hey i just got a 303 the other day and since then have spent a lot of time browsing these forums ha. i've seen a lot of mention of swing and how to get it and whatnot, but haven't really seen any explanation of what it is. so if anyone could enlighten me that'd be cool...

from a non technical standpoint its what makes the rhythm sound human and not robotic

from a technical standpoint its changes in the timing of the notes

http://www.musicarrangers.com/star-theory/t21.htm

its really hard to explain with out audio examples

basically :

techno : no swing

flying lotus : massive swing

most times if you just play what you are feeling without quantization it will be swung even without trying

here ya go g!


no swing:

http://www.box.net/shared/ypel82820z

swing:

http://www.box.net/shared/l457iff029

ohh alright thanks for the examples

Other terms synonymous with swing are shuffle and groove.

Is there a technical difference between these?

A number of hardware and software based pattern sequencers implement swing, shuffle or groove by modulating the tempo with an LFO. The LFO period would then be one bar or 1/2 bar.

shuffle tends to be completely triplet based, where as swing tends to be in between shuffle and straight

thats the reason why they have to use an lfo and also why it will still sound a bit robotic if you let a computer swing for you

but again its best not to think about swing, you just gotta do it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLUkzzENnh4

no such thing as swing on the 303. If you record unquantized swing will move notes to time. if you record with quantized and swing you move to time or squeeze together. Just record with quantize off, the kids on these forums are confused how stuff works, you cant create shit that aint there.

to answer the question.

on the sp-303 and on any other sequencer, the machine (or software) usually has a quantise feature. what this does is place your MIDI notes to the nearest interval of 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64 or however you have it set up. what 1/8, 1/16 notes etc. mean is that in each bar there are either 8, 16 or however many notes evenly spaced.

if you want to talk about swing from a software/hardware standpoint then what the sequencer does is move the MIDI notes slightly forward or back. this changes the rhythm of notes slightly.

again in regards to music sequencers the terms shuffle and swing are almost interchangeable as they amount to the same thing within the program and developers and manufactures seem to use the terms as they see fit.

also there is no swing or shuffle function on the sp-303.

Here:

No swing: 16
Swing: 16.3

Figure it out yourself

there really is a difference between swing and shuffle so dont write them off just yet

16.3 quantization is not swing it is shuffle
shuffle pattern
http://www.box.net/shared/x6q3ps5bap

the same pattern but swung
http://www.box.net/shared/7ezicer9qu

swung notes are still written as 1/16 1/8 etc
whereas shuffled notes are groupings of triplets

the 303 can swing ,you just need to go double time .

i think you may be overcomplicating things for the OP.

in terms of most modern sequencers the terms shuffle and swing ARE interchangable. 16 note triplets quantisation has no swing. when we talk about a modern sequencer then yes you can use the terms how you like. in written notation terms then their is a difference in terms of shuffle as it is more defined than something like swing.

to summarise; in terms of most modern sequencers shuffle/swing is when the sequencer moves the MIDI notes slightly forward or backwards.

maybe so

but its just the training that was beaten into me while learning trumpet

swing on other sequencers usually is a percentage offset of all the sequenced notes of a track, so like you place your hi hats on two tracks one right on 8ths and then the others the same, then you offset one and you can get a nice somewhat triplet based swing, but you can do anything with the swing, doesn't have to be triplet based at all, its sometimes helpful just for movin a few kicks back cause they are hittin to soon, but in actuallity, the only thing that matters is havin your drums sound tight and havin the rhythm compliment the sample, and you can do that by quantizing, not quantizing, using swing or putting air before your drums hits, all that matters is that you know how you want the drums to sound and you get em to sound that way

Swing is human error, flawlessly timed beats sound robotic / unrealistic, hence why we prefer a few perfectly timed flaws.

It's ironic when you think about it.