FL Studio 12 Released!

[ENV1]

Check the pre-scale feature on a 808 (or similar drum machines).

Same tempo, different beats per minute.

[EvilDragon]

If your tempo is 120BPM, then a beat will be 0.5sec, PERIOD. You just can't argue with this.

You CAN argue this, because a beat does NOT have to be a quarter note always! It's 0.5 ONLY IF the time signature is set to x/4. x/4 means QUARTERS. x/8 means EIGHTS, in which case one beat is going to last 0.25 sec. If timesig is set to x/2, one BEAT is going to last ONE second (because a half note lasts twice as long as a quarter note). That's all there is to it.

In short: time signature denominator determines how long a metronome beat is supposed to last - regardless of the actual tempo value (120, 96, or 3549532, whatever, doesn't matter). It determines in which units the metronome must count!

[sjm]

No, what YOU are saying is that the green & orange lines are BOTH "beats", but that for the SAME "BEATS per minute" value, they will play at a DIFFERENT rate, WHILE "BEATS" in BPM is the same thing as the orange & green lines. Go explain THAT!

That's not what I said at all. I said that the two lines are different lengths, both represent beats, and that by extension one has more beats per minute than the other. The fact that in FL you only have one BPM setting is just something you have to work with (essentially you are always defining BPM using quarter notes, even when you wouldn't do that because of the time signature.

The fact that FL only has one BPM setting that can only handle quarter notes doesn't invalidate the rest of the music world or mean FL covers every use case.

A beat does not have to be a quarter note.

How often are you going to ignore this simple piece of information?

As to why this is really relevant; it's not about the BPM value in FL (hell, let BPM be defined in quarter notes for all I care), but that you will want to have grid lines and snap settings that are "beat". And the beat will not be the same in 4/4 and 7/8. You will also want grid and snap settings that are things like "quarter note" and "eighth note" - and these will be the same in both 4/4 and 7/8.

The same applies to the metronome. You can't have the metronome counting one beat every second (60 BPM) in 4/4 when you want 2 beats every second (120 BPM) in 7/8. Because the 1, 2, 3, 4 will not align correctly with the beats in 7/8. You get this:

Code: Select all

Metronome
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
1   2   3   4   1   2   3   4   1   2   3   4   1   2   3   4  |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 
|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

The important thing to notice is that the beats don't align; the 1 in 7/8 in the second bar isn't even counted by the metronome, let alone treated as the downbeat - not a good thing. Every second bar of 7/8 is out of whack and the downbeat is hardly ever aligned.

I'm not sure what the repercussions are for plugins that are tempo-based if the beat isn't aligned, but this could also be an issue. So at some level you need to deal with beats that are not quarter notes.

[Robert Randolph]

Wait, is tony tony chopper the Gol from the flstudio team?

[EvilDragon]

Wait, is tony tony chopper the Gol from the flstudio team?

Yeah.

[tony tony chopper]

The fact that FL only has one BPM setting that can only handle quarter notes doesn't invalidate the rest of the music world or mean FL covers every use case.

What does that even mean? Other sequencers have more than one BPM setting?
It's not like the confusion was different in, say, Cubase:
http://www.steinberg.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=56065



Anyway, I got my confirmation from others that "beats" in BPM and "beats" in the time signature simply aren't the same thing. I don't know why you don't wanna admit this...

So, Beat in BPM = quarter note (or crochet or whatever, just to confuse a little more), regardless of the time signature.
Beat in a metronome/display grid = depends on the time signature.
So Beat1=Beat2 only in 4/4, thus Beat1 & Beat2 are not the same thing.


I've found plenty of people confused by this simple thing, that not only you didn't mention, but that you still don't wanna admit.
There's nothing simple here, it's like made confusing on purpose, so that's what one should always start with, explaining that 2 different things have the same name.

A beat does not have to be a quarter note.

yes it apparently does, -for the tempo-. That's what I'm reading the most, that (unless specified), a tempo value assumes that a beat is a quarter note. Fine that you don't agree, but I'll trust the majority.

[CC4]

In music notation, a piece of music may begin with a metronome mark somewhere above the time signature. So above a 4/4 time signature it may read:

♩ = 100 bpm

That's 100 quarter notes per minute and four quarter notes per measure. Maybe later in that same piece the time signature changes to 6/8 and above the time signature indication the metronome mark could say:

♪ = 120 bpm

Now we've changed the tempo to counting 120 eighth notes per minute and counting six of them per measure. This could also include key changes, mood markings... maybe a crescendo led into this change, whatever.

