SONGCRAFTERS COLORING BOOK by Bill Pere TRUTH OR SEQUENCES (How to Get the Most Out of Sequencers) Sequencers...they allow you to turn your creative thoughts into musical sequences. Good sequences can prompt you to seek whence it came, but poor sequences can have consequences which can drive you seek wenches. In your songwriting, you can sequence and seek wins by putting sequences within sequences and have subsequent sub-sequences. Juicy sequences can have you see quinces and can flow like a glittering gown, which is a sequence of sequins. Much of today's TV music is sequenced, but it is possible to become too programmed. (There are many good old TV themes that exemplify good music and if you like TV themes before they became sequency with such frequency, see 'Quincy'). In working with sequencers, take care! One consequence of sequences is that all your work can be erased. Last Christmas, I did a sequence of a favorite carol only to return later and exclaim "My Good King Wenceslas good sequence is lost!" . I looked hard and though I did seek well I had to do a sequel for the sequence was sequestered. Nonetheless, sequencers are great and will leave you with a thirst for a sequence that you'll just have to see quenched. I'm sure that sequencers will be around to see a sesquicentennial. Okay, this is actually a serious article – the above is just an example of high sonic activity, as discussed in Songcrafters' Coloring Book, Section II-C.

The concepts discussed in this article are a part of the comprehensive analysis of songwriting presented in the complete book "Songcrafters' Coloring Book: The Essential Guide to Effective and Successful Songwriting" , by Bill Pere. For additional information or to order a copy, visit http://www.songcrafterscoloringbook.com

In this day and age, decades after the introduction of Midi and sequencing, is amazes me how many musicians either don’t know about it, or don’t understand the creative power it puts at your fingertips, or are just afraid to use it. The learning curve that goes with sequencing is a small price to pay for that degree of empowerment (and savings in production time and costs!) Some folks say that using sequences and Midi can never sound as good as a "real" musician. "Real" musicians come in a variety of flavors, from very good to not-so-good. Midi composers also come in the same range of flavors. A GOOD midi composer/sequence user can make tracks that sound like good "real" musicians – and the midi tracks never talk back to you, are never late for a session, and can instantly read your mind to know exactly what you want – and you don’t have to pay them or give them lots of coffee. So just what is a sequencer and why is it a boon to songwriters and composers? Sequencers give you total control over each detail of the music, i.e., the musical parameters. Music, like any creative work, is the result of the dynamic interaction of individual factors, called parameters. These include pitch (melody and harmony), flow of time (rhythm and tempo), dynamics (volume), and timbre (voice color). In a typical piece of music, all of these are simultaneously and constantly changing, and the interaction of them all is very dynamic, so that we don't often think of focusing and adjusting only one element at a time. Sequencers allow the adjustment of individual parameters, independent of the others, so that you can achieve a degree of control over the total sound palette not obtainable any other way. Most simply (and over-simply) stated, a sequencer can be conceptualized as being multi-track recorder that does not record sound – it records instructions. In a sequencer, all of the musical information i.e., what notes to play, how long, how loud, and with what instrument, is stored as digital 'events'. Whereas most home studio recorders will have from 8 to 16 track capability, a sequencer can have an unlimited number of tracks (limited only by the memory capacity of the computer.). The sequencer itself makes no sound. A track in a sequencer contains a list of 'events' which are a set of instructions that will tell a midi instrument what to play and how to play it. Those instructions are sent from the sequencer to the instrument via a MIDI cable, which can carry 16 or more channels. This is analogous to a recorder with 16 separate output jacks on it, except here, they are all contained in one single MIDI connection. Unlike most recorders, a sequencer can send more than one track out of one output (channel), Thus, if you have recorded 32 tracks in sequencer, you can assign 2 tracks to each of the 16 outputs (channels), or 4 tracks to each of 8 channels, or any combination you want. Each output from a typical recorder goes to a mixer, but each output of a sequencer goes to an instrument (keyboard, or MIDI sound module) before going to a mixer. It is this instrument that determines what sound (voice) will be produced when the sequencer sends playing instructions. How do the playing instructions get stored in the sequencer? You connect a MIDI instrument to the sequencer (guitar, keyboards, drums, sax, etc..) tell it what channel (input) to use and what track number to use (you call a track any name or number you want), and play. If you are playing a keyboard or MIDI-guitar, tell it to send it's output on the same channel on which you are recording in the sequencer. If you are using a guitar, you have an additional option which is not readily available with a keyboard. You can assign each individual string to send its notes to a different channel and track, thus effectively having six individual monophonic instruments. Then, to play back what you've recorded, you can connect each of those six tracks to a different sound source, giving you a truly orchestral sound (six individual voices [multi-timbral] doing six independently moving parts [contrapuntal]). The typical way to achieve this with a keyboard is

