Apple Botched "Swing Time" In Pro Tools
- I Finished Elementary
- Mar 1
- 3 min read
A long time ago, Roger Lynn, created the drum machine... and one of the worst music genres was born: Rap.
Not to take anything away from the man's engineering brilliance and contribution to music hardware. Also, as a side note, modern music theory is a demented, Satanic, construct of obfuscation and deranged idolatry. For example, a "quarter" is one fourth of a whole. To use the term "quarter note" in a time signature like 6/8 is a lie and demonology. Anyways, back to regular programming.
To make these drum beats more organic in/on his drum machines, Roger, introduced the ability to shift the timing of some of the beats to create a less robotic sounding drum pattern.
Here is a link to an interview regarding this topic: Swingin' Hard With Roger Lynn
Roger's idea and implementation were a good start but somewhat archaic, and he himself mixes up the concepts of "swing time" and "shuffle time." Apple uses these incorrect ideas in Pro Tools and they mess up the implementation of "swing timing" in the DAW (digital audio workstation.)
Alright here is the truth: Most musicians and music teachers, IN THE WHOLE WORLD, have absolutely no concrete idea what the difference is between "shuffle time" and "swing time." So, I will set the record straight. Forever.
Regular timing in music usually consists of 4 beats (per bar) and the most common time signature in modern music is 4/4. Shuffle time is different and consists of multiples of 3. So, it can be three beats of quarter notes and is written as 3/4. Once again we stumble onto the deranged stupidity of calling 3 notes in a bar as "quarter notes." Usually though, swing time consists of six beats per bar and these are, cretinously, designated as eighth notes and the timing is written as 6/8. Music theory is a pile of shit and I have a video on YouTube explaining the dump:
The point is: Regular 4/4 time and shuffle time can both be completely robotic and "soulless" and there is a genre, worse than rap, which has adopted this inhumanity: Jazz.
Conversely, "swing time" has nothing to do with music theory. It can NOT be presented on musical notation. It is an EXPRESSION of not playing notes on a set beat. Any note, in any music, can be "swung" and it has absolutely nothing to do with "shuffle time." Roger describes the phenomenon:
"...swing groove will feel looser at 62% than at a perfect swing setting of 66%."
Incorrect but an honest mistake. A 66% displacement is the fraction 2/3 truncated to two decimals and converted to a percentage. This 66% displacement of a note leads to almost perfect "shuffle timing" and there is no swing at such a setting.
To repeat, all timings in music can incorporate "swing time" which is the personal expression of the notes being played by the instrument player. It has nothing to do with "shuffle time."
Also, old drum machines only had the ability to "swing" certain notes while leaving the other ones in regimented robotic timing. It's in the interview as linked above and it's why electronic music, for the most part, sounds so robotic since all the notes and percussion land perfectly on designated, programmed, beats with no swing.
As stated before it is possible to swing notes enough when playing music to make them land on shuffle time... timing, or even straight time. Thus notes can be "swung" into robotic timing.
Someone needs to tell Apple that "swing time" is not "shuffle time," or part of music notation or music theory; and then Pro Tools needs to implement the ability to "swing time" every note in their drum (drummer) machine beat generator even on "shuffle" timings.
To help the overpaid at multi billion dollar corporations, out of the kindness of my heart, I've created a simple chart explaining the relationship between straight time and shuffle time... but I'm not going to post it because the litany of "quarter notes" just makes it a mess for the common reader. Music theory needs to be rebuilt from scratch and I posted a video about it on YouTube:
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