Step Access - Perfect for Euclidean Rhythms and Sequencers

Tutorial | Dec 09, 2024

In this video, I explore the new Stepwise sequencer and modules in Bitwig Studio 5.3, showing how they simplify creating polyrhythms and polymeters within the Grid environment. I demonstrate how to manipulate sequence parameters like loop length, step offset, and playback speed, using features like voice stacking and stereo signal processing to create complex and unique sequences. I'm excited to see how these updates enhance creative possibilities and invite you to share your thoughts and questions in the comments.

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Summary #

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

In this video, I explore some of the new features in Bitwig Studio 5.3, particularly focusing on the new step sequencer module called "Stepwise" and additional modules within the Grid to facilitate step sequence creation. I recall my previous attempts at creating polyrhythms and polymeters using Euclidean step sequences in the Grid, which were fairly complex and required patching several modules together to manage loops and offsets.

With the introduction of Stepwise, these processes become more streamlined and user-friendly. The module allows easy adjustments to loop length, step count, offsets, playback speed, and other parameters that are essential in creating Euclidean step sequences. You can even combine Stepwise with the "Pictures" module to manipulate sequences directly. For instance, I demonstrate configuring a sequence using the B flat minor scale, showing how the module can change the sequence's playback mode in flexible and innovative ways.

Further, I dive into how Stepwise can manipulate sequence speed in relation to the total number of steps set, essentially allowing you to influence both speed and looping behavior. This capability streamlines the creation of polyrhythms, letting you craft complex overlapping sequences that are both varied and synchronized.

I also showcase the potential of using voice stacking in the Polygrid environment, enabling me to assign different settings to each voice for a more intricate soundscape. By introducing voice stacking, I effectively doubled the potential play heads and then manipulated their loop lengths to create nuanced polyrhythms or polymeters, even demonstrating how to stack voices with distinct octaves.

Moreover, I delve into the stereo capabilities of Bitwig's signals, revealing that all signals within the Grid, whether pitch or audio, are stereo by default. This feature allows the use of the merge and split modules to separate or combine stereo signals. For example, I route different signals through the left and right channels of Split/Merge modules, which results in varied melodies on each channel.

Exploiting the stereo features, I demonstrate adjusting these stereo signals for pitch alterations, leading to different sequences and melodies on the left and right audio channels of a stereo signal, processed further through a stereo width module to bring the channels closer together, easing their integration.