Who knows where, but somewhere along the way the creators of sequencers and DAWs said the tempo of a piece would be determined with quarter notes. When you set 120 bpm, you're setting 120 quarter notes per minute even if you want to count eighth notes. Maybe that setting should be labelled 120 Qpm to equal "quarter notes per minute." So when talking about sequencers, I say the term bpm is a misnomer. I'm not aware of any sequencer that labels the bpm indication with a metronome mark. We're just determining the tempo with this setting.

A sequencer will still than often offer the setting to then determine a time signature. So I can still create my song in 6/8 time. The metronome will still count off six eighth notes per measure and draw the piano roll grid that way. The tempo is just an arbitrary number at this point. Maybe, later on, the sequencer (if it lets me) will allow me to change the time signature to 4/4 time and the metronome will count off four quarter notes per measure instead where this change is indicated. The grid will adjust as well. We haven't touched the Qpm/bpm setting. Maybe I'll draw in some tempo changes later.

I don't think anyone is arguing for how the tempo is handled in FL Studio. The discussion was making time signature changes easier. I think artists will adapt to whatever limitations their tools offer, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't welcome a change.

[elassi]

[Robert Randolph]

Wait, is tony tony chopper the Gol from the flstudio team?

Yeah.

Holy shitballs batman.

How do you even get this far not understanding how time signatures work.

It's amazing how adamant he is about being wrong too

[tony tony chopper]

Who knows where, but somewhere along the way the creators of sequencers and DAWs said the tempo of a piece would be determined with quarter notes. When you set 120 bpm, you're setting 120 quarter notes per minute even if you want to count eighth notes. Maybe that setting should be labelled 120 Qpm to equal "quarter notes per minute." So when talking about sequencers, I say the term bpm is a misnomer. I'm not aware of any sequencer that labels the bpm indication with a metronome mark. We're just determining the tempo with this setting.

Ah, so historically the origin of this is sequencers.
Now this is a clear answer, it makes sense.

[CC4]

Anyway, I got my confirmation from others that "beats" in BPM and "beats" in the time signature simply aren't the same thing. I don't know why you don't wanna admit this...

So, Beat in BPM = quarter note (or crochet or whatever, just to confuse a little more), regardless of the time signature.
Beat in a metronome/display grid = depends on the time signature.

Yes. I'd blame early sequencer manufacturers though before blaming music theory. I think they were just lazy in labeling metronome marks.

A beat does not have to be a quarter note.

yes it apparently does, -for the tempo-. That's what I'm reading the most, that (unless specified), a tempo value assumes that a beat is a quarter note. Fine that you don't agree, but I'll trust the majority.

Well... I suppose FL could change that to it it wanted. Indicate a metronome mark, but then you may have people five years from now bitching that you can't change the metronome mark halfway through a song.

[CC4]

Ah, so historically the origin of this is sequencers.
Now this is a clear answer, it makes sense.

Awesome.

Any chance in changing how FL handles time signatures?

[tony tony chopper]

Wait, is tony tony chopper the Gol from the flstudio team?

Yeah.

How do you even get this far not understanding how time signatures work.

It's amazing how adamant he is about being wrong too

Believe it or not, it's not musicians who write software, it's programmers.

And the only thing I have "understood" about time signatures is that there was nothing to understand, only an illogical convention to know about.

[tony tony chopper]

Yes. I'd blame early sequencer manufacturers though before blaming music theory. I think they were just lazy in labeling metronome marks.

Well, in this case, FL's tempo handling doesn't go against the theory.
Where other sequencers assume a tempo in quarter notes, FL assumes a tempo in the current time signature.

Thus when you set FL to work in x/8 (steps per beat=2 in FL), then FL's tempo is to be read
♪ = x bpm
Correct?
Nothing wrong in assuming the current timesig instead of x/4, no?

[spaceman]

What we've learned is that BPM in a DAW is not the same as BPM in music notation. As far as I can tell, that's a fact Gol has acknowledged all along, and that's what all the rest has failed to understand he's acknowledging.

Changing the time signature in a DAW changes the grid and the metronome, but a quarter note is still as long as it was before as there are just as many in a minute as before.

I think we can also agree that no one really wants to do 7/8 notation on a 4/4 grid. So yes, it's a pain to work in FL if you want or need to compose in 7/8 or something else that's not 4/4.

Give it a f**king rest now.