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Sequence timing 1/10 or 1/8


paullawrence

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I know this is being somewhat anal, and I'm no music major or anything like that so feel free to correct me anytime. Won't hurt my fellings a bit.

It seems to me that LOR sequence events ought to be divided by 8 not 10.

I'm no music major, but since we're actually sequencing to MUSIC most of the time, wouldn't it be easier to set the beat for a song if the event timing was divisible by 8?

Tap out your beat on a song in a sequence that has 1/10 second events. If you pick out a small portion of the tapped out beat (say 1 tap every 12 events), and do a copy / paste to a beat track multiple times. Your song will eventually go out of sync with the beat track, because your tapping is divisible by 8, but your events are divisible by 10.

I don't think this sequencer was designed for musical sequences from the start. There doesn't seem to be any way to define events except with DECIMAL precision. Isn't this silly? We have a BINARY computer, converting event timing to DECIMAL, and sequencing events that are essentially OCTAL!

Now with LOR 2, is there any change to this?

Don't worry. I'm not letting that stop me from sequencing just like everyone else does, but it sure does bug me.

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Actually, he does have a valid point. Most music is done by counts of 4 (with some smaller percentage music done by 3's). Common time is a 4 count. Cut time is a 2 count (1/2 of 4). If the default time was done by 8th's, it would make finding the beat, tapping the beat, or even using the wizard much easier. I have made do with it being dividing by 10th's, but I'm fairly maticulous in my beats and hate that they can be off, even by a fraction of .05.

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Heck, when I was programming with Qbasic, we had an input field routine that "interpreted" input like a four function calculator. Even Quicken does that, so you can put in "1/8" or "1/16" to get an exact event time instead of approximating it with "0.13" or "0.06".

I guess it isn't something way up anyone's totempole, so I'll continue to use my decimal approximations. :cool:

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For me it has more to do with matching the event timing, the "grid", with the actual beat from the music file.

If you 'tap' out a beat with a 0.1 second grid, your tap will eventually span a grid line.

Again, it isn't something that keeps me from sequencing, but it still is curious why it isn't easier to get a 'divisible by 8' grid or event structure.

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BamaFlum wrote:

Actually, he does have a valid point. Most music is done by counts of 4 (with some smaller percentage music done by 3's). Common time is a 4 count. Cut time is a 2 count (1/2 of 4). If the default time was done by 8th's, it would make finding the beat, tapping the beat, or even using the wizard much easier. I have made do with it being dividing by 10th's, but I'm fairly maticulous in my beats and hate that they can be off, even by a fraction of .05.




As you mention, Common time is a 4 count. Does that in some way equate to 4 seconds? And if so, then does it ALWAYS equate to 4 seconds? If so, the argument makes sense. If not then there would be no reason to use 1/8th second timing unless your particular song happened tohave that 4 count that somehow equated to 4 seconds.

D.T.
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In my feeble thinking, I'm saying that the music itself is fixed in time or related to 'seconds' and withing reason we won't change that. So the vocals, drums, bass, etc. for the musicians are all timed for us (divisible by 8.)

However, our "ruler" is the grid. We're able to somehow stretch or compress that ruler (make the marks farther apart or closer together), but we're not able to put ( EXACTLY ) divisions of 8 on the ruler so we can match each one of those events with a beat that is fixed in the music.

Or we can't stretch and shift our 'ruler' to match the song's beat. (I have operated instruments that were calibrated to a fixed scale simply by stretching and shifting the timing.)

Or, I'm just an ignorant newbie that hasn't figured it out yet. I guess I'm looking for something that isn't here. Always looking for the Holy Grail!

Better get back to sequencing ...

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If you use the tapper wizard and only tap the beats, then you do not have an issue.

If you can calculate how many beats there are per minute (say 40) then you can divide the segments into whatever measure of time you want.

Personally, as I never get to listen to more than about 3 seconds at a time, the timing being 0.10, 0.05, or one/eighth of a beat is a non-issue.

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