If you see them just as ratios you can see that they are essentially the same concept though, just in different tempos: think about a voice A playing a 6/8 pattern and a voice B playing a 8/8 pattern with the same pulse. Let's do the thing where we emphasize the first note of each pattern, so we can hear the shifting. It starts with A and B playing on the 1st count, next A playing on the 7th count, then B playing on the 9th count, A on 13th, B on 17th, A on 19th, then both playing on the 25th pulse, which is the start of a new cycle: A: x o o o o o x o o o o o x o o o o o x o o o o o x ... B: x o o o o o o o x o o o o o o o x o o o o o o o x ... If we speed this up and just forget about the counts (the "o" here), A is playing 4 times in the same anount of time when B is playing 3 times (the last "x" are the start of the new cycle). It's the same pattern, just generated a bit differently. Tadaa!
Thanks for clearing this up! I'm about to buy a BSP and this prevents some disappointment. It's not a huge deal, I'll just have to use a clock divider to get some polyrhythm in my patches :).
thanks, I tried to figured it out (polyrythm vs poly meters) for like 1hour or so and your videos finally help me to understand the difference :) cheers from france :) Louis
well I think using a sequencer to explain that concept is a really good idea, because I watched drummer explain it and I was confused XD anyway thanks a lot ! :) :) :)
thank you this was quite clear and informative... ive known the difference on a more instinct level but could never really define it into what they each separately are.. this was helpful :) now i need to find a polyrythm sequencer with more than triplets
I'm glad it helped! I believe that you should look into the Squarp Pyramid - be warned its not cheap, but if you're looking for a comprehensive hardware sequencer - that's definitely one to check out!
@@OscillatorSink it's fairly simple to do polyrhythms with arbitrary numbers on the beatstep pro. For an X over Y polyrhythm, multiply X by Y to produce Z. Make a sequence of Z steps in length. Z steps can fit X pulses of Y steps in length and Y pulses of X steps in length. That might sound a bit more complicated than it is. Once you've done one you'll see what I mean. Eg: 2/3 looks like: .--.-- .-.-.- 6 steps total. 2 pulses of 3 steps. 3 pulses of two steps. 3/4: .---.---.--- .--.--.--.-- 12 steps total. 3 pulses of 4 steps. 4 pulses of 3 steps. 4/5: .----.----.----.---- .---.---.---.---.--- 20 steps. 4 of 5 and 5 of 4. And so on...
In order to allow polyrhythms, each sequencer would need the ability to have its own metronome/clock. A nice feature would be if the BeatStep Pro could then calculate the proper tempos for each sequencer, and have them controlled by a master Tempo, much like the Swing does.
I would not worry about the explanation in the last video it’s what you showed us what can be achieved doesn’t matter about terminology if they do look st someone’s else’s video
+ranzee av thank you! The terms get mixed up a lot (not least by me). I think possibly the fact that a couple of specific types of polyrhythm can be, sort of faked using polymeter is part of the problem.
That is not exactly what a polymeter is. The key part is METER. Polymeter is a specific type of polyrhythm, where two instruments or voices are notated in different meters - think Don Giovanni, or Götterdammerung. So in reality, it is actually a NOTATIONAL DEVICE for a polyrhythm that takes multiple measures to resolve. Of course, such a polyrhythm does not have to be notated polymetrically either, but some composers choose to, because it makes the individual parts easier to read on their own. The "sharing a pulse" definition for polyrhythm has little merit, because sequencers are pulse and meter agnostic - each step may or may not be a beat/pulse (as opposed to a subdivision), and step 1 may or may not be the downbeat of a measure, it's a matter of how the user chooses to perceive it - and because any polyrhythm can "share a pulse" if you make the pulse small enough, which is exactly what one usually does when working with a sequencer. You may or may not choose to call it a polymeter, but it's still a polyrhythm. Perhaps this is another case of electronic music geeks with little background in music theory mis-naming something (think rimshot).