to record six separate tracks using one-note-at-a-time parts. However, some sequencers have a 'split' function which would allow you to record a keyboard part all on one track and then 'peel off' the top or bottom notes onto a separate track. Doing this multiple times would allow you to produce the same multi-timbral effect as above. All of the above really only scratches the surface in terms of what sequencers can allow you to do, if you are willing to learn the more advanced functions. Before going further, it becomes necessary at this point to discuss the different types of sequencers available. There are two broad types: hardware sequencers, and software sequencers. Hardware sequencers are stand-alone little boxes that do all of the above things, and more. A software sequencer is a program for a computer which turns that computer into a sequencer. The differences between the two are primarily in the areas of portability, ease of use, and cost.. The most important criteria for deciding what to use are what you want the sequencer to do, and how easily it allows you to do it (and I greatly emphasize this last point over all others! If it isn't easy to use, it isn't worth buying at any price!). Hardware units are portable and can be used when playing out, but software units provide a much greater ease of use and are preferable for studio work. (Digital Performer for the Mac is an industry standard and is among the easiest to use). If using a sequencer simply as a multi-track digital recorder is sufficient for your needs, then almost any unit, stand-alone or software will suffice. If you intend to use it to accompany you in live performance, then the portability of a stand-alone is a big plus. However, if you intend to really use it's advanced features to make it a tool for composition, orchestration, full production and/or music notation, then a software sequencer is the better tool. The large screen of a computer and the ability to just point at what you want is infinitely easier than trying to do things with only a small LED display and push-buttons on a stand-alone unit. If you have a computer-based unit and would also like to perform out, you can get a simple hardware unit to use as a 'player' into which you can dump sequences from the computer. The rest of this discussion will focus on software sequencers, because even though you can do alot of the fancy things with hardware units, they are usually cumbersome and time consuming operations. So what are some of the advanced things you can do with sequencers? Let's assume you play guitar and are going to record a song onto six separate tracks as described above, and then intend to play it back using the sound of violins and cellos. You can set the sequencer to let you hear the violin/cello sound as you record (this is called 'patching through'), so that you can adjust your playing style to make the parts sound more realistic. Remember, you should always anticipate what playback sound you will use and play a part that is appropriate to that sound in both range and style. For example, it does not make any musical sense to play a typical rhythm guitar part and then play it back with a flute sound, because flutes can't do that. Unless you are trying to produce an unusual effect, it won't sound right, and it's not the fault of the sequencer or sound module. Thus, before recording anything, listen to different sounds and always record while hearing the playback sound you expect to use. If you later change your mind after you've already recorded the part (i.e., you want to use legato strings instead of pizzicato), you can use the sequencer to adjust the part in most cases without having to re-record, but it's easier if you get the style right initially.

