FL Studio 12 Released!

[sjm]

So this is what the denominator of the timesig is for:
-we have the "beats" in BPM, aka "beats 1"
-the "beats on a grid/in a metronome", aka "beats 2" relate to "beats 1" according to the denumerator of the timesig.

And this is why a metronome, supposed to play on the beat, should change its speed while the tempo does not, when the denumerator of the timesig changes. Because the metronome plays on "beat 2" while the BPM define "beat 1".

Beats 1 and beats 2 are actually the same thing. It only becomes an issue if you only have one BPM value for the entire track and switch between time signatures with different denominators, in which the notes used to count off the beats change (which essentially leads to a doubling/halving of the bpm 99% of the time).

What you're calling beat 1 is actually just the corresponding bpm in 4/4, because you're only counting quarter notes as beats. But that's not actually how it works. All a metronome does is count out the beats for you as they come. There's no difference between these beats and any other beats. There is no "computer bpm" that is in some way removed from bpm for the rest of music. The whole point of a metronome is that each "tock" indicates a beat.

As an example, look at the following 'BPM indicators' for traditional sheet music:


The note indicated here is a quarter note, so we have 120 quarter notes per minute. In other words, bpm is 120, and each beat corresponds to a quarter note. This will be for a time signature with 4 in the denominator.



Here we have Mozart's Sonata K. 331, and the bpm is indicated as 120 as well, however each beat corresponds to an eighth note (that squiggle on the note indicates an eighth note), which makes sense because we're in 6/8 time, and each eighth note corresponds to a beat.

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You need to understand that the bpm doesn't have to be in quarter notes. As I posted before, the denominator in the time signature determines the type of note that represents a beat. How frequently these notes are played determines the bpm. Have 120 eighth notes a minute in 6/8? Then you have a bpm of 120. Simples.

[EvilDragon]

^^^^ Excellent explanation.

[spaceman]

To help the discussion even further, I would suggest we use BPHM from now on, as in beats per half minute.
It's BPM for people with little patient or short concentration spans.

[tony tony chopper]

"Beat" is the one and the same thing, though, no matter the context. The difference is that time signatures don't relate to tempo defined in BPM, but rather to the way you count your way through the bars. That's why metronome can go faster or slower than current BPM, because its counting depends on timesig denominator. But there's no such thing as "beat 1" and "beat 2", however if it helped you to understand what's going on, I guess fine then.

That makes no sense. If a metronome plays faster or slower for the same BEATS per minute, then that can only mean one of 2 things:
1. a metronome does not play on beats
2. BEATS in BPM is something else
(& if you disagree with this, I'll leave it there because we're not on the same planet)

According to our betatesters, it's 2.
According to you, it's neither (makes no sense).
According to this source, it's 2:
http://music.stackexchange.com/question ... -and-tempo
At least everyone in that discussion is honnest saying that it's all wrong logic & broken rules.

Beats 1 and beats 2 are actually the same thing.

not according to the source I linked, and their explanation makes a lot more sense

[EvilDragon]

Heeere we go again, spinning in circles, gol.

NReilingh there in the link you've posted has pretty much said the exact same thing sjm said above. There IS only one meaning of what "beat" is.

Metronome plays according to METER, which is defined by the time signature. It uses BPM only as a guideline on how to tick, according to what timesig is saying - if the timesig denominator is the same value as the BPM designator (usually a quarter note, but sjm's 6/8 example has an eight note as BPM designator), then metronome follows BPM. If timesig denominator is SOMETHING ELSE, then metronome ticks faster or slower, BUT IN THE SAME tempo defined by BPM! It just uses the note value defined by the denominator instead. So, if you have q = 120 BPM as your project tempo, and you change timesig to 8/8, metronome must tick in 8th notes (and tick 8 of them during one bar), which are twice faster than quarter notes. The tempo (120 BPM) remains the same!

I cannot understand how you cannot understand this.

[cwig]

Actually it's quite simple: one has a 7/7 signature

Have never heard of 7/7 time sig either. Care to link to some examples?