+nik frisbee true dat. It's this terrible situation where a lot of people know the term "Polyrhythm" (but not what it means) but aren't familiar with "polymeter". It's a minefield.
Actually the BSP is still unable to do polyrythm within the drum sequencer itself, which is too bad. Also it cannot play drums in different divisions of time. For instance : you can't have one cell playing in 16ths, while another one plays in triplets or even in 32nds. That's too bad because if your drum sequencer is setup to play in 16ths you can't actually record the 32nds of the roller, and that would be crazy cool if it could ! Instant live glitchy hihats or even trap style hihat, without any tedious programming.
Hi, have you ever had problems with BSP that control by MIDI an a Volca Drum? i have set correct midi cc and everythings work but after some minutes Volca stop to play, play button enable/disable out of controls... There are some setting in BSP i'm missing?
I'm not familiar with the Roland - if you can set different parts to different lengths then you're good to go for polymeter, but I'd be surprised if it could do polyryhthm outside of triplets - it's actually very rare on a drum machine. Some dedicated sequencers do though. I think the squarps do, and the cirklon of course. I think some of the polyend instruments do it too, but don't quote me on that.
Does the beatstep - or any other hardware sequencer that you know of - allow for polyrhythms in other divisions other than triplets? I’m looking for a way to create other combinations to play with things like quintuplet swing on my digitakt, but as yet haven’t found a solution. It can be done in Ableton pretty easily.
A verry simple example of polyrytm would be a triplet 8th bassline played against a quarter note lead or 2 eigth notes lead line. Since a triplet 8th has to be played during the duration of 2 eight notes ( or one quarter ) , so 3 notes in 1 beat The notes have a different duration but are played within the same beat . If the beatstep can play triplets on one sequencer and regular eight notes on the other seq. it can do polyrytmic stuff. I don't have one to test
+Ward de jager Yes. But the point of this video is that the 'polyrhythm' feature added in v2.0 is actually a polymeter feature. I specifically point out in the video that the BSP already does do (a particular form of) polyrhythm already in the video.
@@Shane-zo4mg I can't think of a sequencer that let's you do that. The Korg sequencers have active steps, so you could achieve the same effect... But they don't usually have that many steps anyway. If you need those steps as a sequence you could bring in and out during a song, I'd just save them as another pattern. You could even be using scenes to arrange how the patterns switch?
I don't have a modular setup - but my understanding is you'd just send the clock output from the BSP to a mult and just distribute it to anything that needed clock - or just send gates from the sequencer tracks? I guess you could use the drum gate outs to have multiple different meter lengths as well?
Thank you very much for the clarification. Question : can I have combined rhythm in the beat step pro outside the triplets and 4/4? I need it for composing Ethnic music out side the 4/4 metronome pulse.
+Omar Saad you can vary the division down to 1/32 notes, which combined with varying the meter might get you where you want (and you can have triplets down to that resolution too), but it sounds that you're asking if there are other polyrhythm options directly available, in which case the answer is no.
+Mr the drums support polymeter only between drum parts. You can set the whole drum sequence to triplets though it believe - but you can't select that per drum sound.
And if it will be possible to select per Drum, It will be polyrhythm...!!! Perhaps Arturia will be in future have the possibility to take that...?! Thx for your very clear explanations about the BSP ver 2.0...
Polymeter (and they are still confusing it with polyrhythm) is available for the drum sequenzer in the latest sw version. You can assign step length for each instrument indiviually. Of course you will have to do the math yourself, if you wanna do real polyrhythm with something more unusuals than 3 over 4. For 7 over 4 you could go with 28 steps for instance and you actually do not need individual step length, as somebody els already pointed out in the comments. Check the basic finction out here > ua-cam.com/video/jUb2S7JObQE/v-deo.html
Wow! Really clear. Far from bursting my bubble it's excited me to fiddle with these two inspiring ideas. Thank you!
Excellent news! Enjoy exploring those rhythms!
Exactly. All the sequencers I have looked at say they do polyrhythms but it's not.
