The only way to make this an interesting, positive and useful thread is to absolutely ignore the first post and imagine a similar but totally diferent question (well, in this case is more an assumption...terrible one too).

This is just like saying "Jazz people are dumb. Why can't they make jazz sound like classical music?"


@foster911

Your erronous assumptions disguised as questions are now going from worse to totally disrespectful. If you're doing it on purpose, carry on... if not, you might want to stop posting for a while and rethink your values and/or motivations with all this.

 

Different time signatures in notational tools VS. Static Patterns in DAWs
(Most people use DAWs and less notational tools)

This is one of the major problems that prohibit doing rhythmically. I don't say that playing rhythmically necessarily needs different time signatures for the piece (eg. you can play rhythmically like guitar players in 4/4 too) but you'd be limited to even divisions in notes' sizing (such as 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, ... even 3/8 is 3*1/8).

Let's suppose we have 3 bar phrase with different time signatures (2/3, 3/4, 11/8) in it written in a notaional tool. Converting these fractions to DAWs' static patterns numbers in such a way that every bar in the phrase to be matched to every bar in the DAW is practically impossible because they will be mixed with each other due to have continuity in timing so people for getting rid of doing some math in the fractions' conversion, use 4/4. For example in FL Studio, you can not select different meters for every bar and for the whole project it's constant but in Finale you can select different meters for every measure.

How many people use Finale and how many people use just the DAWs? Which DAW has flexible time signature for every bar? If there is one, could you please name it. I mean eg. for bar1 you'd have 4 beats and for bar2 you'd have 7 beats. Please notice that changing grid would not help because it's usually being used for snapping not bar size changing.

This is one of the main differences of DAWs and notational tools because they interpret midi differently. Timing is the same but representation is different and for programming rhythmically and unlimitedly you need representation not exact timing.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 18, 2016

What are you even talking about. Every daw I've tried can change time signatures at each bar if you so desire. Studio one, Cubase, and I can't really remember but I'd be surprised if Reaper couldn't do that.

 

I am really sorry that FL studio does not have such thing.

 

Sorry but get a bit sick of the pretentious drivel about rhythm. I make dance music. 4to the floor works for a reason. I like to experiment but mainly i make music to dance and get off your tits to. If you want to not do that fine but get off your high horse first.

 

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse...

Division is pure convention. Either a DAW grid or a notation staff are like rulers and you can divide them anyway you want.

I won't even get to further detail because you don't even understand any of what you read that led into this BS you just wrote.


You keep being rude with your assumptions based on your ignorance and total lack of anykind of musical experience. Stop reading, stop writing crap and go make music.

My eyes are bleeding already.

 

No disrespect. Time signature is one of the most important factors in creating rhythm. People with less knowledge in music theory (OK me too) usually think that by learning scales, chords, progressions they would know every thing and simply neglect timing. Different feelings in music would come out of different rhythms too. Please read Time signature.

 

No, time signature doesn't even really matter to rhythm, it's just another convention that makes things easier to grasp/talk about/read.

You telling me to go read, really?

You're hopeless.

 

Not another disrespect. I did not mean you actually.
I have a serious question. Could you please tell me from which institute, academy, university you have graduated and how? Because It seems you know every thing about the music theory.
Thanks so much. I really need that level of education.

 

Yes, you do need education but not of that kind.

Start by learning how to ask instead of making bold statements about things you don't know.

 

OP, I don't know what music you produce, but in Tech/House area, different time signatures are used simultaneusly in programming drum patterns (let's say a percussion element on 5/4, a exotic hat on 7/4, another exotic percussion on 9/4 sig) along with ghost notes, velocity & pitch variation on every note to give a more realistic feel. Top producers pay unreal attention to these tiny details. However, using the same philosophy in writing melodies can be quite chaotic in my experience. Using various time signatures inside a song on all elements, will pretty much ruin people's dance pattern (yes, as opposite to classical music where all kind of experiments were made, today people dance on music - on all music), so I don't think is a good idea to mess up with it in such a manner: you need a frame for the song and that frame is a steady 4/4 time signature.

