Newbie to music notation? 6th, 8ths, 16, 32 etc

[klackt]

Hello guys, I lurk here alot to help me write simple music on the computer - the more pieces I begin to write, the more I realise I'm out of time with stuff. I use quantize at times, especially with off-beat bass riffs, but I don't exactly understand the terms 4/4 4/8 ...16ths, 32 etc - does anyone know what I mean?

When I read soulutions here, I hear such terms, I know it's beginner stuff - but can someone explain it to me? So I can translate? It's very confusing for me...I just lay down stuff and see what sounds good...so just basically the number system and quantize etc and getting things to sound in time together - basic terms!

I've tried Google! Honest!

Thanks guys, sorry for the newbie-ness!

[Ogg Vorbis]

Hello guys, I lurk here alot to help me write simple music on the computer - the more pieces I begin to write, the more I realise I'm out of time with stuff. I use quantize at times, especially with off-beat bass riffs, but I don't exactly understand the terms 4/4 4/8 ...16ths, 32 etc - does anyone know what I mean?

When I read soulutions here, I hear such terms, I know it's beginner stuff - but can someone explain it to me? So I can translate? It's very confusing for me...I just lay down stuff and see what sounds good...so just basically the number system and quantize etc and getting things to sound in time together - basic terms!

I've tried Google! Honest!

Thanks guys, sorry for the newbie-ness!

It's not too difficult to understand. In the quantize window you'll see divisions of a measure into 1/4 1/8 1/16 etc.

A measure is a division into a group of beats. A beat is a single "pulse" of music.

A measure can be a group of 3 beats, 2 beats, 4, 5, etc.

Most pop/rock/dance music is constructed by measures of 4 beats each. When you listen to it you can count the pattern, "one-two-three-four," over and over again into this repeating pattern. This is the rhythmic basis for such music.

So the quantize window will show you different divisions of the MEASURE. If I have a kick drum playing the classic "BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM" "four on the floor" style, there will be four of these for each measure.

So if I play these into my sequencer a little bit off, I can select the MIDI events and go into the quantize view and it can fix what I played.

If I choose 1/4 then the beginnings of each kick drum will now fall on one of the major beats of the measure. Remember there are 4 beats to each measure.

But individual beats are divisible! You can have a high hat rhythm which goes twice or four times as quickly as the kick drum. So there I need to quantize to a smaller division. If I choose 1/8 then each high hat hit will now fall on either a beat or exactly between a beat (mid-point).

If there are supposed to be 4 high hat hits for every beat, then I need to set up the quantize to 1/16. Basic math...4 divisions of 4 beats equals 16 or 1/16th of a measure.

There are also other divisions of the beat in music other than 4, 8, 16, 32, 64... In fact, any number can divide a beat or a measure.

You can set up a quantize to a "triplet" so that 3 equal divisions will define a beat. This can be useful for drum fills, for example.

Learning to count like a musician is a HUGE help. When you hear something in 4, you can count "one, two, three, four" to identify the beats. For the bassline it might be divided in such a way that you will hear each note and count them as, "one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" for each measure. That's 1/8 division (eight subdivisions per measure).

For the high hat, you might need to count "one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a-four-e-and-a" over and over again. This is 1/16. Notice there are 16 "words" in that last example I wrote.

Using these ideas, your basic questions before looking at the quantize dialogue box will be:

1) How many beats are there per measure in my song?
2) Does my part that I am needing to quantize hit on each of the major beats or are there divisions?
3) If there are divisions, then what level of division do I want? Is it 2, 3, 4 or more?

[klackt]

Hello guys, I lurk here alot to help me write simple music on the computer - the more pieces I begin to write, the more I realise I'm out of time with stuff. I use quantize at times, especially with off-beat bass riffs, but I don't exactly understand the terms 4/4 4/8 ...16ths, 32 etc - does anyone know what I mean?

When I read soulutions here, I hear such terms, I know it's beginner stuff - but can someone explain it to me? So I can translate? It's very confusing for me...I just lay down stuff and see what sounds good...so just basically the number system and quantize etc and getting things to sound in time together - basic terms!

I've tried Google! Honest!

Thanks guys, sorry for the newbie-ness!

It's not too difficult to understand. In the quantize window you'll see divisions of a measure into 1/4 1/8 1/16 etc.

A measure is a division into a group of beats. A beat is a single "pulse" of music.

A measure can be a group of 3 beats, 2 beats, 4, 5, etc.

Most pop/rock/dance music is constructed by measures of 4 beats each. When you listen to it you can count the pattern, "one-two-three-four," over and over again into this repeating pattern. This is the rhythmic basis for such music.

So the quantize window will show you different divisions of the MEASURE. If I have a kick drum playing the classic "BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM" "four on the floor" style, there will be four of these for each measure.