Squarp Pyramid sequencer is the only one that actually does
And the cirklon.
If you can get one.
Thank you very much. This was most enlightening.
Very informative - thanks for this!
That was an excellent demonstration on both these topics. Well done video.
Thank you for explaining this, I absolutely get it now. Cheers for the video.
Very helpful video! Im not too well versed in music theory and this cleared up some confusion
You know I knew within a minute of this what the difference was gonna be. Good info, cheers.
Thanks for clearing that up! - it is an important difference, and many folks are misinformed on this ;)
If you see them just as ratios you can see that they are essentially the same concept though, just in different tempos:
think about a voice A playing a 6/8 pattern and a voice B playing a 8/8 pattern with the same pulse. Let's do the thing where we emphasize the first note of each pattern, so we can hear the shifting. It starts with A and B playing on the 1st count, next A playing on the 7th count, then B playing on the 9th count, A on 13th, B on 17th, A on 19th, then both playing on the 25th pulse, which is the start of a new cycle:
A: x o o o o o x o o o o o x o o o o o x o o o o o x ...
B: x o o o o o o o x o o o o o o o x o o o o o o o x ...
If we speed this up and just forget about the counts (the "o" here), A is playing 4 times in the same anount of time when B is playing 3 times (the last "x" are the start of the new cycle). It's the same pattern, just generated a bit differently. Tadaa!
Thanks for clearing this up! I'm about to buy a BSP and this prevents some disappointment. It's not a huge deal, I'll just have to use a clock divider to get some polyrhythm in my patches :).
+Pieter Dirksen no problem, glad to be of service! Enjoy the BSP, it's a killer bit of kit!
thanks, I tried to figured it out (polyrythm vs poly meters) for like 1hour or so and your videos finally help me to understand the difference :) cheers from france :) Louis
+TheOrangepeak that's great! Glad to help!
well I think using a sequencer to explain that concept is a really good idea, because I watched drummer explain it and I was confused XD anyway thanks a lot ! :) :) :)
Great description. Ty for sharing.
Solving problems and answering questions I didn’t even know I had. Thank you!
Thank you bigtime for your explanation!
You're very welcome!
thank you this was quite clear and informative... ive known the difference on a more instinct level but could never really define it into what they each separately are.. this was helpful :)
now i need to find a polyrythm sequencer with more than triplets
I'm glad it helped! I believe that you should look into the Squarp Pyramid - be warned its not cheap, but if you're looking for a comprehensive hardware sequencer - that's definitely one to check out!
@@OscillatorSink it's fairly simple to do polyrhythms with arbitrary numbers on the beatstep pro.
For an X over Y polyrhythm, multiply X by Y to produce Z.
Make a sequence of Z steps in length. Z steps can fit X pulses of Y steps in length and Y pulses of X steps in length.
That might sound a bit more complicated than it is. Once you've done one you'll see what I mean.
Eg: 2/3 looks like:
.--.--
.-.-.-
6 steps total. 2 pulses of 3 steps. 3 pulses of two steps.
3/4:
.---.---.---
.--.--.--.--
12 steps total. 3 pulses of 4 steps. 4 pulses of 3 steps.
4/5:
.----.----.----.----
.---.---.---.---.---
20 steps. 4 of 5 and 5 of 4.
And so on...
In order to allow polyrhythms, each sequencer would need the ability to have its own metronome/clock. A nice feature would be if the BeatStep Pro could then calculate the proper tempos for each sequencer, and have them controlled by a master Tempo, much like the Swing does.
I would not worry about the explanation in the last video it’s what you showed us what can be achieved doesn’t matter about terminology if they do look st someone’s else’s video
when you put rests on every step besides the first at 3:30 you made a perfect polyrhythm breh!
Amazing. I wonder if they changed their terminology as a result.
Great again! I love your videos. I have subscribed to your channel
Thank you, and welcome!
Still very helpful 🤫
Great video mate! I wonder why they didn't use the correct term?
