What do you expect from swing quantizing?

Hello, I am trying to add swing quantize to a JS effect but it's facing as much tougher than I thought initially; in particular I have two questions: 1) Should swing value for straight beat be 50% or 0%? if it's 50%, you can also do reverse swing, that is mid beat notes getting nearer the prev note, by using values lesser than 50. If straight beat is instead 0% you can only get notes moved later by increasing the swing value; I think Reaper quantize does the latter. 2) To me is clear enough what swing should do when quantization interval is 1/4, 1/8 and so on, but what do you expect should happen when you are quantizing to triplets or other n-lets and add swing? I'm starting to think that swing shouldn't apply at all in those situations... Any feedback is welcome :) Thanks, Mario

Well, for a JS swing I would wish for something that does only delay notes, so that it works on normal midi items (without moving them one bar early or something). Just like the VST midi_swing from PIZ. fladd

Hi Mario Just a thought, but what about having 2 sliders, 1 to select the interval including dotted and triplets, and the second to select swing percentage running from -100% to 100%. That should cover all bases I think. Steve

The possibility of choosing if we want early or late swing is really good to have. It really depends on the song if we need one or the other.

This seems OK. Just for info, I like the way Reaper does it. Below is an example using 8th notes. Sorry about all the pictures, which will probably take ages to appear, but I can’t think of an easier way of explaining it. 1) The picture below is the start position. For grid = 1/8, quantize position is 1/8 and swing is zero. 2) Selecting a 1/8T quantize swing position gives a straight triplet swing feel. You can see this in the picture below where I’ve also changed the midi grid lines to 1/8T. The notes align with the grid lines. 3) As an alternative, you could set 1/8 swing quantize position and the swing setting to 66% (see picture below). To be more accurate, I think it would need to be 66.666r%. 4) Leaving the swing position at 1/8, settings of less than 66% give a lighter (early) swing. Settings of above 66% give a heavier (late) swing. A quantize setting of 100% seems to move the notes all the way to the next 1/16 note. See picture below. The Reaper method seems very logical to me and covers all that I need. I just wished the midi gridlines moved with the % swing setting. But I can see how a JS effect would be useful to apply these swing feels without having to move the actual note positions in the midi editor. Pete

Mmm I could simply extend the standard Reaper interval, adding -100% to 0% range to allow moving notes earlier instead of later in reference to grid (only for alternate beats of course). So in the end it would be: * -100% = half quantize interval earlier * 0% = straight * 66% = triplet * 100% = half quantize interval later Seems a good plan to me :) Thanks for all hints, Mario

Thanks all for the very precious hints and suggestions. You can now enjoy the quantize/swing plugin here: The interesting thing is that if your events are already quantized straight, and so the swing effect should only delay alternate notes, you can use it with no need to move data earlier. Any further suggestions are welcome. Cheers, Mario