Time signature deciphering....

[Basic A]

i know there is a thread on time sigs already, but that kids looking for help with his, whereas Im talking about well know tunes here. now. those who know of my djing know ill drop juuust about anything with the right tempo, and ive always wanted to be able to play this tune about, really, because of how wierd it is. its clearly on some sort of very odd but very catchy time sig, try and put this on a 4x4 grid and youll see what I mean. If i knew how to count it, i could at least filter n match bpms, polyrhythm madness... but Im shit at this sort of thing...

also...

i figure if anyone has questons about other known tunes time sigs, they could ask for help here.

[Remokari]

Listen to some Meshuggah for a month and you'll have no problem with time signatures... And I mean LISTEN.

[Basic A]

Listen to some Meshuggah for a month and you'll have no problem with time signatures... And I mean LISTEN.

Okay, then decipher this for me

what i thought.

[Genevieve]

11/4?

[Basic A]

11/4?

doesnt look like it.

i honestly wonder if its not hand played, looked at it form all directions in my daw.

[Hurtdeer]

hate to say it but it sounds like 4/4 nice track though

also meshuggah are the shit

[Basic A]

hate to say it but it sounds like 4/4 nice track though

also meshuggah are the shit

hate to say it but your wrong.

Free tune = can be checked in your daw if you think im as thick as mr. meshuggah plugs skull.

[Genevieve]

11/4?

doesnt look like it.

i honestly wonder if its not hand played, looked at it form all directions in my daw.

Sooo, why don't you ask him? o.0

hate to say it but it sounds like 4/4 nice track though

Yeah, I tried to go by the kicks, but it didn't feel right. The break is in 4/4, the kicks are just syncopated.

[Hurtdeer]

hate to say it but it sounds like 4/4 nice track though

also meshuggah are the shit

hate to say it but your laughably wrong.

Free tune = can be checked in your daw if you think im as thick as mr. meshuggah plugs skull.

i don't think you're thick. i also gladly assume what i say might be wrong. but i was counting 4/4.

[Hurtdeer]

Yeah, I tried to go by the kicks, but it didn't feel right. The break is in 4/4, the kicks are just syncopated.

i was listening to the overall groove of the track... the loop sort seems to wrap itself up over the course of about 16 beats (implying 4/4) and continue like that for most of the track, with the kick sort of dancing around it kind of freely. There were a few things that threw me off, like maybe an extra beat here or there just thrown in?

[Basic A]

hate to say it but it sounds like 4/4 nice track though

also meshuggah are the shit

hate to say it but your laughably wrong.

Free tune = can be checked in your daw if you think im as thick as mr. meshuggah plugs skull.

i don't think you're thick. i also gladly assume what i say might be wrong. but i was counting 4/4.


i appreciate you're a defensive dude A but come on man

I didnt mean to seem like a prick man i deifnately did though...

my bad... off day today, my humors not on par with text, it would have made more sense if you were sitting next to me.

[Genevieve]

I can get really pedantic and say it's 8/4, actually. 2 composite 4/4 with a syncopated kick drum rhythm, come to think of it. Sorry, but it works. I'm tapping my finger along to the beat and count out loud, shit starts every 8/4 notes.

[Hurtdeer]

I didnt mean to seem like a prick man i deifnately did though...

my bad... off day today, my humors not on par with text, it would have made more sense if you were sitting next to me.

haha, fair enough man, it's too easy to get things the wrong way on the internet when all you got is a bunch of words

[Remokari]

You did come off a bit rude to me, I was just kidding around.. From what I've listened to, it's not a fixed time signature. It's more of various polyrhythms alternating over a 4/4 tempo.

[SunkLo]

Genevieve's got it. Really deceptive kick drum, almost never lands on the first beat. Listen to the hats and snare though while counting and you'll land on the groove.
Some grooves you gotta know what to listen for in order to lock on it. It's like a password that you have to decrypt through multiple listens.

[Gombles]

I can get really pedantic and say it's 8/4, actually. 2 composite 4/4 with a syncopated kick drum rhythm, come to think of it. Sorry, but it works. I'm tapping my finger along to the beat and count out loud, shit starts every 8/4 notes.

almost works but not always, some phrases end just after an 8 count

after a while listening I think it's 12/8, if you count 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 etc it works whole way though

[icelizarrd]

Wow, that really is something.

The snare does outline a 4/4 backbeat that is surprisingly consistent. There are variations, but it's pretty regular; and every fourth bar, we get an extra variation where the first snare comes an extra 8th note early.

That is, assuming 8th notes, the essentials of the snare pattern are this:

Code: Select all

1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ 
--x--x--   --x--x--   --x--x--   -x---x--

There are a few places where the snare drops out, or a few places with an extra syncopated hit or two, but they don't affect the overall form.

Like others have said, the very first hit often doesn't start on the downbeat. The big gong-punctuated kick does NOT fall on beat 1. Rather, it falls on the last 8th note of the measure before this one. Using B for "bass drum", and ignoring 16th notes, the first five measures (the first being the mostly empty "pickup" measure) are like this:

Code: Select all

... 3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 1+2+3+4+ | 
    ----   --x--x--   --x--x--   -----x-- | -x---x--  etc.
    ---B | -------- | B--B---- | ---B---- | B------- |

After that, in the next four bars, it's really easy to see that there's a bassdrum hit on every downbeat, plus a few extra syncopated hits. So I won't depict that. Then the next 8 bars are almost verbatim repeats of the last 8. So, rhythmically, our structure for the first 16 bars is something like ABAB, with the As' kicks being weirdly syncopated and the Bs being more on-beat.

The varying off- and on-beat might seem to suggest a meter like 7/8 or 11/8 for the bass drum, but I'm pretty sure we'd have to have more measures in between to get one of those to line up properly with a 4/4 beat again. I just don't see any regular pattern there, and the on-beat sections look way too much like 4/4 anyway. It's possible the hi-hats are playing in a separate meter? But I'm too lazy to find out. As for the taiko stuff, who knows what's going on there.

(P.S. You can analyze this with the entire thing shifted one eighth note so that the first downbeat IS on 1. Then the snares are actually on "the and of 2" and on "4", instead of "2" and "the and of 3". I like my way better because it gives more consistent downbeats later on, though.)

[setspeed]

^^ yep

sounds like straight up 4/4 to me, just that there generally is no kick on the first beat of the bar. the intro is pretty complex but it's in 4/4 too and resolves after 8 bars

[SunkLo]

This is a textbook case of "I'll do whatever I fucking want" when sequencing.

[mks]

Nice.. I love Taiko drums.

But yeah, this is 4/4 with a lot of onedrops, syncopations and expanded rhythm patterns.

EZ