Alternate time signatures

[♫♪♫]

I looooove the time signatures of 5/4 and 7/4. LOVE THEM.

Unfortunately, I haven't been showing those time sigs much love for the last year or so since I've been producing tracks intended for mixing.

One of these days I'm gonna go all out and make an odd time sig IDM ep.

[Hurtdeer]

Yeah man, check this guy out: http://soundcloud.com/hurtdeer

I think he loves them alternate time signatures a bit too much if ya know what i mean...

cheers man. way too much. i just like them though, i'm not gonna pretend it makes my music clever or anything

http://soundcloud.com/hurtdeer/ouroboros-1 <-- 7/4 woo

[ism]

di some wobbed out stuff in 3/4 last year with lots of strings, sounded like an "evil pirates waltz" ! was a bit of a ball ache to get ma head around at firs but got well into it eventually

[selophaine]

3/3 is what i was talking about. 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 with the emphasis on the 3. mostly it was a pain because everything is laid out with 4 beats. maybe it worked out to be something else, i dunno. just been playing around with it to see if it works, which is still questionable but it would be fun to see people dance to it

[SickMan D]

I'm just finishing a track in 6/16 at 104Bpm which in effect is 3/4 at 138Bpm, I'll post up a clip later.

I think its an interesting avenue for dance music but I appreciate unless you can get your head round the odd timings, you cant really dance to it.

I did listen to a lot of dream theatre about 10 years ago, and played a few tracks in a band I was in, which I think helps to get with the syncopation

[hurlingdervish]

polyrhythms over 4/4 are more useful in electronic music

playing in 5 can be fun on guitar, lots of cool chord progression possibilities

[jngldrumz]

3/3?

3 dotted quavers in a bar?

aint that just 9/16?

no such time signature

[abZ]

3/3?

3 dotted quavers in a bar?

aint that just 9/16?

no such time signature

Yeah don't say 3/3 people will think you don't have a clue. 3/4 - 3 quarter notes per measure, simple.

[my_fickle_eye]

100 bpm 3/4 ( 70 4/4) so everything on the 1.2.3.4 is on a triplet. Works for me sometimes as my brain just seems to split everything into 1 2 3 4. Then its like a bar and a half for the kick and bassline

[selophaine]

3/3?

3 dotted quavers in a bar?

aint that just 9/16?

no such time signature

Yeah don't say 3/3 people will think you don't have a clue. 3/4 - 3 quarter notes per measure, simple.

So i was wrong, oh well. but it's not 3/4, ended up being 7/8 after i researched a bit and figured it out.

Anyway, mostly I was curious to see if anyone was using unconventional signatures and how they turned out. Reasons why people don't, ect.

[jngldrumz]

I think the biggest reason people don't use odd signatures is because they aren't as danceable as the more common meters. No doubt you could dance to them, but for the regular, non musical club goer, they probably sound confusing and weird. They're just not as relate able to the masses, same reason why all those hyped up wobbly club banger tracks go over better in the club than other things like burial, and a lot of the older dubstep. I don't know if it was mentioned, but venetian snares does some crazy odd time stuff.

[SickMan D]

Here's a clip of the tune I'm doing, work in progress

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uozr1q

In my previous post I mentioned 6/16 that was what the sequencer was set to, it is in effect in 3/4.

Let me know if you check it out

[wrexile]

I used to do a lot of DnB / Jungle / Breakcore / Gabba in 5/4 and 7/4 but I've never really tried any other genres apart from those.
Might try some 7/4 Garage though.... hmm..

[moznz]

Here's a clip of the tune I'm doing, work in progress

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uozr1q

In my previous post I mentioned 6/16 that was what the sequencer was set to, it is in effect in 3/4.

Let me know if you check it out

lovin this tune sooooo much - have it on repeat - any more of this track available or plans for release?

[abZ]

Not much into odd time signature but this xmas tune gave me an idear. 6/4 half time. kick on 1 and snare on the 4. It sounds right but very slow. Like if you dropped that beat after a standard 4/4 half time beat it would give the effect of it dropping to halftime 105bpm with out it actually changing tempo... if I have my head wrapped around it correctly lol Defo going to try this in a tune, don't steal my idea!

[-dubson-]

Got an idea i have been working on recently thats in 3/4. Theres definatly alot of scope messing around in with time.

[Demos]

Here's a clip of the tune I'm doing, work in progress

http://www.sendspace.com/file/uozr1q

In my previous post I mentioned 6/16 that was what the sequencer was set to, it is in effect in 3/4.

Let me know if you check it out

this is sick

[venuq]

Yeah Im well into that, inspiring

[narcissus]

i can't really FEEL a track that isn't in 4... i mean that's great to explore.. i remember when i first was getting into music and theory when i was like 12, i was all into changing time signatures every 2 bars just for the fuck of it.. weird shit like 5/4 to 11/8 to 3/4 to 9/4 and back again... and the disjointedness is kinda cool to trip out on.. but a good SOLID track in 4 that gets me bouncing.. that's the best

[alphacat]

not hugely worth it for dance music productions cos its gonna be difficult for a DJ to fit in with the rest of his tracks, which are generally 4/4

All the more reason to do it.

On the one hand, I'm pretty tired of a lot of electronic music's dancefloor fascism... - the 160 BPM speed limit some jungle oldskoolers tried to impose, the resistance to harsh sounds just because "it chases chicks away," the whole house music additive/subtractive song structure formula [that I ranted about in another thread here]...

Catering to the DJ is - to me - putting the cart before the horse. My working analogy's always been that the producer is the architect and the DJ is the interior designer that uses what the architects provide to create a vibe.

But on the other hand, wankery for its own sake is pretty fuckin' annoying too. It's one thing to be abstract and another to jerk off all over the tune - like guitar solos, if it doesn't do something for the song, move it forward, take it to another level, whatever - it doesn't belong there. Period.

To those who say if it's not based on a four count it's not danceable - take a listen to some traditional African drumming, often in totally bizarre time sigs with seemingly random changes and time switchups and then try and say that. Check out Babatunde Olatunji for instance... that shit makes me want to dance like a fool and kill a chicken for the gods, and it's in 26/16, 11/9, 13/8, 5/16, etc.