Why 24 ?

[wolf_of_badenoch]

I use FL studio as my "host of choice", and when adjusting notes in the piano roll, noticed that each beat can be divided in 24 parts. I am just curious as to why it is 24 rather than some other number such as 24, or 50 or 100 24 seems to crop up in other music related places too, although I am devoid of references of the top of my heid.

cheers,

Wolf

[Vegetarian]

Eh? 24 parts? I know fl goes up to 128th notes or so using the chopper, but to me, unless you're writing in 3/4 or something, 24 doesn't make much sense.

Um, in a nutshell, rhythmic divisions sound more natural when they're done in certain ways. Have a look here: http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Art ... hythm1.htm
50 or 100 doesn't make a lot of rhythmic sense most of the time, and won't sound natural under most circumstances (in western music, anyway). Someone else can probably explain that better than me, though, I'm kinda not thinking straight.

[Stupid American Pig]

you will need to increase the resolution of the sequencer. the default is 96 ppqn.

[wolf_of_badenoch]

Thanks for the replies. S_A_P, I hadn't ever changed the timebase settings before, so hooray, I have learned something new about FL today.

In fact on the default setting of 96, each note duration or start point has 24 possible settings per beat (00 - 23) - I see the number increases as the timebase settings increase. I will try and include a picture here, but not sure if it will work too well. If not, just double click on a note in the piano roll and scroll through the start points or duration.

24 seems to be okay. When I play around with triplets of quarter notes I start them on 1:00 2:08 and 3:16 which seems to space them out evenly.

Hmm, too thick to work out how to add an image to this mail. Sorry

[arakula]

In fact on the default setting of 96, each note duration or start point has 24 possible settings per beat (00 - 23) - I see the number increases as the timebase settings increase.

See http://www.borg.com/~jglatt/tech/midispec/clock.htm on "why 24"...

[JCJR]

Some multiple of 24 makes a convenient MIDI 'quarternote' timebase, because it is friendly with 4/4, 3/4, 6/8, common music time signatures. Fer example, Sixteenth note is 6 ticks (or some multiple of 6). Eighth-note Triplet is 8 ticks (or some multiple of 8 ).

480 PPQN is one of many convenient multiples of 24 for the MIDI Tick size. One cute coincidence with 480 PPQN (pulses per quarter note), is that a tempo of 125 Beats Per Minute, yields a Tick duration of 1 millisecond.

There is nothing wrong with any arbitrary high-res tick definition. At a Tick resolution of 1000 PPQN, an eighth-note triplet has a duration of 333.33333333 Ticks. OTOH, a Tick resolution of 960 PPQN has an eighth-note triplet duration of 320 Ticks, which is at least easier to remember.

[tony tony chopper]

indeed, 24 (per step, or 96 PPQ, but you can set FL to show time in steps or beats), is just handy since it can be divided by 3 & 4.

[wolf_of_badenoch]

Thanks folks. As always at KVR, someone not only knows, but is kind enough to take the time to explain.

cheers,

Wolf