[sjm]

not according to the source I linked, and their explanation makes a lot more sense

All that has happened is you've misunderstood the link you posted. Admittedly some of it is confusing, and some of it is way above the level of this discussion.

That makes no sense. If a metronome plays faster or slower for the same BEATS per minute, then that can only mean one of 2 things:
1. a metronome does not play on beats
2. BEATS in BPM is something else
(& if you disagree with this, I'll leave it there because we're not on the same planet)

I think you still haven't understood what a beat is. Beats are not the same thing as quarter notes! I'm pretty sure this is the root of your misunderstanding. You can't think of everything in terms of 4/4 when you're using a different time signature; that makes no sense, not time signatures themselves.

Seriously, instead of asking some random guy online (that includes me) or your sister's boyfriend who once played in a band, find someone who is a trained music teacher and get them to explain time signatures to you face to face so you can clear up all your misconceptions. It's really really easy, and little kids understand it when it's taught to them. You're just so tied up with your preconceived notions of how you think it works that you're blinded to how it actually works. A good teacher will sort you out in no time.


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Edit: Maybe an example will help

Here's a quick example of mixed time signatures; one bar of 4/4 and one bar of 7/8. I did this in FL with the BPM in FL set to 60.

Here the beats are counted out:
http://www.filedropper.com/timesignaturecounted

Here the downbeat (1) is accented by the bass drum, the rest is a hihat (similar to a metronome):
http://www.filedropper.com/timesignaturemetronome

And the two together:
http://www.filedropper.com/timesignatureboth

(If anyone knows a better hosting site for MP3s that doesn't require registration and that can be embedded, let me know...)


And here's how I'd expect it to look in FL:

4-4 and 7-8.png

What you notice here is that the 7/8 part is counted twice as fast. Note how the grid lines indicating the beats are closer together in 7/8. However the length of a note (quarter note, eighth note) has not changed. What has changed is where the beat is counted; it's moved from the longer quarter notes to the eighth notes, which are half as long. So now those parts where you'd count "and" in your head in 4/4 (1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and) are now themselves beats to be counted individually.

In essence the BPM has doubled although the tempo is the same. So while the BPM in FL remains 60 throughout, we've actually got 120 beats per minute (because we're counting eighth notes as the beat) in the 7/8 section.

[tony tony chopper]

Heeere we go again, spinning in circles, gol.

NReilingh there in the link you've posted has pretty much said the exact same thing sjm said above. There IS only one meaning of what "beat" is.

Really? Quoting the several answers:

You are correct in noticing that there is overlap between tempo markings and time signatures. That is because, while there are some conventions for how they usually relate, these conventions can be broken.


Time signatures are not used to convey tempo.
Tempo, is not used to convey time signatures.

In music, all rules are meant to be broken. For instance, John Cage's 4'33" is traditionally notated as having a tempo of 60 BPM, but is frequently performed at 1/3 this speed.

Does that sound like it's all clear to everyone - are we really reading the same thing?

It uses BPM only as a guideline on how to tick, according to what timesig is saying - if the timesig denominator is the same value as the BPM designator (usually a quarter note, but sjm's 6/8 example has an eight note as BPM designator), then metronome follows BPM.

Ok, so you're claiming it's actually 2: a metronome does not (always) play on beats.
The musically trained betatesters in our forum claim it's 1: the metronome play on beats, the same beats as in a visual grid, but not the same beats as in BPM.

I cannot understand how you cannot understand this.

I'm apparently not the only one, even the musically trained ones can't agree on anything here.

[tony tony chopper]

In essence the BPM has doubled although the tempo is the same. So while the BPM in FL remains 60 throughout, we've actually got 120 beats per minute (because we're counting eighth notes as the beat) in the 7/8 section.

So you're saying it's 1. B in BPM doesn't mean the same "beat".

And really, don't try to escape this, you wrote "So while the BPM in FL remains 60 throughout, we've actually got 120 beats per minute". BPM is 60, beats per minute is 120 - this is what you're saying. So if once again you're saying that I'm misinterpreting things.. there must be a logic barrier.

"120 beats per minute" for a "beats per minute value of 60" - there, you're saying that there are 2 different things hidden behind the same word.

