Question About Ticks

Say we’re at speed 6, as is the default, and I’ve put a note (C3) in one row and a “Note Off” in the next row.

Which ticks does the note start and end at? Does it start at the beginning of tick 1 of this row and end at the end of tick 6 (aka the beginning of the tick 1 of the next row? I assume that given that each tick is an interval of time, it has a beginning point and an end point.) Or is there a zero point (“tick 0”) at the start of every row?

e.g. Is it:

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Or is it:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

I assume that it’s the second diagram, because otherwise a delay to the third tick wouldn’t give you a 32nd note…or do you note delay to tick 4 for a 32nd note? :blink:

OK. So with speed 6, to get a 32nd note I delay to tick 4, then?

Thanks Bantai, didn’t know that. :)

Not sure if I’m with you there…by default, Renoise has 16 rows to a beat, so each row is a 16th, right?

Sooo…given that there are double as many 32nds to a beat as 16ths, and stay we’re still at speed 6, can I make 32nd notes by making an instrument with a volume envelope that cuts off after 3 ticks, and trigger it on two tracks:

  1. the first track triggering it without a delay on every row, and
  2. the second track triggering on every row with a delay till tick 4.

In theory this means that I’ll get a note on every 32nd, without need to muck around with the speed. In theory…(not sure if I’ll be able to run renoise for a while to test it out, as my computer is in transit).

wrong.
4 rows for each beat(*) at speed 6.

(*) “standard” beats… you can of course say that your beat is 16 rows long, but it’s BPM frequency will be 1/4 of what is displayed into the BPM text box

K, silly me, think I’ve got it now. Assuming we’re in 4/4 time, the 16th refers to a 16th of a bar, not a beat…and there are 4 beats to a bar, and 4x4=twelvety. ;)

Most of this is simply wrong :P

First the correct musical definitions:

  • A bar (or measure) is 4 beats long if the time signature is 4/x.
    It can also be 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9…13 if you want.

  • A beat is a quarter note, if the time signature is y/4. The “/4” means quarter.

Example: if you use a time signature of 3/8, then one beat is an eight note,
and one bar is 3 beats, or 3 eight notes in total. Most people here probably
use a time signature of 4/4, which means one beat is a quarter note and
one bar is four beats.

How Renoise currently works:

Since Renoise doesn’t have a score editor, we can simplify and say that a
beat is always a quarter note. It’s only names, after all. Renoise doesn’t
care about bars either, so that’s also just up to you to think about. Basically,
the number of lines in a bar is simply “beats in a bar” * “lines in a beat”.

Renoise has a smallest time resolution called a “tick”. Each line has a number
of ticks equal to the current speed. This is why increasing “speed” seems to
make things go slower :)

There are two ways to think about “speed”.


Either… If you assume that BPM (Beats Per Minute) is correct by it’s definition,
then one beat is always 24 ticks.

With speed 6, this means that 24/6=4 lines is one beat, and one line is thus
1/4th of a beat. Assuming one beat is a quarter (4th) note, one line is then a
16th note. Since there are 4 beats in a bar, and 4 lines per beat, one bar is
16 lines.

With speed 3, this means that 24/3=8 lines is one beat, and one line is thus
1/8th of a beat. Assuming one beat is a quarter (4th) note, one line is then a
32th note. Since there are 4 beats in a bar, and 8 lines per beat, one bar is
32 lines (32 decimal = 20 hexadecimal).

So with speed 3, a pattern with 64 (40 hex) lines is two bars in total.

Be warned that the VSTi sync in 1.281 doesn’t work quite like this, there’s
another thread about that (search to find it, I’m too lazy).


Or… You might also just don’t care about the BPM being correct, and just
adjust it to whatever fits their needs. Doubling the BPM means you get
twice the resolution, so 48 ticks would then be one beat. With this approach,
what you hear is what you get. After all, the sound isn’t affected by which
line a note is played on, so the end result is the same.