So if I play these into my sequencer a little bit off, I can select the MIDI events and go into the quantize view and it can fix what I played.

If I choose 1/4 then the beginnings of each kick drum will now fall on one of the major beats of the measure. Remember there are 4 beats to each measure.

But individual beats are divisible! You can have a high hat rhythm which goes twice or four times as quickly as the kick drum. So there I need to quantize to a smaller division. If I choose 1/8 then each high hat hit will now fall on either a beat or exactly between a beat (mid-point).

If there are supposed to be 4 high hat hits for every beat, then I need to set up the quantize to 1/16. Basic math...4 divisions of 4 beats equals 16 or 1/16th of a measure.

There are also other divisions of the beat in music other than 4, 8, 16, 32, 64... In fact, any number can divide a beat or a measure.

You can set up a quantize to a "triplet" so that 3 equal divisions will define a beat. This can be useful for drum fills, for example.

Learning to count like a musician is a HUGE help. When you hear something in 4, you can count "one, two, three, four" to identify the beats. For the bassline it might be divided in such a way that you will hear each note and count them as, "one-and-two-and-three-and-four-and" for each measure. That's 1/8 division (eight subdivisions per measure).

For the high hat, you might need to count "one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a-four-e-and-a" over and over again. This is 1/16. Notice there are 16 "words" in that last example I wrote.

Using these ideas, your basic questions before looking at the quantize dialogue box will be:

1) How many beats are there per measure in my song?
2) Does my part that I am needing to quantize hit on each of the major beats or are there divisions?
3) If there are divisions, then what level of division do I want? Is it 2, 3, 4 or more?

Thanks!

Your reply was helpful, but it confused me more! But I thank you so much for taking your time to explain this to me...

So what is a measure? Here is a screen cap - tell me if I've labeled it properly - I do count "one two three four" to any music I listen. Always. It's just natural to me...

ANYTHING with numbers is really bad for me... but I really need to know this so I make less mistakes in the future, so forgive my stupiditiy..



So what I want to say, i've labelled in my diagram... is that right? I always thought one "red" note was a beat... Is that length of the bar which I highlighted, correct? Is the diagram correct? I tried following what you said about identifying a bassline, however, that bar which I've highlighted surely can't be long enough? I played this at 60bpm and it went through (past) that bar in less than a second... I think this is where the confusion comes in.


Thanks again:)

[yellowfever]

...I just lay down stuff and see what sounds good...

Nothing wrong with doing this. Quantising just makes the timing exact to where you want it.

[Gamma-UT]

What you've got circled there in Live is a beat rather than a bar. Live numbers beats as .1, .2, .3 etc. and counts bars as whole numbers (1, 2, 3 etc)

So, there are spaces for eight 1/32th notes between each beat, as you've got there, in a single bar of 4/4.

The thing to bear in mind is that a metre, like 4/4, is not a fraction. It's just a way of saying that each bar has four 1/4th (quarter) notes in it.

[Nystul]

In 4/4 time at 60 bpm, each quarter note would last one second. At 120 bpm (which would be closer to typical for dance or fast rock) each quarter note would last half of a second. A four on the floor beat at 120 BPM would have a kick every half second, on each quarter note. So you will have 4 of these quarter notes in each measure. A measure (also called bar) is basically the length of time to establish the basic groove of the song. Typically in pop music that is going to be 4 beats.

A half note lasts twice as long as a quarter note. A whole note lasts twice as long as a half note or 4 times as long as a quarter note (one whole measure in 4/4 time). An eighth note will last half as long as a quarter note. A sixteenth note will last half as long as an eighth note. And so forth.

In music notation, we can make a note last 50% longer by putting a little dot behind it. So a "dotted quarter note" lasts one and a half beats instead of one. So you could have a dotted quarter note, followed by an eighth note, and that would add up to 2 beats.

Sometimes we want to divide something into three parts instead of two. Then we use "triplets". A "triplet" means three of those notes will last as long as two normally would. So in one beat, you could fit 2 eighth notes, or you could fit 3 triplet eighth notes, or you could fit a dotted eighth note plus a sixteenth note.

If you want to quantize a certain rhythm, you need to quantize to a short enough subdivision so that the notes aren't moved to the wrong place. This can be tricky if you are mixing different rhythmic ideas. For instance I might have a measure that goes "One-and Two-and Three-and Four-trip-let". The first three beats are divided into eighth notes, but the fourth beat is divided into triplet eighth notes. If I set the quantize to use eighth notes, it won't be able to do the fourth beat. If I set the quantize to use triplet eighth notes, it will screw up the first 3 counts. In this case the quantize would actually have to use triplet 16th notes. Two triplet 16th notes would equal one triplet eighth note. Three triplet 16th notes would equal one regular eighth note. But if you set quantize to a very short note and play sloppy, it will move things to the wrong place based on your sloppy playing!

Hopefully this is not too confusing.