Rhythm Techniques & Generative music - Tips and Tricks?

Logic, logic, logic!

Part of the key to getting intricate rhythms is in knowing how to use Boolean logic. It's relatively simple stuff...

OR = gate fires when a signal is present at any input

AND = gate fires ONLY when a signal is present at more than one input

NAND = similar to OR, but multiple signals will cut the gate off

NOR = gate fires when NO signals are present at ANY input

Now, this is actually a big deal, but becomes an even BIGGER deal when you start screwing around with how your timing signals work. When you have lots of different gate signals to present to logic gates to derive wholly new timing structures, then you're into a really wild area of crossrhythms and other craziness. But it doesn't have to merely be timing signals, and this is where logic becomes important to generative composition.

Let's say you have two voices, each ending in a VCA before going to a mixer. You also have your logic gates outputting their gate signals to a pair of 2ENVs, each controlling one of those VCAs. Now, this is pretty simple...but let's say you ran a gate output to one of the EGs there, then sent its END back to another gate, in this case an AND. That second gate would ONLY fire its EG when the condition of "end of envelope 1" had been fulfilled. And THAT would only happen when the gate signal outputted from the first logic gate ended AND the decay time had passed. SO...what you'd get there is a hocketing between two lines; only when part 1 wasn't sounding could you hear part 2, and part 2 will continue UNTIL part 1 starts up again.

Now take that idea and run with it. The above is a VERY simple example of how nuts you can get with these control paths.