Think of a piano player. He strikes a C major (C-E-G) with his right hand. The three fingers don’t strike the keys at exactly the same time. Let’s say the C strikes at 0 ms, the E at +7 ms and the G at +18 ms. This is one of the things that make the piano feel alive. No machine gun effect here since the keys don’t strike all at once.
I want a feature that makes it possible to quantize this entire chord while keeping their relative intervals (0-7-18). If I simply quantized the chord, I’d loose their intervals (0-0-0). And I’d probably want to use the iQ feature as well, while still keeping these intervals. With iQ, I’d still loose their intervals but it would be more random. So it’s not good enough.
- Consider notes in a specific interval as a chord, ie range 0-18 ms.
Apply iQ or regular Q to the middle of that chord’s range.
The chord’s range is 0-18 = 18 ms. Select that chord and move the middle of it (9 ms) as per the quantize settings.
This feature reminds of the “Move to cursor” feature, but the differences are that we should quantize the middle of the selected range, and we shouldn’t need to place our cursor each time (it would use the quantize settings instead).
Call it a feature for a sloppy pianist. There’s nothing wrong with his performance, other than that he’s off beat in some places.
And I would also like to implement this behaviour while recording (Auto Q?). That way, my recorded midi session would get quantized and it would treat the chords as ONE and move the chord as per the quantize settings. Being able to use iQ at the same time would be great. That way, I could record using a “sloppy” quantize for chords.
(anyone who does would be scoffing right now)