+ranzee av thank you! The terms get mixed up a lot (not least by me). I think possibly the fact that a couple of specific types of polyrhythm can be, sort of faked using polymeter is part of the problem.
Dude you are a legend, thanks for the video. Cheers.
That is not exactly what a polymeter is. The key part is METER. Polymeter is a specific type of polyrhythm, where two instruments or voices are notated in different meters - think Don Giovanni, or Götterdammerung. So in reality, it is actually a NOTATIONAL DEVICE for a polyrhythm that takes multiple measures to resolve. Of course, such a polyrhythm does not have to be notated polymetrically either, but some composers choose to, because it makes the individual parts easier to read on their own.
The "sharing a pulse" definition for polyrhythm has little merit, because sequencers are pulse and meter agnostic - each step may or may not be a beat/pulse (as opposed to a subdivision), and step 1 may or may not be the downbeat of a measure, it's a matter of how the user chooses to perceive it - and because any polyrhythm can "share a pulse" if you make the pulse small enough, which is exactly what one usually does when working with a sequencer.
You may or may not choose to call it a polymeter, but it's still a polyrhythm.
Perhaps this is another case of electronic music geeks with little background in music theory mis-naming something (think rimshot).
But now you make it complex... Perhaps its easier to see it from a euclidean perspective.
thank you! very well explained and insightful; we can understand and feel it; you could perhaps just give us also some clues concerning their use;
Popular music is currently obsessed with the 2 against 3 polyrhythm (the "migos flow")
I didn't know the BSP could do polyrhythms. Usually you have to set one clock to 3/4 or 1.5 the speed. Nice.
It doesn't help that within the Midi Control Centre under the Drums tab - polyrhythm can be toggled on/off also adding to the confusion..
+nik frisbee true dat. It's this terrible situation where a lot of people know the term "Polyrhythm" (but not what it means) but aren't familiar with "polymeter". It's a minefield.
Actually the BSP is still unable to do polyrythm within the drum sequencer itself, which is too bad. Also it cannot play drums in different divisions of time. For instance : you can't have one cell playing in 16ths, while another one plays in triplets or even in 32nds. That's too bad because if your drum sequencer is setup to play in 16ths you can't actually record the 32nds of the roller, and that would be crazy cool if it could ! Instant live glitchy hihats or even trap style hihat, without any tedious programming.
+vinnowater oh man, what I wouldn't give to have the hats going in 32 over the rest of the kit doing 16...I'm right there with you.
Isn't there a request page on Arturia's forum? If so, post a request. I will +1 it.
if you're using it w eurorack you can by clocking your hihats at 32 from another source while the beat step runs at 16
Get a real pair of hats and practice your buzz rolls! xD
is there a way to reduce the lenght of a sequence?
Yes. That's what the "last step" button does.
Hi, have you ever had problems with BSP that control by MIDI an a Volca Drum? i have set correct midi cc and everythings work but after some minutes Volca stop to play, play button enable/disable out of controls... There are some setting in BSP i'm missing?
I've not really controlled Volcas with the bsp, other than using the analog sync - sorry.
@@OscillatorSink ok thanx for your answer!
Wouldn't the ratcheting technique fulfills the polyrythmic abilities, more colourfully ?
To summarize (by @ScottAmpleford on YT):
using a melodic channel on BSP:
Gate -> (Sync in) Square shaped LFO
Velocity -> (rate in) LFO
---- LFO out -> (gate in) ENV -> (CV in) VCA
1v/Oct -> OSC -> filter -> (audio in) VCA
Can tr6s do poly rythm or poly meter. What drum machines can do poly rythm?
I'm not familiar with the Roland - if you can set different parts to different lengths then you're good to go for polymeter, but I'd be surprised if it could do polyryhthm outside of triplets - it's actually very rare on a drum machine. Some dedicated sequencers do though. I think the squarps do, and the cirklon of course. I think some of the polyend instruments do it too, but don't quote me on that.
nicely done, cheers
+James Baynton thank you!
