Metronome emphasis

Community Ideas for Ardour
#1

It would be nice if we could choose which beats to emphasize in the metronome (now it seems it’s only possible to emphasize the first beat).

As a minimum it should be possible to emphasize at 2 different points in the bar, like beat 1 and 3 in 5/4, but 3 or more would be even nicer.

Some background discussion here, among other places: Can I change the beat pattern of the metronome

4 Likes
#2

Also a feature request: [0008533: Make it possible to edit the metronome click pattern when editing the meter - Ardour Bug Tracker]

1 Like
#3

Should I show support for that feature request by adding a comment in the bug tracker, or is this forum thread sufficient?

#4

The bugtracker is the right place. Things don’t get forgotten there.

#5

Not to say that this request is not valid (at all), but it is really easy to make a MIDI track with some percussion sounds for this purpose. Many of my songs have odd time signatures and this has worked really well for me.

1 Like
#6

@finotti I agree completely: I find playing to a classic metronome sterile, to the point of discouraging my creative spark. I’d much rather through together a simple groove (“HH on eighth notes, kick on 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4”) and tweak from there to get the feel right for the song. I have even been known to add a “delayline” to the track. :slight_smile:

#7

I have tried to use Hydrogen for this, but I have not found an efficient workflow. Is there a fast way to import a short 1-2 bar midi sequence from Hydrogen and have it automatically replicated ad libitum in Ardour?
Perhaps connecting Hydrogen to Arbour directly (though jack/pipewire) is the way to go?

#8

For me it is much easier to do this inside Ardour.
My workflow:

  • create a midi track for the drums
  • add an AVL drum kit plugin (Black Pearl or Red Zeppelin to the track (stereo output version for metronom)
  • Create a short region one or 2 bars
  • edit drum events - kick, HH, snare, crash …
  • duplicate that region 100x:
    • right click on region - “region name” → Duplicate → Multi-Duplicate …

For Hydrogen I would program a pattern in HG then record that into an AudioTrack in Ardour
(I think you need Jack setup)
then trim the audio region, Multi-Duplicate the Audio Region (same procedure)

Hope this did not increase the level of confusion.

For my preferred flow some midi editing know-how is required, which does not hurt anyway.
There is a Ardour midi editing master class <o YT from Unfa

#9

Here is a way to do it. It looks long but it is really simple.

  • create a MIDI track and leave “General MIDI Synth”
  • right click the track area (with the mute/solo buttons) and choose “Patch Selector”
  • in “Bank”, choose “Patch Bank 120” and “Standard Drums” (or choose other set of sounds)
  • right click the track area again, then “Note Mode” and select “Percussive”
  • on top, beside “Snap” select the division you want, say 1/4 for quarter notes
  • draw a region of a single bar
  • go down to C#2 (for side stick), click and hold on the beginning of the region and drag to the end (letting it go then) – this will draw quarter notes through out the bar (or you can simply draw the notes you want)
  • if you prefer, move the first note of this bar to a different instrument to accent the first beat, like F#2 for hihat.
  • adjust the velocity of each beat to adjust volumes as you’d like
  • go to Region (on the Menu) → Duplicate → Multi-duplicate… and choose how many copies (number of bars) you need

Note: I believe that by default, these are all the same MIDI region, so if you change one, you change them all. But I am not sure that is the default. If you want to change a single one, right click it, <Name of Track> (on top) → MIDI → Unlink from other copies.

I hope this helps.

#10

Thanks @peter.zenk and @finotti, I’ll have to try your suggestions. Generally speaking, I find editing MIDI tracks in Ardour not the most intuitive job. I’ll have to make time to watch Unfa’s master class. It’s been on my list forever

#11

I was in a similar position some time ago, drums with Hydrogen, Audio with Ardour. Then I had a song with a number of tempo changes, and the sync between HG and Ardour broke.
So I decided to learn Ardour Midi. I agree, it’s not as comfortable as e. g. Ableton. But at least I could get the job done: produce the music.
Once you are on that level you can use midi also for other stuff like keys strings etc …

#12

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