If what your hear in your head is faster or more complex than you can play, you can play it as slowly as you want, and then adjust the playback to a fast tempo. Unlike tape, the pitch of the sound will not change, only the tempo. Once your parts are recorded, if you do nothing else, you can ask the sequencer to play back your tracks, and it will faithfully do so, using whatever sound source you tell it to use. However, unless you're a virtuoso on your instrument, it is likely that you've made many mistakes. With a typical digital recorder, you would either have to re-record the tracks or try to fix pieces of it by 'punching in'. With the sequencer, error correction does not require that you re-play anything, however if you want to, you can do punch-in/punch-out recording, with accuracy to any fraction of a beat. You can also do 'overdub' recording, where you can record a part on a track, then listen to the part and add a second part right onto the same track. This is good for building harmony blocks that will all have the same timbre (voice) and move in the same rhythm. (This could also be done by recording separate tracks and later merging them together). Remember, with sequencing you are not recording sounds – just instructions on what and how to play. The three most common kinds of errors are that the rhythm is off, or a pitch is wrong, or a note is too loud or too soft. To correct rhythms, i.e. to make sure that all notes fall exactly on the beats where they are supposed to, you 'quantize' the tracks. This will shift the start and/or end of each note right onto it's correct beat. If you want certain notes or sections to remain slightly 'off' to give a certain expressiveness, you can either quantize only sections of a track, or quantize everything and then deliberately shift certain notes forward or backwards, in any amount that you want. In any sequencer, these operations should take no more than a few seconds to do, and require only the click of a button or two. If it's any more complex than that, your sequencer is making you work too hard. To Quantize or not to Quantize -- If you are a fluent instrumentalist and can keep a good tempo, the playback of your track without any quantization may sound fine to you. Keep in mind that if you're de-quantizing something to make it sound 'natural', moving it as little as 2% either way will start make it sound 'off'. A good musician can play easily within a 2% variance, so you might as well just stay quantized. The realism comes not from the quantization, but from the expression (dynamics, articulation, slides, etc). Quantization of start and end times is essential if you have any intention of turning your sequence into sheet music or expect to do easy editing. Also essential is that you set the right meter for the sequence. If you don't, it will still sound fine, but any sheet music will be wrong, even when quantized. To look at it another way, quantizing gives you correct note values (eighth notes, quarter notes, etc), while the tempo map gives you the right number of beats per measure. Make sure you don't confuse 6/8 with 3/4, or 4/4 with 12/8 (see Songcrafter's Coloring Book discussion on Drum Machines and Rhythm Tracks). Another rhythm consideration is that of tempo change. Quite often a song needs to accelerate or ritard (slow down) to be appropriately expressive. If you put those accelerandos or ritards into the performance while you are recording, the playback, even when quantized, may sound correct, but again, any sheet music will be wrong and editing will be difficult. here are two ways to deal with this. One way is to play and record the entire piece at a constant unvarying tempo, and then 'insert' tempo changes at the points where you want them. You can put sudden changes, i.e., go from 120 beats per minute instantly to 60 beats per minute, or you

can make that change occur over as many measures as you want, at any rate you want. By doing this after you have quantized your notes, both the audio playback, and any printed sheet music will be accurate. A second way to deal with tempo variations is to use a 'tap tempo'. This would allow you to program a drum machine with all of the tempo variations you want, (or play live MIDI-drums) and you can tell the sequencer to listen to the drums as you play along with it, recording your track. Both you and the sequencer will follow the varying tempos of the drum machine, and thus, your tempo map will be accurate. Your notes will still however, need quantizing to insure correct note values for sheet music. It may be a good practice to do the following: As soon as you record a track, and before you do any quantizing or adjusting, save a copy of it. Then you can do any quantizing and adjusting for sheet music, and you will still have the original 'raw' performance, captured just as you played it, and you can use that copy for playback, if you prefer an unquantized sound. Before leaving the topic of rhythm, let's look at one other consideration. Many musicians will compose a rhythm part on a MIDI drum machine, and then have the drum machine act as the overall rhythm controller, i.e., the sequencer would be a 'slave' to the drum machine. This works fine, but there is an alternative which may have some advantages. If you have a rhythm part programmed into a drum machine, let the drum machine play, sending it's output on one of the 16 MIDI channels and have the sequencer record it onto a track (in doing this, the drum machine should be controlling the tempo and the sequencer should be its slave). Do not build any tempo variations into the drum machine. Now, if you want to play it back, set the drum machine to 'receive' from the sequencer, and when you tell the sequencer to play, you will hear the drum part, but it now the sequencer and not the drum machine which is controlling which drum sounds are playing, and the tempo (the above discussion of quantizing applies to the rhythm track as well). The drum machine is acting solely as a sound source for the percussion sounds. This allows you to now wipe those song patterns out of your drum machine, freeing up the space for something else. Since the sequencer now has all of the information, anytime you direct that track from the sequencer to the drum machine, you will hear it the correct way. You can then use the sequencer to do tempo variations as described above. Another advantage of this method is that you can direct that drum track in your sequencer to any sound source, not just a drum machine. For example, if you have a sampler which has some nice drum sounds in it, sending that track to the sampler will play the sampled drum set instead of using the sounds in the drum machine. You can also send that track to a sound source like a piano or synth, (you can map the drum sounds to specific notes, if you wish), and thus produce a techno-rock sound, if that's what you're after. The bottom line here is that you can use any MIDI drum machine for composing the part, (even an inexpensive one), and then make play it back through a much better sounding sound source. Let's turn to the topic of pitch correction. If you play keyboard or guitar, you may either hit wrong notes or get unwanted 'transient' notes because of excessive fret pressure, or a harmonic that occurs as you release a string, or you may double-bounce a key on a keyboard. Any of these can be corrected very easily. (If you do not find it easy, you may not be using a well-designed piece of software...I keep emphasizing this because manuals for software are often not well-written, and unless the program is intuitively easy to use, you may find it a frustrating experience). A sequencer can display all of the music on a track to you in one of three ways: an event list which is a list of every note played, what beat it started on, how long it lasted, what volume it was at, etc. Another format is a 'piano roll' display, that represents the music in a pictoral way,