As a side note, you DON'T need a daw to allow flexible time signature. If you have a 4/4 selected and need a 5/4, extend a 4/4 with 1/4 and you have your 5/4 bar. Set the grid to 64 divisions if you need to align notes with precision.

 

The OP's signature (at the moment):

"Without good listening to the millions of tracks in different genres, you'll absolutely produce shit! More thinking and learning, less producing."


It's amazing how you understand everything the wrong way, be it advice or things you read somewhere. I really tried to help you but you insist on making everything cerebral without ever touching the stuff and listening (I don't mean for a few minutes, I mean years) and yet you jump to the craziest conclusions and state them as facts.

I won't even try anymore, you're getting sassy and arrogant with your illusions and it's starting to piss me off.

I hope beginners stay away from any of your posts.

 

Yh, I'm also under the impression that you spend more time posting on this forum and making fruity theories than actually making music and practicing.

 

Fl Studio lets you use any time signature humanely possible. You're a bit misinformed.

 

it would be an honor, mate! This week "im buying a new laptop and as soon as it arrives I'll get back to producing. Wait until you hear what I have in store for 2016 Cheers!

 

Sorry kouros! That signature does not relate to practicing. I practice every day. It's just as a reminder for me not to jump to the DAW and put some stuffs in it and call it music. I love you so much! I mean learning and thinking with practicing.

Yes but not in every bar in the piano roll (the whole project allows only having one time signature setting). I mean by importing midi files (with different time signatures in them) to the piano roll, bars would be mixed with each other. FL Studio just consider the notes timing not time signature changings.

The only solution is using the playlist window by cutting the patterns in it. For example let's set the project's time division to 4/4. For having 2 bars with 2/3 and 3/5 time signatures, you should have 2 patterns (first having 2*1/3 notes and second 3* 1/5 notes). Then put them next to each other and remove the empty region. Grid helps on snapping and the note properties window on setting the exact note's time value but the problem is removing the empty regions every time that time signature changes. This is a bit tedious and needs changing PPQ too. It also causes lots of problems in arranging the patterns in the playlist window. Because of this ambiguities in timing, image-line has simply omitted the signature for every bar and relied on the user to overcome it with whatever way he or she knows. Unfortunately most users omit it too.

If FL Studio was track-based DAW maybe we wouldn't have that problem.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 19, 2016

I was curious early, how many posts after this post:

People were going to start drawing this conclusion about the OP:

or this:

It only took 9 subsequent posts. My guess was 10.

 

I don't see a problem with that at all, unless you're a math illiterate and cant count single digit numbers. lol. The program doesn't have a feature that allows you to change time signatures automatically during a song, but the playlist grid makes doing it manually a breeze. Each pattern can have as many beats per measure as required. Simply make each time signature change have it's own pattern then place them in order on the grid..lol. Easy peasy. I've done it countless times with drums and percussions that I have snapping in different signatures around my instruments.

 

There are virtually no limitations in FL Studio, except for the "aww man they don't have an automatic do it for me feature." Only drawback I had with the program (not sure if version 12 fixed it) is that if you bus an instrument to a mixer channel and add an effect the other instruments that aren't bussed aren't compensated and you get an annoying delay.

 

I created this rhythmic piece in the key of D. Please open it in your DAW and look at all of the variations. One of the reasons that DAWs use the piano roll instead of the staff notation is their capabilities in manipulating rhythmically precisely in time and velocity because staff notations are not able to show the exact representations like below one.

Creating pieces like this, is not easy to program even in DAWs using mouse clicks or controllers. Most of the times, even randomizations would not yield the intended results so people decide not to spend their time with fine tunings.

Real instruments are the best for the rhythm. Have you ever used tools like midi guitar simulating the real guitar? Midi keyboards never fill the gaps completely. By using the midi versions of the instruments, people would hit the record button on the piano roll not the audio track.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2016