[She Changed Her Mind]

I never heard of a 3/7 or 7/7 beat either. Seems kind of experimental though. In theory.
Obviously I will take a look at it. And if it doesn't sound lousy enough I will post it. Promised. Hey, I am just a noob; it seems we have to do all the dirty work here though

[trimph1]

Use of 5/7 is mostly in eastern European/middle Asian, I guess.

[robotmonkey]

I was saying that music theory was for masochists.

Quite a shocking statement from a lead developer of a DAW.

[Jace-BeOS]

All this talk about how children get all this basic math... NOT ALL OF THEM!

Isn't this all about defining the number of beats per measure, and which note value is the length of the beat? That's not BPM. That's time signature. Changing signature speeds up (or slows) the rate of progressing through the measures, but doesn't change the BPM. If you make a measure take up more beats, it's not changing the BPM. It's just changing the number of beats in a measure. If you increase the beats per measure of a song from 4 to 6, without changing the BPM, then, in order to fit them into the same time, the beats of that measure are using shorter notes.

???

As for all the fractions... I suck at fractions.

[EvilDragon]

Use of 5/7 is mostly in eastern European/middle Asian, I guess.

That's 7/8 and 9/8 (Bulgaria, Macedonia). Nobody uses x/7 timesignatures. Perhaps some avantgarde composers, just for the sake of being avantgarde.

[sjm]

So you're saying it's 1. B in BPM doesn't mean the same "beat".

And really, don't try to escape this, you wrote "So while the BPM in FL remains 60 throughout, we've actually got 120 beats per minute". BPM is 60, beats per minute is 120 - this is what you're saying. So if once again you're saying that I'm misinterpreting things.. there must be a logic barrier.

No that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that in FL I only get to choose one BPM value and time signature for the project. I chose 4/4 and 60 BPM. But the part that is supposed to be in 7/8 is actually 120 BPM - and the BPM value in FL is thus wrong for the part that was 7/8 (because I can't change time signature, and by extension, what constitutes a beat). So I'm illustrating how it currently works in FL - which as you say, makes no sense and is confusing. That's why we're having this discussion. I'm glad we can agree on this point.

The correct value would be 120 in 7/8 - if one beat is now half as long (or twice as quick) as before, you obviously have twice as many beats per minute. So yes, one beat in 4/4 is not the same as one beat in 7/8. That's the whole point. When you change from a x/4 to x/8 time signature, the length of the beat is halved. I've even drawn you a diagram, did you look at it? I made you an audio file with the beats being counted. Did you listen to it? Did you not hear that the beats were more frequent in 7/8?

This is exactly the same as wavelengths and Hz. If you halve the wavelength, the frequency doubles. By the same token, if you halve the length of a beat, the number of beats per minute (BPM) doubles. And halving the length of the beat is exactly what happens when you switch from x/4 to x/8. This is really simple maths - fractions and reciprocals. 1/2 is the reciprocal of 2/1.

What this means is that BPM can change with a time signature change, even though the the same note (e.g. a quarter note) doesn't change - it's the same tempo. Now in theory, I doubt the BPM value matters too much; allowing you to change time signatures and getting the grid lines in the piano roll to reflect time signatures properly would be much more important.


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I should also probably point out, that setting the denominator in FL doesn't do what it should - if you're still thinking of time signatures the way FL uses them, that might be the source of your confusion. If I have the step sequencer open and select 4/4 time, it looks pretty sensible; I have 4 beats, each of which is made up of 4 sixteenths. But at 7/8, instead of having 7 beats each divided into 2 sixteenths, I get 7 beats, each of which is divided into 64th notes (there are 8 of them). So instead of halving the number of sixteenth steps per beat (from 4 to 2), you've doubled them (from 4 to 8 ). This should be the other way round - you need to use the reciprocal. The 8 isn't how many subdivisions there are per beat (it's not a fraction!), but determines what type of note constitutes a beat; in this case an eighth note (which is the same length as two sixteenth notes). If you still think the way FL handles "time signatures" in the general settings is right, that's probably why you are having trouble.