with lines that are of a certain length (duration) and at a certain height (pitch). the third format is standard music notation. Each kind of display has it's advantages, so a major consideration in purchasing a sequencer program is that it can do all three, not just one (Some can do each simultaneously). When your track is complete, listen back to it (you can hear it alone or along with any other tracks you have recorded) and anytime your ear picks up a bad note, stop the playback. All sequencers should have a counter to tell you exactly what measure and beat you're on, so if you hear an error at measure 10, beat 3, jump to that point in the event list or piano roll or sheet music. The bad note will clearly be visible e.g., you'll see a B when you know you've played a C major chord, or you'll see a transient note which has an extremely short duration i.e., too short to be a really intended note. If you want to remove the bad note, just point to it and a button click should remove it. If you want to change the note, e.g., make the B a C, you can either point to it and type in 'C', or, if you're not really familiar with note names but you know you want the third fret of the 5th string on the guitar, just play that note, and on most sequencers, it will automatically self-correct! If you're looking at your music and you're not sure which note is the bad one, you can click a button, then point to the notes in the display and you will hear them. Your ear can then identify the clinker. For correcting notes that are too loud or too soft, do exactly the same as for pitch correction, but instead of changing the name of the note, change the number which indicates its loudness. Here are a just a few of the many other types of adjustments you can make to the individual musical parameters of your song: Compress/Expand/Mix -- You can use the sequencer as a compressor/expander to even out differences in volume over a whole track, so that it maintains a relatively even dynamic range, and is thus easier to mix. With one button, you can set the volume of every note to be the same, or you can add/subtract a certain amount from the softest or loudest notes, or you can limit the dynamic variation to stay within a certain range. You can add gradual increases or decreases in volume over a certain number of measures (crescendo/decrescendo) for expressiveness. This can be done quickly by using something called a 'controller' and 'continuous data'. Most sequencers will have these options, and volume should be controlled by controller _#7. In fact, you have such fine control over volume that you can do a great deal of your mixing directly in the sequencer, so that you barely ever have to touch your mixing board during the mixdown. You can merge separate tracks into one or peel off the top or bottom notes of chords in a track and put them in a separate track. This is great for doubling a melody line in another octave or voice. The flim-flam game: Sequencers will allow you to flam and deflam chords. The sound of a rolled piano chord, or of a guitar chord strummed slowly so that you hear each of the individual notes as opposed to hearing the block of notes simultaneously, is a flammed chord. If you strum across the six strings of a guitar with a pick, even quickly, the pick will hit the bottom string slightly later in time than when it hit the top string. A sequencer will pick up this difference, and when you play it back with a different sound, e.g. a vibe sound, it may not sound clean, because you want to hear all the notes as a solid block. By deflamming the chord (again, this should be the click of a single button on the sequencer), the notes will automatically fall into a solid block as if they were all struck or plucked exactly together. Conversely, if your track has solid chords in them and you want to change it to the sound of rolled piano chords, tell the sequencer to flam the chords, and you can control the degree of the flam. An adjustment of the duration of the notes will determine whether the notes sustain over each other, or cut off when the next note sounds.