Does the beatstep - or any other hardware sequencer that you know of - allow for polyrhythms in other divisions other than triplets? I’m looking for a way to create other combinations to play with things like quintuplet swing on my digitakt, but as yet haven’t found a solution. It can be done in Ableton pretty easily.
Squarp Pyramid comes to mind there. Or, you know, the Ciklon. But that's big big money and big big waiting list. But unparalleled ultimately.
nice thanks!
moog subharmonicon
Good explanation! And it should be a "must"
Cheers!
A verry simple example of polyrytm would be a triplet 8th bassline played against a quarter note lead or 2 eigth notes lead line.
Since a triplet 8th has to be played during the duration of 2 eight notes ( or one quarter ) , so 3 notes in 1 beat
The notes have a different duration but are played within the same beat .
If the beatstep can play triplets on one sequencer and regular eight notes on the other seq. it can do polyrytmic stuff.
I don't have one to test
+Ward de jager it can. I demonstrate exactly this later in the video.
wel then it can do polyrytm
2 against 3 , hemiola ...basic polyrytm
PLay 2 eigth notes in 1 beat
PLay 3 three 8 notes in 1 beat .
+Ward de jager Yes. But the point of this video is that the 'polyrhythm' feature added in v2.0 is actually a polymeter feature. I specifically point out in the video that the BSP already does do (a particular form of) polyrhythm already in the video.
Geeez - I am viewer No. 25.000!
THX! :)
Polyrhythm reminds me of the Vernier Scale
How do I move the first step? I am trying to loop beats 17-32.
I don't think you can. Or at least I don't remember seeing that in the manual.
@@OscillatorSink I'm finding a lot of limitations the more I use this thing. Maybe my approach is wrong. Idk
@@Shane-zo4mg I can't think of a sequencer that let's you do that. The Korg sequencers have active steps, so you could achieve the same effect... But they don't usually have that many steps anyway.
If you need those steps as a sequence you could bring in and out during a song, I'd just save them as another pattern. You could even be using scenes to arrange how the patterns switch?
does it works for the drums sequencer as well ?
Yes.
can you demo bsp as master clock for modular setup???
I don't have a modular setup - but my understanding is you'd just send the clock output from the BSP to a mult and just distribute it to anything that needed clock - or just send gates from the sequencer tracks? I guess you could use the drum gate outs to have multiple different meter lengths as well?
Thank you very much for the clarification.
Question : can I have combined rhythm in the beat step pro outside the triplets and 4/4?
I need it for composing Ethnic music out side the 4/4 metronome pulse.
+Omar Saad you can vary the division down to 1/32 notes, which combined with varying the meter might get you where you want (and you can have triplets down to that resolution too), but it sounds that you're asking if there are other polyrhythm options directly available, in which case the answer is no.
Cool! Thanks for sharing that. Now I just have even more to get to know and explore, yeah!
Yeah! Enjoy it!
hmm, I thought you would change the tempo but it was just adding notes in a bar right?
That's essentially correct, yes.
Ok, but it is only for Melody Seq. not for Drums.
There is no possibilty to set individual time division pro Drum
+Mr the drums support polymeter only between drum parts. You can set the whole drum sequence to triplets though it believe - but you can't select that per drum sound.
And if it will be possible to select per Drum, It will be polyrhythm...!!!
Perhaps Arturia will be in future have the possibility to take that...?!
Thx for your very clear explanations about the BSP ver 2.0...
Polymeter (and they are still confusing it with polyrhythm) is available for the drum sequenzer in the latest sw version. You can assign step length for each instrument indiviually. Of course you will have to do the math yourself, if you wanna do real polyrhythm with something more unusuals than 3 over 4. For 7 over 4 you could go with 28 steps for instance and you actually do not need individual step length, as somebody els already pointed out in the comments. Check the basic finction out here > ua-cam.com/video/jUb2S7JObQE/v-deo.html
You know i think ive always heard polymeters referred to as polyrhythms until this moment
*nods* *smiles*
+loketron *knowing glance*