Conclusively, I emphasize the efficiency and creative potential of using these new features to construct dynamic and complex rhythmic patterns within Bitwig Studio 5.3. I encourage viewers to experiment with these capabilities to bring fresh dimensions to their musical projects. Lastly, I wrap up the video with a call to action for likes, subscriptions, and comments.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] yo folks welcome back in bitwig studio 5.3 we not only have a new step sequencer called stepwise we
[00:00:07] also have new modules here inside of the grid to create step sequences more easily and maybe you
[00:00:13] can remember some of my videos from end of last year i tried to create pulley rhythms and pulley
[00:00:18] meters or euclidean step sequences inside of the grid and it was not that easy we needed some
[00:00:25] modules patched together you know um calculating stuff here and there just to have a loop inside of
[00:00:34] your sequence and offset this loop and so on but step access makes this much much easier we can dial
[00:00:42] in here the loop length we can change the total amount of steps we can offset we can change the
[00:00:48] playback speed and so on so everything is basically in here in this module that you kind of want from an
[00:00:55] euclidean step sequencer and we can combine this here let's say with the pictures module right and
[00:01:03] we have here a sequence in there a lot of different notes maybe i dial in here my uh p sharp minor scale
[00:01:12] something like this i don't know it doesn't really matter um and the player is already playing here
[00:01:20] because we have here the face pre-cord enabled we can disable this and then just drive this module
[00:01:27] here with the step access output so the step access kind of just generates generates a phase signal that
[00:01:35] you can use for these type of sequences inside of the grid we select your step access and then go to the
[00:01:41] left side we can use free run when stopped which means we output here a phase signal even though we have
[00:01:48] to transport on hold so if this is disabled we have to press play actually here on the sequencer to actually
[00:01:55] um yeah drive this uh pictures module here but for this here for this video i use free run when stopped
[00:02:03] so okay so now we play this here back from left to right but you can see we only play a portion of the
[00:02:10] sequence uh because we selected here the length of four so we play four steps out of eight steps in total
[00:02:17] we can also say two steps right so it now it loops here over the first two steps we can also offset this
[00:02:24] by let's say two so now it skips the first two steps and then starts here with the third step and then
[00:02:30] loops over these two steps so you have total control basically over the sequence when you want to start
[00:02:37] how you want to start how much you want to loop or how many steps you want to loop and we can change the
[00:02:43] playback speed here with eight notes 16 notes so it's faster or 32 notes much much faster but it also means
[00:02:51] we have your only time based units so it's not like you can dial in hertz or something or milliseconds
[00:02:56] or something like this so something in between you can only choose here some
[00:03:00] whole units more or less right but what we can do is we can dial in here let's say eight eight
[00:03:08] back to zero and then go to quarter node so now we play each step here with quarter node speed
[00:03:17] kind of or each step is basically a quarter node long let's say let's put it this way um
[00:03:23] so you can also change the speed by changing the total amount at the moment we have eight steps but
[00:03:30] we have also dialed in here eight steps in total but when you go down let's go to let's say to four here
[00:03:36] we play this back um twice the speed or double speed more or less we can also half this here again to two
[00:03:45] and now we play back in 16 notes even though we have your quarter node selected or one which is
[00:03:51] probably a 32 node speed so we can also influence the speed by changing here the total amount of steps
[00:03:59] even though we have not the right amount selected so this this value or this total amount of steps needs to
[00:04:09] be lower than the total amount of steps here in the sequencer to play it actually faster
[00:04:15] if we have eight here and then we put this up to 16 steps right it's probably slower then probably not
[00:04:24] let's see 16 and 32
[00:04:26] it takes a while until it you know passes here the whole sequence so yeah it's it's kind of slower
[00:04:38] um so what this means is that here we have some kind of whole steps we can select we can select
[00:04:47] different uh playback speeds but with this we can say instead of halving this to two to four which is
[00:04:53] then the next unit here we can also choose something in between let's say six and you can see this then
[00:05:00] when we um duplicate this here and say eight and here we use quarter nodes right then we hit play here
[00:05:08] just to reset this you can see it plays back at a different speed
[00:05:16] and it resets then exactly after eight steps that's interesting so maybe i make this a bit slow a bit
[00:05:23] faster let's go to eight here and eight here
[00:05:28] right you can see how it resets then after i eight steps so to make this a bit longer or to reset this
[00:05:35] later we can make the length longer so instead of eight we choose here let's say the maximum number of 64
[00:05:45] we have not 64 steps in here but it plays 64 steps until it resets right you can see here it plays and
[00:05:53] plays and after 64 steps then it resets back to the initial uh step together with this um sequencer here
[00:06:02] so maybe go to 16 here
[00:06:05] so it should reset
[00:06:14] at some point yeah um so but these kind of tricks you can influence the speed and also how long you
[00:06:23] loop over a sequence before you reset um so this is kind of interesting and it's exactly what you want
[00:06:31] when you uh make these kind of polyrhythms uh or you want to have polyrhythms where you have different
[00:06:38] speed settings right with different over the same sequence and different speed settings this is kind of how it
[00:06:43] works um so we can utilize here for this also um voice stacking right so we have a polygrid here
[00:06:54] we have mono voices we have voice stacking off we can say let's use two voices now we have this double
[00:07:02] virtually and we can change this with um
[00:07:07] voice control we have two voices the first voice is how it is at the moment how it plays and or let's say
[00:07:15] bring it down to two here only loop over the first first three notes
[00:07:23] uh eight note okay and then the second voice uses four
[00:07:27] step length of four and you can see we have now two play heads here of course we have two voices and each
[00:07:35] voice uses a different length setting which kind of creates here already a polyrhythm or is it the polymeter
[00:07:45] uh it's probably a polymeter now because it chooses the same speed setting um so let's hook this up here
[00:07:52] with the sine oscillator
[00:07:56] use the pitch for the pitch for that here and use a sample and hold and use a gates module here we use pulses
[00:08:07] and you probably want to use the same phase signal
[00:08:10] drive hit the sample and hold and then use an envelope
[00:08:17] and trigger this and we need an audio output
