Understanding Motif Screen

[Martin]

Hello. I'm new to the NDLR and I'm sorry to say that I have problems understanding half of the motif screen. :-) 

Pattern and rhythm: In the manual I read that there is a clock divider. I tried it and the lower the divider the longer the played note. Understood.

Pattern and rythm length. The pattern is always 16 notes, even if they are not played (because I may have reduced the pattern length). So if I have a rhythm, this is when and how strong it playes, and the pattern is the note height and count, what is played, the notes? So I could have a rhythm of length 32 and a pattern of length 16 would be played two times "in" it? this would be called "locked" in the manual?

Variation: If I change the "Variation" how the pattern is played, the notes:beats ratio changes. Why? And correlating to what? If the Variation is just in what order the notes of the pattern are played, so how can it have an influence on the notes:beats ratio?

Notes:beats ratio: What is this thing? The beat is given by bpm, e.g. 60 bpm. The note length is set by clock divider based on bpm. Set this to one I have 60 beats per minute, one beat per second. So what then is the notes:beats ratio? It sounds, as it would be the same?!? Or is the "beats" part of this ratio the already calculated result of the divided clock above? beat = clock / divider?

Offset: In "Syncing Motifs", page 39, it is said that motifs can just be synced by pressing the "Start/Stop all" button. Under "Offset" I read that motifs can have an offset from each other. Does this mean that the second motif plays e.g. 1/16 beat later when both started together? Does it have an effect when both motifs are started by preesing the motif buttons?

Thanks in advance.

[Jesse Johannesen]

Hello. I'm new to the NDLR and I'm sorry to say that I have problems understanding half of the motif screen. :-) 

Pattern and rhythm: In the manual I read that there is a clock divider. I tried it and the lower the divider the longer the played note. Understood.

Pattern and rythm length. The pattern is always 16 notes, even if they are not played (because I may have reduced the pattern length). So if I have a rhythm, this is when and how strong it playes, and the pattern is the note height and count, what is played, the notes? So I could have a rhythm of length 32 and a pattern of length 16 would be played two times "in" it? this would be called "locked" in the manual?

Variation: If I change the "Variation" how the pattern is played, the notes:beats ratio changes. Why? And correlating to what? If the Variation is just in what order the notes of the pattern are played, so how can it have an influence on the notes:beats ratio?

Notes:beats ratio: What is this thing? The beat is given by bpm, e.g. 60 bpm. The note length is set by clock divider based on bpm. Set this to one I have 60 beats per minute, one beat per second. So what then is the notes:beats ratio? It sounds, as it would be the same?!? Or is the "beats" part of this ratio the already calculated result of the divided clock above? beat = clock / divider?

Offset: In "Syncing Motifs", page 39, it is said that motifs can just be synced by pressing the "Start/Stop all" button. Under "Offset" I read that motifs can have an offset from each other. Does this mean that the second motif plays e.g. 1/16 beat later when both started together? Does it have an effect when both motifs are started by preesing the motif buttons?

Thanks in advance.

Great Questions! Let me take a stab at making sense of some of this stuff for you. 

Pattern and rythm length. The pattern is always 16 notes, even if they are not played (because I may have reduced the pattern length). So if I have a rhythm, this is when and how strong it playes, and the pattern is the note height and count, what is played, the notes? 

I think you have this accurate, however I would call the information in the Pattern the note pitch value and order of play

Notes:beats ratio: What is this thing? The beat is given by bpm, e.g. 60 bpm. The note length is set by clock divider based on bpm. Set this to one I have 60 beats per minute, one beat per second. So what then is the notes:beats ratio? It sounds, as it would be the same?!? Or is the "beats" part of this ratio the already calculated result of the divided clock above? beat = clock / divider?

 OK so this is the meter to show you whether your Pattern and Rhythm are "locked" or not! So the first number is how many notes your pattern is set to play before it begins repeating it's loop. The second number is the number of steps in the Rhythm you currently have selected. I will address this relationship further in the answers below.


So I could have a rhythm of length 32 and a pattern of length 16 would be played two times "in" it? this would be called "locked" in the manual?

Yes, you have this correct, and further if both sides of the pattern to rhythm ratio are not divisible by the same number the motif will meander and "beat" against the rhythm, repeating at odd intervals that correspond to the lowest common multiple.

Variation: If I change the "Variation" how the pattern is played, the notes:beats ratio changes. Why? And correlating to what? If the Variation is just in what order the notes of the pattern are played, so how can it have an influence on the notes:beats ratio?

This confused me as well at first. The variation modifies the way the Motif addresses the pattern, so the simplest variations address the pattern values counting up or down so if you have all 16 notes of a pattern enabled the pattern will play 16 notes before repeating from the beginning, totally makes sense. Now what if we select the ping pong variation? OK, so we go from 1-16 then 15 back down to 2 before starting over at 1. So how many steps is that? 16 + 14, so 30 for Ping Pong, now the next one is Ping Pong, but repeating the 1st and last notes, so that one gives us 32... etc. with the other variations.

Now finally I want to point out that random doesn't have any ration value, this is because it never repeats predictably!

Offset: In "Syncing Motifs", page 39, it is said that motifs can just be synced by pressing the "Start/Stop all" button. Under "Offset" I read that motifs can have an offset from each other. Does this mean that the second motif plays e.g. 1/16 beat later when both started together? Does it have an effect when both motifs are started by preesing the motif buttons?

I honestly have no idea, but my initial inclination is to guess that it would not. If I get a chance to mess around with it I will let you know, but heck you can give it a shot and see if you can tell yourself too. 

I hope this helps!

Jesse

[Martin]

Thanks Jesse for your explanations. This helped a lot. :-)