Hihache
The same principle can be applied to audio, either by playing with different timing or using flextime to adjust the timing of an existing recording. To consider the subject from the opposite perspective – starting with swing and then removing it – let’s take the classic breakbeat from ‘Hihache’ by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band as an example:
Firstly, we’ve got the break at its original tempo and with its original swing, unquantised:
Secondly, we’ve quantised it to straight 16ths:
Listening to the original beat slowed down to 95bpm reveals a little more of its swing:
If we then quantise this slowed version of the beat it even easier to hear the difference between the naturally swung version and the new rigid version:
So far, we’ve only considered applying a swing setting to an entire drum track or sampled loop, but as we briefly discussed in our examination of polyrhythms, sometimes a straight kick and snare pattern can provide an interesting contrast to a swung hi-hat rhythm. However, this contrast doesn’t have to be confined to drum parts. Listen to how the swing in this bassline changes the feel of the straight drum beat when it’s added in the second bar:
Further examples of swing in action
To further explain the effect swing can have on a track, let’s compare a selection of tracks in various genres which utilise swing in prominent ways (and on different instrument parts).
For a broad cross section of swing examples, check out Aphex Twin’s ‘Curtains’, the Noisia remix of Boemklatsch’s ‘Think Big’, Disclosure’s ‘Control’, Theo Parrish’s ‘Lost Angel’ and, for an extreme example, Pendulum’s ‘Another Planet’ (note the swing at 2:37 – a common technique employed in drum and bass):
Is that all? Not quite…
Even after all this explanation, there are still numerous other factors which help make up the perceived swing and groove of a track: the psychoacoustic effects of the velocity of individual drum hits; groove templates; unquantised, off-grid beats; negative swing; variations in the sample start time, attack envelope or decay of hits…
All of those factors will be discussed here in due course, but for now a solid understanding of the basics of swing should help you to add a little extra groove to your beats and other melodic elements of your tracks.
Update: once you’ve read this article be sure to check out our interview with Roger Linn, the inventor of swing.
11.48 AM
another amazing passing notes article. thanks so much for this. i’ve been producing for 20 years and i never understood why 50% on an mpc wasn’t the same as 50% in cubase until now.
so why does mpc swing sound so damn good? do mpcs do something differently?
11.59 AM
Really enjoyed this article, explained a lot. Would have loved more info about the Ableton Swing function though, is there much of an explanation in the Ableton manual itself?
12.04 PM
@n94
The short answer is no, MPCs don’t do anything differently. But there’s a little bit more to it than that. As luck would have it, we have an interview with the man himself, Roger Linn, coming tomorrow which should explain everything.
12.14 PM
@ Magoo
Thanks for the feedback. Obviously we’d love to go into more detail about each DAW but things would quickly get out of hand. In basic terms, Ableton uses a mixture of the Linn/Logic convention where 50% = straight timing and the Cubase/FL Studio convention where 0% = straight timing. It depends which groove you pick from the groove pool. Things are made a little more complex by the different ways in which Ableton allows you to apply the groove you’ve chosen.
The Ableton manual explains it quite well. There’s a link to the PDF at the top of page 3 and you can also find the info here: https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/using-grooves/
We’ll be returning to explain groove templates in more detail in the future.
07.12 PM
Thanks for all of these passing notes, loving them
08.25 AM
Thanks for all these articles!
09.01 AM
Thanks! You guys make really good job!
03.17 PM
Fantastic, very educational post. Thanks
steve t
08.54 PM
Just the thing i wanted to read more about. Thanks.
G_man
07.38 AM
The Korg KR-55 also came out in 1979 and had a continuously variable “swing” knob. I think the Korg actually predates the LM-1 by a little bit.
09.41 AM
@Attack Magazine – Another excellent article, keep up the excellent work.
P.S – When can we expect some news on Attack’s music production book? 🙂
12.46 AM
Thank you guys!
10.12 AM
OMG!! THANK YOU!!
Someone FINALLY explaining to me exactly how swing works and how it should be applied!
Of course, it was always readily apparent to me when swing is applied in tracks that I hear, but I never understood enough about the basis of it to apply it in my own music.
Thank you very much for the succinct and efficient explanation!
06.00 PM
Great explaination. Exactly what I was looking for….the correct full explanation. I’ve asked a few sales reps at music equipment sites I buy from and they were dead wrong.
09.06 PM
Great article! This has been one of the things that’s been bugging me for ages, but now at least I understand the fundamentals of swing, I might actually be able to apply it to good effect! 🙂
11.44 AM
ah man – so in your beat tutorials where I’ve been sticking FL to 50% swing to match your tutorials for 50% swing… that’s actually YOUR 100% swing?
So when you say 60% – that’s FLs 10%? Am I understanding correctly?
11.28 PM
Hi Plyphon
You’re on the right lines but it’s not quite as simple as adding or subtracting 50 to convert from one standard to the other.
0% in FL/Cubase equates to 50% in Logic/MPC. 100% in FL = 66.6% in Logic.
09.46 PM
great article and great site for information in general. really surprised me to start digging into the articles and actually find them all to be well thought out and very much right on.
i’ve spent my whole life playing punk/death rock/glam/garage rock… basically rock n roll, and up until recently had always kind of ignored electronic music, or at very best it’s sometimes seemed like good, danceable wallpaper.
of course, like anything, once you for whatever reason become interested in it, whole new realizations begin forming and you see the subtle stuff that makes it either good or bad. so what a great bunch of articles to run into while i am learning all this stuff brand new to me.
so thank you and keep it up, great writing and solid take on things.
for topic on hand, just writing to mention also, that people should never overlook the use of compression to alter a groove. I was really shocked when I first realized how dramatically you could change a drummer’s push or pull on the beat by messing with attack release times and compression ratio/knee.
not really about drum machine swing at all but just adding on to the very last part about what else is similar.
12.34 PM
@Attack,
That’s just really confused me – I think i’ll just continue to do it by ear!
10.58 PM
Awesome article, really well written. This is a really newbie comment but one thing i dont understand about the terminology used is when you say 50% swing = straight timing – does this mean swing is basically “OFF”? and the hats have not been affected at all?
Also another newbie comment – why use swing when you can just draw the hat positions exactly where you want? i.e. more flexibility. Its a genuine question, im just trying to understand the advantages of using swing, i can see some time is saved, but why else? Because doesn’t using swing also mean that each of the hats are offset exactly by the same amount (66% for example). Would’nt the hi hat pattern sound better if the first hat was 66% off, the second 60% off (for example). Or is the swing feature doing this already?
Many thanks.
10.06 PM
“If you have to ask, you’ll never know” – Louis Armstrong when asked to define the rhytmic concept of swing.
You should all listen jazz music ! It will help you get the groove.
Good article and good site by the way. Congrats !
10.47 PM
This will take several reads, but thank you for the information. I wish I used Logic or an MPC though!
04.38 PM
@Attack Mpc do have something different, :), its the crystals used inside the old machines, you see, there are some small things that make the difference, but people do not realise that, same as the korg emx/esx 1
03.52 AM
I think the multiply/divide factor should be 4 and not 6??!
otherwise full mpc swing (75&) would 150% in cubase which isn’t possible…
10.07 PM
Hi, anyone can confirm the calculus done by robo? I thought the same when reading the article – if the formula (mul by 6) is true, then cubase would not be able to represent 75% MPC Swing..