[00:08:29] and we can increase this hip to three and then the third uses maybe different offset
[00:08:44] and maybe go to down here so we have different playback speed
[00:08:54] and we have a nice polyrhythm
[00:08:59] what we also can do is now use an octaver here
[00:09:05] and say the first voice goes one octave down
[00:09:13] the first or the second voice goes one octave higher
[00:09:17] and the third voice stays where it is
[00:09:27] so now it plays this kind of sequence over and over and we can disrupt to the step access maybe with the
[00:09:41] steps module
[00:09:42] use your eight eight
[00:09:48] connect this and play this a bit slower
[00:09:54] oh we have to remove your probably let's use here use the step access
[00:10:10] and then we modulate here the length maybe to three
[00:10:15] and then we can define at the end of the sequence here
[00:10:24] and then we can define at the end of the sequence here
[00:10:25] and then we can define at the end of the sequence here
[00:10:29] and then we can define at the end of the sequence here
[00:10:30] and then we can define at the end of the sequence here
[00:10:32] right so we have kind of a bar or two bars the same melody and then at the third bar we have
[00:10:43] you know a bit of difference in terms of the melody because we change here the length
[00:10:50] and we have always the same the same melody or the same motif right so this is kind of interesting when you have a melody and you want to be a bit more creative with this kind of melody and you want to loop over this melody over all these notes in kind of different ways with the pulley rhythm or the pulley meter and yeah you can hear it you can create these kind of interesting patterns
[00:11:16] so
[00:11:28] it's pretty fun to play around with this actually
[00:11:45] so every voice gets a diff you know a different setting for some of these parameters and you can create interesting uh sequences with this
[00:12:11] so yeah and because the step access module gives you just a normal uh phase signal we can use all these phase modules here we have already so let's say um
[00:12:39] so let's say um reverse some of the stuff
[00:12:51] so that's more or less stuff you can do with voice stacking so it's very fun very easy we can also remove your voice stacking for now and just go back to just one voice
[00:13:03] so it's very fun very easy we can also remove your voice stacking for now and just go back to just one voice
[00:13:07] we can also see that the grid has all these signals here and these signals here and these signals are not mono signals they are all stereo signals
[00:13:19] they are all stereo signals everyone pitch every one pitch every everything pitch signals audio signals
[00:13:35] everything is a stereo signal which means we have a dedicated left and right channel so we can use merge and split modules here
[00:13:47] that are usually that are usually used for audio signals we can use these on all of these um different signals here to split things up so we can say
[00:13:57] um let's go with the step access here in the light in the left channel right right channel is nothing in there but we can also um use here for the right channel something different
[00:14:09] maybe maybe don't modulators here right so we have this different step access for the left channel different access for step access for the right channel
[00:14:21] combining it into a stereo signal then going into this uh thing here in this pitches module
[00:14:29] and then we uh kind of select different modules you can't see it in the gui here you see just one playhead
[00:14:37] but actually internally it uses different steps and then we go here into the sign oscillator and the sign oscillator is also a stereo oscillator
[00:14:45] which means it has a dedicated sign oscillator of the left channel and the right channel so what we have now should be
[00:14:51] different melodies on the left and the right maybe you can hear it
[00:15:05] right left channel plays something completely different than the right channel um
[00:15:13] so we can push this even further we have here an octave on the stereo signal which means we can
[00:15:19] push up the left and the right together one octave or one octave down something like this but we only want
[00:15:25] to push up the left channel an octave higher and maybe the right channel we want to push an octave lower so we can
[00:15:31] do do here the same thing um we uh go here with a split
[00:15:39] so the left channel goes an octave and the right channel goes also in one and then we combine it back together right so now it sounds like this
[00:15:53] so now the sign oscillator plays um on the left channel completely different sequence with a
[00:16:11] completely different in a completely different in a completely different octave than the right channel
[00:16:15] or the right oscillator
[00:16:17] and that's maybe a bit too drastic
[00:16:19] because left and right completely different is
[00:16:21] you know it's
[00:16:23] usually not not nice to hear
[00:16:25] so we can use a stereo um
[00:16:27] what's the name stereo width exactly
[00:16:31] we can put this in here and can bring
[00:16:33] the left and the right channel closer together or we try to make it more mono
[00:16:55] so this kind of works so it's not that far apart anymore
[00:17:01] you can also use this on the pitch itself
[00:17:03] so this is an
[00:17:05] this has an interesting effect because
[00:17:09] we are mixing pitch signals together right
[00:17:13] which means they are probably uh influencing each other
[00:17:17] the more we pull this down
[00:17:19] of course remember we have a different pitch signal on the left and right channel
[00:17:23] completely different and this here brings them closer together
[00:17:27] kind of interesting but not always useful
[00:17:41] so if you don't want to use voice stacking and you want to make use sometimes
[00:17:55] of um of one pitch module of one gate module or maybe one sign oscillator
[00:18:03] remember these are all stereo signals and you can make two out of them if you want to
[00:18:11] um if you want to use the stereo feature here of the sign oscillator then
[00:18:17] um it's probably not possible
[00:18:19] uh because then you already use the left and right channel
[00:18:23] but if you just use mono sign oscillators here
[00:18:25] you can always remember that you have actually two with just one module
[00:18:29] and you can split here all these signals with a stereo split and stereo merge then together and you know
[00:18:37] twist and change them uh differently on the right and the left channel and then combine it back together
[00:18:43] and it has sometimes a nice effect so if you want to be efficient with the grid you can do this here with the stereo signals
[00:18:51] um so yeah i think that's it for this video for now
[00:19:03] i just want to show you basically the step access and that it's possible to create polyrhythms and polymeters
[00:19:09] more easily with this type of module here
[00:19:13] combined with all the rest of the sequences of the grid
[00:19:17] uh what's it here data
[00:19:19] um so you can use this with all these
[00:19:21] things here and
[00:19:23] um yeah create interesting
[00:19:25] overlapping rhythms or sequences
[00:19:27] with this uh that's it for this video
[00:19:29] leave a like leave a subscription
[00:19:31] let me know in the comments down below what you think
[00:19:33] if you have questions or something like this
[00:19:35] um thanks for watching
[00:19:37] and see you in the next video. Bye.
[00:19:38] I'll see you next time.