[LAU] Progressive Quantisation

I posted my thoughts on this over a year ago and was a bit disappointed at the lack of interest. Maybe you were all deeply engrossed in other projects so I've posted it again! Well I don't know if this term actually exists or if I've just invented it! This is an idea I've thought about for quite some time, years in fact, but don't have the programming ability to try to put it into practice. I'd be very interested in other people's thoughts on it. Preamble over :) All the quantisation systems I've seen so far only work if the music has reasonably constant timing, and then produces much too rigid a structure for my tastes. I usually record live work without a metronome as these always inhibit me. However I find that in a very long piece, I sometimes gradually speed up or slow down. This is often only noticable if you go back to the start of a piece and replay it immediately it has finished. If 'standard' quantisation is applied to this then the results can be quite grotesque as notes progressivley fall outside the quantisation capture range and get placed into the wrong positions. What I would like to see is quantisation algorythm the detects trends rather than absolute values, then progressively applies small corrections to keep overall timing correct. (it would of course have to operate over all tracks simultaneously). For example, the musician could put markers on notes in, say, an accompaniment section, that aught to fall on the first beat of each bar. The quantisation would then stretch or shrink the time positions so most of these fit. I say 'most' as it is the trend we are controlling not specific notes. Intervening notes of ALL tracks are then adjusted a proportionate amount. Later bars can then be interpolated and occasional bars that don't actually have a note on the first beat will still be adjusted based on averaging. Deliberate note delays, syncopation etc. would then be perfectly preserved and the music would retain its liveliness. Having the musician place these markers rather than some automatic system, means that not only are the correct notes used as a reference, but the music can be brought into line even if it initially has absolutely no relationship with the bar lines in the sequencer (this happens to me a lot when I try to record live). The quantisation system would match marked notes against 'real' bar lines. Overall timing can then of course be adjusted by altering the beat rate. This whole idea could then be turned on it's head. I find it VERY hard to get several tracks to slow down at the end of a piece and stay 'together'. This quantisation system could do just this by having 'target' time/beat rates at the start and end of the section that is to be slowed (or speeded up). Once again, natural variations would be preserved and only the overal trend would be adjusted. -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk