Why do clips start at 1 instead of 0?

[mikb]

Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

So you were 1 year old at time of birth?

You're not 1 until your first year has been completed, That is true. However, few people say a baby is 0 years old, rather the baby is considered to be newborn, 1 hour old, 1 day old, 10 days old, 1 month old, 6 months old and so on. Until they're 1 year olds, maybe referring to half years. See a pattern there with the omission of 0?

Zero is not commonly noted, but is assumed. We're talking about language, not Math proofs. If your experience is different please share some anecdotes. I'm genuinely interested to hear.

[fishmonkey]

it may seem strange to us now, however the development and usage of the concept of "zero" is fairly recent:

https://www.livescience.com/27853-who-i ... -zero.html

[Da hand]

Normal people count from 1. Only computers (and programmers) count from 0.

So you were 1 year old at time of birth?

You're not 1 until your first year has been completed, That is true. However, few people say a baby is 0 years old, rather the baby is considered to be newborn, 1 hour old, 1 day old, 10 days old, 1 month old, 6 months old and so on. Until they're 1 year olds, maybe referring to half years. See a pattern there with the omission of 0?

Zero is not commonly noted, but is assumed. We're talking about language, not Math proofs. If your experience is different please share some anecdotes. I'm genuinely interested to hear.

Thinking about this some more (inspired by Tuur's comment above) I would say that we are actually comparing apples and oranges.. or at least different coloured apples... because we are trying to compare two counting systems with the same unit of measure, but two different reference points.

Bringing this close to home, in audio if you refer the the absolute volume of something in decibels without any reference point, it doesn't have any meaning. For example 0dBSPL is the approximately the quietest sound a human can hear. OdBFS is the loudest sound you can have before clipping occurs. 0dB with one reference can put you to sleep and with the other reference can break your eardrums.

For the counting of years example by Tuur - the two references are based on completion and beginning. Your age is determined by a reference of completion - you start at 0 and since then what have you completed. You count, "I have completed a day, a week, month, year, etc."

But the 1st year starts at the moment you are born, not when it ends. You can count "this is the beginning of my first hour, first day, week, year, etc" ... So this reference is a reference of when things start (not end) - which I see as the same reference used for music.

[fishmonkey]

exactly, the reference points are different, because the usage is different. in music we are counting the starts of beats and bars. it wouldn't make much sense to call the beat count after it happened!

that is why i think the "programmers" and "normal" people logic is missing the point...

[Da hand]

Exactly!

[Tuur]

But the 1st year starts at the moment you are born, not when it ends. You can count "this is the beginning of my first hour, first day, week, year, etc" ... So this reference is a reference of when things start (not end) - which I see as the same reference used for music.

Sure. Measuring usually starts at zero I'd say. It has nothing to do with programming.

I've never seen a ruler that starts at 1.

[mikb]

But the 1st year starts at the moment you are born, not when it ends. You can count "this is the beginning of my first hour, first day, week, year, etc" ... So this reference is a reference of when things start (not end) - which I see as the same reference used for music.

Sure. Measuring usually starts at zero I'd say. It has nothing to do with programming.

I've never seen a ruler that starts at 1.

But we're still talking about everyday music language, not about scientific language. Zero is assumed, not counted out loud. You need to acknowledge this to be correct in your analysis.

[ricksteruk]

As I've just posted in another thread about anacrusis here's my thoughts.

Music usually (in 4/4) starts on 1.. we count 2 , 3, 4 and then go back to 1.
So normally clips should start on Bar 1 Beat 1 (as they do now)

But when you have pickup / anacrusis these notes come before bar 1 beat 1.

So I think in order to be able to deal with these - Live clips should start at Bar 0.

That way (assuming you've got a 1 bar click/count in) if you play a pickup before Bar 1 Beat 1 it will be recorded in the clip.

Then if you launch the clip with ZERO launch quantise it will not play the anacrusis - but if you have at 1 bar Launch quantise then Live will be able to play the anacrusis and the clip would remain in time with normal clips that start on Bar 1 launched in that scene.

( Normally Bar 0 should be hidden - as most times we won't use it - there should be a "show Bar 0" checkbox that you can tick. It would normally be set OFF unless, you played in Bar 0 - then Live should helpfully auto tick it for you - which you could untick again if desired )

[Spillby]

It's not uncommon in music to start at zero. I think it's actually the most common. Just look at any music player: they all start at zero. But they start at time zero.

The "start at 1 thing" in Live confused me too, because I first thought it was time. I couldn't understand why I could only start my song after 1 second, and not from the beginning. But now I have learned that this number in Live is not time, but some kind of beat counting. Then it makes sense to start at 1. But maybe it should have been more clear that this number is not time.

[jestermgee]

It's not uncommon in music to start at zero. I think it's actually the most common. Just look at any music player: they all start at zero. But they start at time zero.

Not quite applicable in comparison. Music players as you rightly pointed out are based off linear time. Time begins at nothing and runs indefinitely. Music is based off a musical time signature, it starts with a beat the moment you press go so you start with beat 1. Look at the Live timeline in arrangement mode. At the top you have the time signature that starts at 1. That is the FIRST beat. You cannot start a song on ZERO beats you have to COUNT something so you start counting at 1.

At the bottom of the window you have time which starts at zero because time starts at zero

Time signatures are a way to divide time into measures. Like taking a pizza and dividing it into 8 equal portions, you wouldn't start counting those pieces from zero, you don't start with "no slices" you have 8 slices or you could further quantise your pizza into smaller slices and get 16, but if you were to start handing out slices at the word "Go"" you would start with slice 1 not slice zero.

The "start at 1 thing" in Live confused me too, because I first thought it was time. I couldn't understand why I could only start my song after 1 second, and not from the beginning. But now I have learned that this number in Live is not time, but some kind of beat counting. Then it makes sense to start at 1. But maybe it should have been more clear that this number is not time.

This is where a small amount of music theory helps and a few youtube videos would explain things much better than I have attempted in this thread, several times over. The basic thing to remember about music is you are working with divisions of measure so no matter the time or signature, the division value can never be zero.

[Spillby]

I don't disagree with you on this. My confusion in the beginning was just beacause I wrongly assumed that the number actually was some kind of linear time.

[stringtapper]

As I've just posted in another thread about anacrusis here's my thoughts.

Music usually (in 4/4) starts on 1.. we count 2 , 3, 4 and then go back to 1.
So normally clips should start on Bar 1 Beat 1 (as they do now)

But when you have pickup / anacrusis these notes come before bar 1 beat 1.

So I think in order to be able to deal with these - Live clips should start at Bar 0.

That way (assuming you've got a 1 bar click/count in) if you play a pickup before Bar 1 Beat 1 it will be recorded in the clip.

Then if you launch the clip with ZERO launch quantise it will not play the anacrusis - but if you have at 1 bar Launch quantise then Live will be able to play the anacrusis and the clip would remain in time with normal clips that start on Bar 1 launched in that scene.

( Normally Bar 0 should be hidden - as most times we won't use it - there should be a "show Bar 0" checkbox that you can tick. It would normally be set OFF unless, you played in Bar 0 - then Live should helpfully auto tick it for you - which you could untick again if desired )

Everything you're talking about here is already possible in Live. It's just labeled as bar "-1" instead of bar "0."