BPM (Beats per Minute)
and
TPB (Ticks Per Beat)
are the
two main forms of timing and speed control used throughout Aldrin. These two
items are used to adjust the general speed of your song as well as sync
and time certain parameters.
BPM is something that should be familiar to most musicians. BPM is the standard
way to manage time in music. It literally refers to the amount of given beats
per standard minute.
What must
be understood is that this is the amount of Beats Per Minute and not the
amount of Rows per Minute. A row is actually equal to one tick. There for
the number of rows in a minute is equal to the BPM times the TPB (i.e.
Rows per minute = TPB * BPM).
What is a
Tick
you ask? The word
'Tick' is used to indicate the overall position in your song.
As stated, a Tick is represented by a single row in a pattern. Simple as that. Every row within your pattern editor is equal to one
Tick, and in sequence editor default one bar is equal to 16 Pattern rows, so to 16 Ticks.
If you want to change this, read
Understanding Bars in the Sequence Editor.
The best way to explain the concept 'Ticks per Beat'
is the probably the following example:
You compose a trance song, you standard assign 1 bassdrum hit
every eight rows in the patterns of your bassdrum generator. In that
case, if you want to have a commonly accepted tempo and you leave
the BPM value between 120 and 150, you will have to set the TPB
value at 8. Then you have your song orientated in 8 'ticks per beat'
(the BPM multiplied by 8 will then give you the amount of rows that
cover one minute of music).
Ticks make for a nice common way to sync parameters and effects between
each other, as well as the current song. For example it is sometimes useful
to have delays be in "time" with the song. This means that each
trailing repetition of the delay would need to hit exactly on a beat, with
the rest of the song. While this would be very difficult to accomplish with
units such as "milliseconds", it can be easily accomplished in
Aldrin by setting the delay
unit
parameter to
ticks
and then
defining the number of ticks. Remember that each tick is equal to a row,
so 4 ticks will delay every 4th row.