Micro Pitching.

[sinnerfire]

Hey Guys, been thinking about how I should go about micro-pitching my drums so they change pitch with the melody in my Reason 10 song file.

(Method/Idea)

My drums are in a Dr Rex player, I automate the Pitch Wheel, I set the Pitch Bend Range to 1.

Now the hard part......

Ok so correct me if I'm wrong but 1 octave has 12 semi tones in it right, so i'm guessing that you can split 1 semi tone into 12 Micro-tones as well but when I look at the Pitch range values in Reason, they only go up to 8191?

So my question is do I divide 8191 by 12?

I hope this is not a stupid question as I'm shit at maths so sorry in advance if it is

Thanks for your help peeps.

Melody.

Screen Shot 2018-08-01 at 01.57.07.png (17.1 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

Drums.

Screen Shot 2018-08-01 at 01.49.01.png (45.88 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

[Mr. Watts]

Hey, I will attempt to explain this best I can. The default pitch bend on the Dr.Rex is 7 semitones. You can change it all the way up to 24, this feature is found on the bottom of Dr. Rex next to the Slice edit mode button. The actual pitch bend wheel operates in fine detail so those 7 semitones are broken down into 8,192 cents. I think for your particular case you would be better off automating the Global Transpose on Dr.Rex, found next to the device volume button. Just right click, edit automation, and in the sequencer you can manually automate the pitch of Dr.Rex up or down by 12 semitones, or a full octave. Hope this helps!

[sinnerfire]

Hey, I will attempt to explain this best I can. The default pitch bend on the Dr.Rex is 7 semitones. You can change it all the way up to 24, this feature is found on the bottom of Dr. Rex next to the Slice edit mode button. The actual pitch bend wheel operates in fine detail so those 7 semitones are broken down into 8,192 cents. I think for your particular case you would be better off automating the Global Transpose on Dr.Rex, found next to the device volume button. Just right click, edit automation, and in the sequencer you can manually automate the pitch of Dr.Rex up or down by 12 semitones, or a full octave. Hope this helps!

Hey thank you for your detailed explanation of how the Dr Rex player works, I am a long time Reason user so I already know all about what your saying but what I want to know is how do I "micro-pitch".

So one octave can be divided by 12...... so why not divide one semitone by 12?.

1 semitone = 8,191cents

1 microtone = 682.58cents

My song has a 4 note 4 bar loop that changes in pitch and I want to reflect this pitch change in my drums but if I go up 7 semitones like my strings do half way through my tune, they will obviously be distorted and sound a bit Donald Duck lol.

So I was thinking that I could match the melodies pitch change in my song by changing the pitch on my drums on a very small scale

Does that make sense or am I just dreaming.

And most importantly, will everything stay in tune based on my equation above?

[LudvigC]

Hey, I will attempt to explain this best I can. The default pitch bend on the Dr.Rex is 7 semitones. You can change it all the way up to 24, this feature is found on the bottom of Dr. Rex next to the Slice edit mode button. The actual pitch bend wheel operates in fine detail so those 7 semitones are broken down into 8,192 cents. I think for your particular case you would be better off automating the Global Transpose on Dr.Rex, found next to the device volume button. Just right click, edit automation, and in the sequencer you can manually automate the pitch of Dr.Rex up or down by 12 semitones, or a full octave. Hope this helps!

Hey thank you for your detailed explanation of how the Dr Rex player works, I am a long time Reason user so I already know all about what your saying but what I want to know is how do I "micro-pitch".

So one octave can be divided by 12...... so why not divide one semitone by 12?.

1 semitone = 8,191cents

1 microtone = 682.58cents

My song has a 4 note 4 bar loop that changes in pitch and I want to reflect this pitch change in my drums but if I go up 7 semitones like my strings do half way through my tune, they will obviously be distorted and sound a bit Donald Duck lol.

So I was thinking that I could match the melodies pitch change in my song by changing the pitch on my drums on a very small scale

Does that make sense or am I just dreaming.

And most importantly, will everything stay in tune based on my equation above?

Hold on a minute here.

"So one octave can be divided by 12...... "

Yes, there are 12 semitones to an octave in the western 12-tone system.

"so why not divide one semitone by 12?."

Sure, but why ? A twelfth of a semitone is a very small, arbitrary pitch change, hard to hear. But maybe that's what you're going for.


"1 semitone = 8,191cents"

No, 1 semitone = 100 cents.
The resolution of the pitch bend parameter is ±8191 steps though. What pitch change a certain pitch bend setting results in, depends on the Range setting on the instrument you're using. If range is set to 2 semitones for example, a pitch bend of +8191 (max) will get you a pitch change of just that : 2 semitones. Or 200 cents, in other words.

"1 microtone = 682.58cents"
"Microtone" term is your own term here, right? If you specifically aim for a twelfth of a semitone, this would be 100/12 = 8.33333 cents.


"And most importantly, will everything stay in tune based on my equation above?"

The cent values were wrong, but if you mean re-pitching your drums 1/12 semitone for each semitone change of the bass line, I would say no. Think about it - if your bass line moves up one octave (12 semitones, from a C1 to a C2 say) your drums would be transposed 1 semitone (Maybe the kick, if tuned, would transpose from a C1 to a C#1). But maybe this would sound cool, I don't know.

/ LudvigC

[two shoes]

Ochen K makes an RE specifically for microtonal tunings. I haven't tried using it on drum samples, but maybe there's a way?