I’m sorry if this was asked/discussed before but I’m wondering if there is a particular reason why the default Ticks Per Line is set to 12? Since everything in Renoise is based on hexadecimal numbering and processing, would it not make sense TPL to be 16?
Because of triplets I guess, with 12 its easier to divide, like using delay note command Q6 for half note delay, Q4 for triplet, Q3 for quarter etc. with 16 it`s not that simple.
^ That makes sense. This idea actually made me wanna do a 2 LPB song. Using the delay note command with 12 ticks would result in nice and simple controls for quarter notes and triplets. And use phrases for more microscopic stuff. Gotta try that sometime.
Maybe it’s just some “sweet spot” for certain usual bpm/lpb values. Don’t forget that most modulation and automation data is interpolated at tick rate. Tick rate too slow, and you’ll hear a “steppieness” in some automations. Tick rate too fast, and it’ll use significantly more cpu power in some setups. Triplets in a single line by delay commands make little sense to me, other than if you’d use very low bpm/lpb values. Single line triplets would be way to fast to make sense in “normal” setups - to ease triplets, people would rather use 6 or 12 lpb than 12 tpl. Ok, the faction of making music with very low linespeeds - very compressed patterns rather than lines flying through faster than you could read them - I guess you’ll have to up the tickspeed then to compensate for steppy automations in some cases?
But maybe there are some subtle advantages in “groove shifting” notes in between a line when using tpl values multiple of 3 - same goes maybe for the “feel” of automation data being interpolated at such intervals. Like it’ll sound more funkey then, or whatever, who knows.
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Low tickrate is great for arps and gritty sounding chiptunes. Changing tickrate in the middle of a song can often sound very cool and unexpected too.
I only wish there was a non global tickrate though. 
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Yeah, and I can already smell the news headlines: “Big baby boom 9 months after famous artist XYZ released album using multiple of three ticks per line. Psych wards already preparing for his next release, where he announce he would consistently try to arrange midi notes translated directly from his last income tax bill at a tickrate of 7 in 13/17 measures…”
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XYZ was fucking great, too bad she put her hat on the shelf. Diggin those ticks… OMG i hate ticks, get them off me!
http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Song_Settings#Player_Options
“In general, the default value of 12 is just fine and makes musical sense (it is divisible by 2, 3 and 4).If you need even higher resolution, you could try a value of 16. Lower values may make your sounds and automation a bit more “rough”, which could be useful if that’s what you’re after.”
I’d like to specify theautomation effected by TPL is metadevice refresh times equal toTPL, and the pattern effect commands (except the effect dps automation)
I guess it all comes from the old school trackers, where standard TPL was 6, and that value was related to BPM and chip refresh rates. 12 TPL seems an improvement to that, because by duplicating this value you make it divisible by 2, 3 and 4, allowing you more flexibility, as told in documentation.
In old good times, Amiga used PAL (In Europe) for TV output, that means a refresh rate of 50Hz (50 times per second). Everytime a complete screen was rendered, a vertical blank interrupt ocurred. The sound chip used this interrupt to update values and modify sounds. That meant your sound could be modified at 20ms intervals. That can’t be used as a real bpm number, song would be too fast (50tps x 60s = 3000 ticks per minute), so mod players just set another parameter, a divider (or multiplier, depending on the point of view). This number was 6 and it was used as a parameter in songs too (a parameter called speed). So we have 6 ticks per row, 4 rows per beat and 3000 ticks per minute, which gives us these numbers:
3000 ticks per min / 6 ticks per line / 4 lines per beat = 125 beats per minute.
In old trackers, you had 125bpm and speed 6 as a standard setup to begin with. These 2 parameters were intimately related and you had to undestand how modifying one affected the other (and your song). This all changed afterwards, but hey, a bit of history doesn’t hurt 
Maybe I could have explained better, but you have enough info now to search if you want.
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Nice take on the historical reasons on this regarding first gen trackers. I also think, tickspeed limitations have had certain implications on classical chipstyle arpeggios used when the number of available voices was very limited - these classical c64 sid arps probably have their own groove because of the vsync rate being fixed and divisor for note frequency updates. And tickspeed relative to songspeed would define how many notes in a “beat/line” would fit into such an arp sequence.
I guess it all comes from the old school trackers, where standard TPL was 6, and that value was related to BPM and chip refresh rates. 12 TPL seems an improvement to that, because by duplicating this value you make it divisible by 2, 3 and 4, allowing you more flexibility, as told in documentation.
In old good times, Amiga used PAL (In Europe) for TV output, that means a refresh rate of 50Hz (50 times per second). Everytime a complete screen was rendered, a vertical blank interrupt ocurred. The sound chip used this interrupt to update values and modify sounds. That meant your sound could be modified at 20ms intervals. That can’t be used as a real bpm number, song would be too fast (50tps x 60s = 3000 ticks per minute), so mod players just set another parameter, a divider (or multiplier, depending on the point of view). This number was 6 and it was used as a parameter in songs too (a parameter called speed). So we have 6 ticks per row, 4 rows per beat and 3000 ticks per minute, which gives us these numbers:
3000 ticks per min / 6 ticks per line / 4 lines per beat = 125 beats per minute.
In old trackers, you had 125bpm and speed 6 as a standard setup to begin with. These 2 parameters were intimately related and you had to undestand how modifying one affected the other (and your song). This all changed afterwards, but hey, a bit of history doesn’t hurt
I am in awe. Thanks 
This is really useful information for the RETRIGGER command. Worth noting for noobs!
Ticks per line can be set with the ZK** (proceeded by a number) command in your effects track
0-10 gives you 16 hexadecimal values - the default for a song is 12.
I just learntthere is a song optionsmenu!
I just learntthere is a song optionsmenu!
After 6 years and over 1000 posts ‘Guruh Motha Fakka is Levitating and Knows Everything About Renoise Member’ 
After 6 years and over 1000 posts ‘Guruh Motha Fakka is Levitating and Knows Everything About Renoise Member’
Only professionals get this title! 
Only professionals get this title!
I see TB, please forgive my ignorance
Appology accepted Big Masta. 
what can i say -i just learnt what i needed to know!