Changing meter (time sig) in Seq mode

cello · Post by **cello** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:56 am

As most of you know I don't use the O's sequencer much...

Anyway, for a variety of reasons I'm having to and have hit into a problem that neither the Manual (as far as I can find) nor experience (ie reading menu options!) can solve, so am seeking your help!

First of all the piece is in 5/4.

Having battled with the seq to accept 5/4 (pres rec/write, adjust meter manually then press start/stop to immediately record the piece - I kept hitting the enter button or the rec/write button again thinking the whole song changes time signature. Oh no it doesn't! It goes back to the default 4/4).

Anyway I finally recorded my 11 bar phrase in 5/4. Plays back fine. I want two tracks (I copied the first track to #2 with a different sound being played) to loop. So I go to the loop tab and select tracks, beginning and end. Fine.

Hit start/stop and track plays fine but when it loops it goes back into 4/4 although the instruction for those repeated bars is 5/4!!!! ARRRGHH!

Please could some kind soul put me out of my misery... ?? !!! Ideally I'd like the whole song not to be the default 4/4 but 5/4 instead.

TonyGen · Post by **TonyGen** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 5:59 pm

Cello, I think this is where the infamous sequencer could have done with a few more updates.....

It's a while since I messed with time signatures, although I remember doing Down And Out by Genesis (which is in 5/4) a few years ago......

Anyway, try this.....change time signature on the first bar to 5/4 (you may have to play one note or midi event edit might not recognise). Then go to midi event edit and repeat the bar choosing "repeat all tracks". This should give you 5/4 for the number of bars you choose or the whole song.

If you did have to play one note, you can go to midi event edit and then delete the note you recorded choosing first to last bar.

If it doesn't work let me know and I'll delve deeper into my rapidly fading memory banks.

Good luck, Tony.

PS don't forget to save the song in disk mode using save Sequence before you turn the Oasys off......or else...

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Fri Jul 01, 2011 11:18 pm

Admittedly, I rarely change the time signature. I put a couple of tracks in Loop mode, at 5/4. Seemed to work okay. I would go with what Tony said (above post). If I find out anything, I'll let you know.

cello · Post by **cello** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:56 pm

Thanks Tony and Mike

Sadly, no cigar yet...

My 11 bars are 5/4 but when it loops it goes to back to bar 1 in the loop (as 5/4) but of course in the sequencer it's bar 12 (in terms of time) and reverts to default of 4/4.

Any further ideas whilst I randomly explore menus and options?!

by no means an expert in sequencers, but I would have thought that the 2 most basic tenets of music would be those which can be most easily edited - ie number of beats/notes in a bar and its tempo! Tempo is easy to adjust, so why so difficult for the time sig?

PS Thanks Tony; yes learned that the hard way...

TonyGen · Post by **TonyGen** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:23 pm

Cello, I guess I'm not really sure what you mean.

If you initially make e.g. 250 bars of 5/4 (or more than you need to use) and then copy / loop within those bars you should stay in 5/4 time.

If you can somehow post the sequence to me (providing you aren't worried about copyrights) I can have a look for you. It could be that you are right and you can't do what you want, but although I have issues with the manually intensive outdated sequencer I can usually find a way.

Cheers, Tony.

cello · Post by **cello** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:12 pm

Hi Tony - thanks for offer of help

Here's a link to a .sng file (whilst not worried too much copyright, I've nonetheless changed to random notes to have something to work with!): [link removed]

In the file there are 2 songs, the 2nd shows that the looping problem and the first one doesn't keep 5/4 time sig if I record more measures although it starts in 5/4.

I am convinced I am missing something obvious here... although I wish on the main song page you could touch tempo and use one of the three inputs to edit, and then touch meter and use wheel to scroll through the options to edit that, then off you go!

Apparently it's definitely not that easy...

So I guess there's two questions in my mind.

1. I want a time sig of 5/4 for the whole piece but I don't know how long it's going to be so just stay at 5/4 permanently. How do I do that?

2. I have a 5/4 loop over 11 bars. I want it to repeat and not have the time sig go back to 4/4 on the repeat. How do I do that?

Thanks so much for your help

TonyGen · Post by **TonyGen** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 3:56 pm

cello, I've downloaded and am about to load to my Oasys. For clarification, what do you mean by "loop"? I presume you don't mean "repeat"....?

TonyGen · Post by **TonyGen** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 4:18 pm

cello, I think I understand now. The workaround is as I described but I wouldn't have sequenced this the same way as you, which is why you are having problems I think. Problem is with choosing to loop rather than repeat. I have sent a PM. If you can get back to me and I will be able to give a more detailed explanation.

Cheers, Tony.

cello · Post by **cello** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:24 pm

Grateful thanks go to TonyGen who spent time with me showing how it's done! Seems easy now... (and he was right - I was confusing the matter between loop and repeat - which I didn't know existed

)

For anyone else with the same 'head-scratch' I had, here's how to do it:

1. Select a new song in Seq mode.
2. Press rec/write button once and the meter field becomes editable
3. Select the meter of choice (in this example 5/4)
4. Press start/stop
5. After count-in play 5 crotchets (1/4 notes)
6. Stop the recording
7. In Track Edit tab, select your midi track you recorded onto and then from the top right dropdown select 'Repeat Measure'
8. Make sure the from and to is correct for the first measure
9. Increase the 'Times' field to say 64, as per default template
10. Hit okay

You then have a song that is 64 measures long in 5/4 time sig!

Actually, writing the word template got me thinking - perhaps folks would find it useful if I created templates for the more popular time sigs (eg 3/4, 5/4. 7/4, 6/8, 7/8, 9/8, etc).

If you think it's a good idea I'd be happy to create and upload - only possible however through TonyGen helping me out - thanks again, sir!

TonyGen · Post by **TonyGen** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 3:21 pm

You're welcome, cello. As I said it's only ever easy if you know how. I stress that the method suggested is the way I would probably do it. There are quite possibly other ways. It seems strange there isn't an option to choose a default time signature for the whole song.....oh well, maybe in the next Oasys OS update.......moan, moan etc.......

cello · Post by **cello** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 5:45 pm

TonyGen wrote:You're welcome, cello. As I said it's only ever easy if you know how. I stress that the method suggested is the way I would probably do it. There are quite possibly other ways. It seems strange there isn't an option to choose a default time signature for the whole song.....oh well, maybe in the next Oasys OS update.......moan, moan etc.......

LOL, good one!

Mike Conway · Post by **Mike Conway** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 7:17 am

Thanks for posting the results, guys. On one hand, you have to applaud the flexibility of being able to change Time Signatures from one measure to the next, but this can be confusing.

cello · Post by **cello** » Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:32 pm

Just in case anyone else runs into the difficulty I got myself into, here's a sample .sng file which has songs with the following time sigs:

3/4
5/4
7/4
6/8
7/8
9/8
11/8

They are all 64 bars (measures) long and each contain notes in midi track 16 but are set to 000 volume. Once you have recorded your own piece into these songs, you can simply record over or delete the track 16.

Click here for the file