(NOTE: If you play a chord on a keyboard, all the notes will sound together as a block – if you then want that chord to be played back by a guitar sound, you need to flam the chord to sound most realistic, as guitar notes, as mentioned above, do not usually all sound together. Make each note in the chord sound 20-30 ticks after each other, and it will realistically create the sound of a guitar pick going across the strings. ) Digit Fidget -- You can use the sequencer to add digital delay to any track by making two copies of the track, offsetting the timing on one of the copies by a certain small amount (a button click), reduce the volume, then merge it with the other copy. The merged tracks will now have a main part and an 'echo'. (I said two copies because whenever you do merging, you can't un-merge, so you need to have your original untouched track available for other uses). You could keep the tracks separate and just assign them to the same voice, or you could assign them to different voices, so that the echo will have a different color than the primary sound. The variations are limited only by your imagination. Of course most sequencers also just have a digital delay feature, but then you can't use the trick above of having the echo in a different sound than the original. The Missing Link -- Sequencers allow you to build your song differently than when you are working with regular tape recorders. If, for example, you have a simple pop tune which consists of three musical patterns of 4 measures each (or a verse, chorus, and bridge), you can record only one section at a time, recording all the tracks for that section, and making all the adjustments you want until it's as perfect as can be. Then do the same for the other two sections, and finally, chain them all together (or cut and paste) in whatever arrangement you want. If that sounds somewhat like working with a drum machine, i.e., making patterns and then chaining them together into a full song, it is precisely analogous. This implies that if you later decide to alter the placement of the bridge, or start with a chorus instead of a verse, those changes can be effected in moments, with no re-recording involved. The Key Element -- Scenario 1: The vocalist who is going to sing the tune you just wrote can do it best in the key of E, but your limited keyboard skills can't handle all those black keys. Sequencer to the rescue. Record it in the key of C (all white keys), hit the transpose button, and pop it into the key of E for your vocalist. Scenario 2: You just wrote a country song and you want a key change in the last verse and chorus, but you can't handle all the fancy Barre chords on the guitar in that key. Simple solution. Record the first verse and chorus in the key you can handle, and make two copies. Stick one copy on the end of the original, or you can tell the original to 'loop' twice. In either case, you now have verse-chorus-verse-chorus. Then transpose the other copy, and stick it on the end again. You now have the complete song, and it only took you two minutes to construct the track. That is another example of chaining patterns as discussed above. Vocal Harmony? -- From a sequencer? Sure, if you have a vocal processor (VP) or harmonizer with MIDI input (.eg., Helicon, Digitech, Evantide, etc). Use a guitar or keyboard to record what you would like to hear the vocal harmony do (or type the notes in). On playback, direct that track to the VP or harmonizer, so that as you sing along with your music through the mic, you'll hear your voice harmonized according to what you played into the sequencer. Thus, your voice will determine the words or phonics that will be produced, and the sequencer will control the harmony. (This is sometimes called 'intelligent harmony'). Well-used, it sounds quite real and can save you all kinds of time, money and hassle in a production.

To summarize: it is clear that sequencers are valuable tools for songwriters. Never before has such total control over every nuance of music been so easy and so affordable. By removing the constraints that your shortcomings in instrumental proficiency may have placed on your ability to express yourself, sequencers open the realm of musical expression to the unlimited reaches of your mind's ear.

================================================================= Bill Pere was named one of the "Top 50 Innovators, Groundbreakers and Guiding Lights of the Music Industry" by Music Connection Magazine. With more than 30 years in the music business, as a recording artist, award winning songwriter, performer, and educator Bill is well known for his superbly crafted lyrics, with lasting impact. Bill has released 16 CD's , and is President of the Connecticut Songwriters Association. Bill is an Official Connecticut State Troubadour, and is the Founder and Executive Director of the LUNCH Ensemble (www.lunchensemble.com). Twice named Connecticut Songwriter of the Year, Bill is a qualified MBTI practitioner, a member of CMEA and MENC, and as Director of the Connecticut Songwriting Academy he helps develop young talent in songwriting, performing, and learning about the music business. Bill's song analyses and critiques are among the best in the industry. © Copyright 2009 Bill Pere. All Rights Reserved. This article may not be reproduced in any way with out permission of the author. For workshops, consultation, performances, or other songwriter services, contact Bill via his web sites, at www.billpere.com, www.ctsongwriting.com, and www.lunchensemble.com