Ableton Forum

I can't seem to find the answer anywhere. I have asked the question to Ableton three times now - and they will not give me a straight answer on what the maximum MIDI resolution is.

Sonar has 960 ppq - and I am just curious what Live operates at. I find it very weird that they don't tell you and won't tell you when you ask.

So - does anyone know the answer?

Anybody?

What is ppq?

pulses per quarter

you can get the midi grid WAY small by zooming. the smallest grid i'm seeing right now is 1/16384th notes. i actually thought i've seen it go smaller before, but anyway that's pretty short.

you can draw at that resolution, but i'm not sure if it actually plays them that short.

longjohns wrote:you can get the midi grid WAY small by zooming. the smallest grid i'm seeing right now is 1/16384th notes. i actually thought i've seen it go smaller before, but anyway that's pretty short.

you can draw at that resolution, but i'm not sure if it actually plays them that short.

This for sure is only a drawing resolution...
Live is set to 16th quantisation by default...and probably for a reason

So the resolution is 4ppq

no, ppq cannot only be 4, because 'swung' notes are supported.

In order to 'swing' notes, you have to be able to do the next 1.5 note value (because the swing function 'slips' across the available total pulses per measure). Live can swing 32nds, so at the very least it's 48 ppq.

theoretically, you can have huge numbers for this value that were not available at the time of MIDI's inception in the 8bit era.

3phase wrote:

longjohns wrote:you can get the midi grid WAY small by zooming. the smallest grid i'm seeing right now is 1/16384th notes. i actually thought i've seen it go smaller before, but anyway that's pretty short.

you can draw at that resolution, but i'm not sure if it actually plays them that short.

This for sure is only a drawing resolution...
Live is set to 16th quantisation by default...and probably for a reason ;-)

So the resolution is 4ppq

No it's not if you can and I have used 1/128ths or 1/256th note resolutions etc and iot does go finer.
By definition the grid resolution is a graphic representation of how many pulse clock divisors are available per quater note.
I haven't gone finer than 1/512th myself for anything musical but I do know that it goes to insanely fine resolutions.
Quantise resolution and the number of pulses per quaternote you can actually use are two different things.

It sounds like its atleast 480ppqn minimum to me.
No one in there right mind would touch a sequencer with 4ppqn resolution.
Personally think the MPC's are too limited at 96 ppqn myself.

Why don't you pm Alex over at Abe Headquarters... he'll be able to direct you to the proper answer....

6 years later, do we have an official reply ?

Nobody knows

It's infinity....and beyond

480 PPQ/Ticks.
1/16384th as smallest grid.

Actually I developped a small test pluggin using Juce (http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com/) and it seems to be 960 pulses per quarter note. At least, that's what live reports ...

Wait wait wait, if 1/16384 is the smallest grid, and everyone knows you can turn the grid off and get even smaller, then the PPQ is surely even greater than 4096?

16384/4 = 4096. Highest GRID PPQ. Higher PPQ without grid no?