What's a "tick"?

TekMonki · Post by **TekMonki** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:15 pm

I've been reading various production materials and they say sometimes . . move the beat ahead (or behind) "a tick". What exactly is "a tick" in sequencer terms? Like 1/16? 1/512? Is it arbitrary?

amo · Post by **amo** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:24 pm

a "tick" is the smallest value something like a midi event can be moved. It is a division of the beat.

TekMonki · Post by **TekMonki** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 9:35 pm

Right, that's what I figured. So it's sequencer specific then?

i.e. a tick in Cubase is only 1/128th whereas a tick in Live is 1/4096th?

amo · Post by **amo** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 10:12 pm

That's what I understand too...

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 1:55 am

Every beat has 480 ticks.

Diskclaimer · Post by **Diskclaimer** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 6:54 pm

ticks have given me lyme disease twice from landscaping

TekMonki · Post by **TekMonki** » Sun Jul 10, 2005 9:07 pm

Diskclaimer wrote:ticks have given me lyme disease twice from landscaping

Was waiting for that.

And hoffman2k, is that absolute or relative to the sequencer? I did some googling and it seemed like everyone was saying something different. What does a tick equal? A millisecond? Something else?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 8:28 am

TekMonki wrote:
Diskclaimer wrote:ticks have given me lyme disease twice from landscaping
Was waiting for that.

And hoffman2k, is that absolute or relative to the sequencer? I did some googling and it seemed like everyone was saying something different. What does a tick equal? A millisecond? Something else?

It's relative to the sequencer.
Ticks are used for example:

On Roland grooveboxes like the mc-909. In the microscope midi editor you can adjust your notes 480 ticks in every beat/quarter note.

AlexG · Post by **AlexG** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 11:46 am

On Notator there are 768 ppqn (ticks) it also has a hires setting of 1536...beat that for timing accuracy lol!

Ticks are tempo relative, their interval changes according to the speed of the sequence, that's what midi clock is, 480 'FE's per beat.

TekMonki · Post by **TekMonki** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 2:41 am

Fook me. The more I ask about this, the more I get confused.

How many ppq's does live have?

supster · Post by **supster** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:20 am

i wouldnt worry about this too much man, just use your ears.

a tick is just a small amount

if it sounds right, you're on .. if its a bit off, nudge it a few ticks the way it needs to go

.

TekMonki · Post by **TekMonki** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 3:23 am

supster wrote:i wouldnt worry about this too much man, just use your ears.

a tick is just a small amount

if it sounds right, you're on .. if its a bit off, nudge it a few ticks the way it needs to go
.

Yeah, that's kind of the impression I'm getting. lol. Thought it might be something important I needed to edumacate myself about, but I guess "by ear" will work.