About this thing :

First I saw this video from David Bruce Composer , which led me to this BOOK from DAN CHARNAS about J DILLA, his life, his beats, and the way he played with the GRID !

So, I wanted to hear all of this, and to play with the numbers, so I made this (so you can play with it too) !

First you should play with an early offset of the snare (may be -3% to -5%), then the swing (50% is straight and 66% is triplet swing, so anywhere between this). The ratio is indicated below (57% and 60% are actually obtained with 7 and 5 subdivisions).

Have fun, and open your ears !

About the swing :
50% = straight 8's
57% = 5th note of a 7 subdivision
60% = 4th note of a 5 subdivision
66% = swung 8's (triplet)


READ THIS !

The swing ratio, here notated as percentages, is the eighth notes swing ! Which means that it indicates the position in time of the "AND", the second eighth note of the beat (which is also the third sixteenth note of the beat).
So, if you play with the swing, you play with the second eighth note of the beat. THE QUESTION IS : what about the 2nd and the 4th sixteenth note ? Where do they go ?

There is many possible answers to this question. When we talk about "swinguing the eighth notes", we frequently reference jazz, blues or shuffle music... and we play only 8th notes, or 8th notes triplets... the 16th notes are not really a part of the thing.

So I "decided" that the 2nd 16th note should go exactly between the beat and the "swung AND", wherever this is 😂, and the 4th 16th note should go exactly between the "swung AND" and the next beat. The weird part of this is that the first section of the beat (between the beat and the "AND") is longer that the second section of the beat (between the "AND" and th enext beat).

Try it your self : make up a beat with 4 16th notes on the first beat, set the swing on 66%, and there you go, the 16th notes moved between the beat and the next note !
And voilà !!