Rhythm Circles
March 2, 2012 3:12 PM Subscribe
A fun flash rhythm builder based on Euclidean patterns. For those who enjoyed Circuli (previously) and the Whitney Music Box (also previously), I recommend Wouter Hisschenmoller's rhythm builder, which uses a Euclidean algorithm to create African-like rhythms, which you can layer to create some fun and complex beats.
Oh yeah! I built a percussion sequencer using an adaptation of this algorithm, and have a half-finished drum machine designed along similar lines. It's a funky little algorithm which can produce a lot more variety than you'd expect given the simplicity of its inputs - especially when you layer a couple of them together.
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:22 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Mars Saxman at 3:22 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
Neat! I threw together a little mess of sequences for all the primes and a couple of 16-count stuff underneath to provide a nice predictable in-4 sort of framework and it's just jamming away in the background for me now.
posted by cortex at 3:47 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by cortex at 3:47 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
The UI needs some lovin' - accidentally dragging the properties box off the panel with no way of retrieving it - but yeah - this is a lot of fun
posted by mattoxic at 5:26 PM on March 2, 2012
posted by mattoxic at 5:26 PM on March 2, 2012
Is there a way to synchronize two circles, such that their clock hands move at the same angular velocity? By default they move at the same number of ticks per second.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:45 PM on March 2, 2012
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:45 PM on March 2, 2012
If I have time this weekend, I'll post my analogous program (it's a desktop app). In it, the circles are concentric, and the clock hand sweeps across them all simultaneously. You can adjust the number of steps in each circle, and assign an instrument and a note to each step. Its controls are exceedingly cryptic and not explained anywhere. I should probably fix that. It's all shift-click this and control-right-click that.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:50 PM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 5:50 PM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]
Wheee!
I have never really been into beats, but that was fun, thanks!
posted by agentofselection at 6:23 PM on March 2, 2012
I have never really been into beats, but that was fun, thanks!
posted by agentofselection at 6:23 PM on March 2, 2012
Jpfed: The circles have the same angular velocity, but they start whenever you doubleclick, so they may not be synchronized. You can force them to synchronize by hitting stop and then play again.
posted by agentofselection at 6:30 PM on March 2, 2012
posted by agentofselection at 6:30 PM on March 2, 2012
Jpfed: The circles have the same angular velocity
Not quite. They have the same node-to-node velocity, so a circle of size three will make a full rotation in the same time that a circle of size six will take to make a half rotation—it's one beat per unit time in any case, with each circle having however many beats it has.
What Jpfed is saying is it'd be nice to have the option of having each circle have the same angular velocity for the 360 degrees of the circle, regardless of the number of beats in that circle. So you'd subdivide a "measure" equally across however many beats each circle has.
posted by cortex at 6:43 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
Not quite. They have the same node-to-node velocity, so a circle of size three will make a full rotation in the same time that a circle of size six will take to make a half rotation—it's one beat per unit time in any case, with each circle having however many beats it has.
What Jpfed is saying is it'd be nice to have the option of having each circle have the same angular velocity for the 360 degrees of the circle, regardless of the number of beats in that circle. So you'd subdivide a "measure" equally across however many beats each circle has.
posted by cortex at 6:43 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]
Yeah the toy is great for Reich style phase patterns that sync up every couple of minutes or so, but not so much for African style polyrhythms (like one drummer dividing the measure into 7 and another dividing it into 5 but both playing the same measure length).
posted by idiopath at 12:01 AM on March 3, 2012
posted by idiopath at 12:01 AM on March 3, 2012
Well I guess if you take two 16 sided polygons and divide one in 7 fills and the other in 5 fills that kind of works but you would need 35 sides to do it precisely, and probably 100 or more to start doing the interesting variations.
Jpfed: "If I have time this weekend, I'll post my analogous program (it's a desktop app). In it, the circles are concentric"
I was working on a piece with some collaborators, 11/4 divided into 3/2/4/2, and when we tried to have one person play the same rhythm in half time it made me want a circular metronome that would be something like that.
posted by idiopath at 12:10 AM on March 3, 2012
Jpfed: "If I have time this weekend, I'll post my analogous program (it's a desktop app). In it, the circles are concentric"
I was working on a piece with some collaborators, 11/4 divided into 3/2/4/2, and when we tried to have one person play the same rhythm in half time it made me want a circular metronome that would be something like that.
posted by idiopath at 12:10 AM on March 3, 2012
Pretty sure I just accidentally rewrote New Order's entire catalog with this thing.
posted by speicus at 10:39 AM on March 3, 2012
posted by speicus at 10:39 AM on March 3, 2012
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posted by daisystomper at 3:16 PM on March 2, 2012 [1 favorite]