in beats), another at '4/4' etc. I put those in quotes because you need to pick one to keep your math together, so the set itself is in 7/8 proper.

It's just loop-points and math for the most part.

Easy when thinking in a few 'time signatures' --> which is very different than my LXR-02, which will do this at a step level for each of its 16 tracks. You can have mixtures of 7, 12, 32, 41, 58, 59 and 64 steps rolling around chaotically. Or whatever lengths you want, and time signatures sort of disappear if you want them to.

It's super-cool, and I love it, but I'm glad it keeps up with it rather than me having to, which is (I think) probably what the OP is looking for: 1-n steps across 16 tracks set at different step-lengths without all the math to get the loop points right. The LXR doesn't even seem to care. My 'closeout' priced Keystep Pro supposedly does this. Never tried with it.

It would be awesome to have this kind of thing 'built-in' but I'm not aware of how to do it other than with an overhaul of the step sequencer. Feature request! You never know. But there are ways to get it done, and much more simply if you have a whacky-sequencer handy.

Edited December 20, 2022 by zevo

[wonshu]

I'd be interested to hear this music.

[MartinIR]

Thanks for the answers! I'll try them out.

I also link two posts that helped me: