That's how I do it. But I also know both systems intimately so rarely need to think about "how much would that be..."
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
That's how I do it. But I also know both systems intimately so rarely need to think about "how much would that be..."
Yes, I under the concept. I find fractions pretty useless to begin with unless we are talking about very approximant measurements. A half a pie, half crazy. They have more relevance in machining, 1/2 inch but I prefer .500
The speed signs here are in MPH. The speedometer is designed to be read in MPH and yes there are some small numbers in kilometers.
I can think in miles, nautical miles, and kilometers. I have my GPS in my car set to display in kilometers because 700 meters is easier to understand than .435 miles or 87/200 and of course that would be displayed as 1/2 miles but in fact the GPS would never display that distance of 700 meters in miles to begin with.
I know visually what 13MM looks like, more or less the same as 1/2 inch. I know what 300 meters looks like, about from my house to the end of the street.
Part of my frustration is most likely related to constantly having to speak and listen in both English and Spanish and really never knowing when I must use one or the other.
I program my GPS to speak to me in French just to keep the language in my head and because I get tired of both English and Spanish...lol
I also am pretty conversant in both systems. Where it becomes problematic is when precision is needed. That requires precise conversion.
I cook in conventional USA terms...1/2 cup, two teaspoons ect. How much less trouble to have learned that in grams and milliliters.
I will vote for the metric system every time.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
I remember when MLB first added 2 Canadian teams and the distance down the foul lines was metric. Toronto had 99.97 metres written on the wall in left and right. I wrote to MLB and asked them why, if Toronto said 99.97 metres that teams in the USA did not say 330 feet 7 inches. Why not round off?
Though it's still a travesty that pitchers don't bat in the American League but they do in the National League...
I would prefer that the USA gets off the Imperial system and goes completely metric.
Both systems have their pros and cons, but the majority of the rest of the world is metric, so it would be much easier if we joined the world community.
And Pianobilly, I agree that decimals are better than fractions for making calculations. Two of the only common things better expressed as a fraction are 1/3 and 2/3 :-)
FWIW, those still need to use the tempo map to be correct. But I did get the reference (music) so I smiled. Go ahead and do the below tempo map in fractions <grin>
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
As Trev said earlier, we went metric in the 1970s, but we still use a lot of "descriptive" terminology, such as "He's very tall, well over six feet" Or "the surf was big today ... well over 10 foot waves." There's two funny things I remember at the start of the introduction to the metric system. The first was a politician trying to "sell" the metric system, who said "It may be difficult at first, but stick with it. If you try to forget the imperial system, and think metric, inch by inch we'll get there."
And another person said "This is too hard ..... they should have waited until all of the old people died before introducing it."
...There's two funny things I remember at the start of the introduction to the metric system. The first was a politician trying to "sell" the metric system, who said "It may be difficult at first, but stick with it. If you try to forget the imperial system, and think metric, inch by inch we'll get there."
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
In the worthless trivia category, the reason for 12 in the Imperial system is to avoid having to deal with fractions.
That is, 12 can be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6. When you're building stuff, you don't want rounding errors to cause problems, so dealing with integers is just simpler.
Same logic with a 12 hour clock, and 360 degrees. Only with degrees, you basically get to divide by 5 without a fractional result as well.
Vulgar Fractions and Decimal Fractions never worry me. I can us them all. Yep. I can use feet and inches too, no question.
But since moving to a decimal system here a long time ago, the terms: - 12 pounds and 6 and a half ounces, - Nine and three quarter U.S. gallons, - Seventeen feet, five and three sixteenths of an inch measurements are, well, well, so unnecessarily complicated - when there is already a much easier method that has been around for such a long time.
And yes, I also already know that that 1 mile = 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards
But, using metric, I don't have to remember that 16 ounces = 1 pound. 14 pounds = 1 stone or that 2000lb = 1 'short' ton.
I only have to know that - 1000mm = 1 metre, - 1000 metres = 1km. - 1000 grams = 1 kgm. - 1000 kgm = 1 metric tonne.
Just so, so much easier.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
14 pounds = one stone...lol At least I don't have to deal with that one...lol
We do have equally arcane measurement systems.
Horses are measured in hands because they didn't have standard measuring tools in ancient societies, so they commonly used hands to measure horses; this tradition continues to the present. One hand is considered 4 inches, so a 15 hand horse is 60 inches tall.
And while we are talking about not having the proper tools. I would like for Ben Franklin to just disappear into the dust of history. Electrons flow from negative to positive not the other way around like all schematics show. Call conventional flow! I call conventional BS!!!
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
... Electrons flow from negative to positive not the other way around like all schematics show.
Well, yes, but I think we need to cut them some slack. After all, they were inventing the future. Fine tuning it took a little longer .
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Engineers and technicians are trained different theories regarding the flow of electricity. One theory addresses electron movement while the other theory looks at electron hole movement. When an electron moves left to right then the electron hole moves right to left.
It's just as confusing as trying to determine who won the calculator war, Hewlett Packard (HP) with their Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) or Texas Instruments (TI) with their Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN). Engineers typically were trained to use RPN while technicians SAN. We may strive to be a classless society but mankind always finds a way to classify people.
It's just as confusing as trying to determine who won the calculator war, Hewlett Packard (HP) with their Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) or Texas Instruments (TI) with their Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN). Engineers typically were trained to use RPN while technicians SAN. We may strive to be a classless society but mankind always finds a way to classify people.
But you have to admit that both RPN and TI beat using a slide rule! You young guns can look up slide rule
I think my wife has started to show the first signs of dementia. She said she can't remember what she ever saw in me!
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Engineers and technicians are trained different theories regarding the flow of electricity. One theory addresses electron movement while the other theory looks at electron hole movement. When an electron moves left to right then the electron hole moves right to left.
It's just as confusing as trying to determine who won the calculator war, Hewlett Packard (HP) with their Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) or Texas Instruments (TI) with their Standard Algebraic Notation (SAN). Engineers typically were trained to use RPN while technicians SAN. We may strive to be a classless society but mankind always finds a way to classify people.
I have both calculators. I use the HP for mortgage and interest calculations and the TI for engineering calculations. Actually nowadays there are so many calculators on the internet I use them as much as anything. We also have programs designed for highly specific calculations such as structural engineering.
There are all sorts of terms of measurement that are slowly going away. Feet, yards, fathoms, leagues are rapidly being replaced by meters.
An even with the best of systems many measurements are difficult at best to conceptualize. How small is a nanometer? How far is a parsec? You can not see a nanometer because it is smaller that a wave length of light.
One parsec is defined as the distance at which an arc of length one astronomical unit subtends an angle of one second of an arc .
1 parsec = 3.08 x 1016m. Say what??? OK if you say so...lol
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
A couple of stories about Metric/Imperial confusion.
1. I saw this on a TV programme about 20 years ago.
In the 1800s an American millionaire acquired architects plans for a French style chateau and commissioned American contractors to build it on land he had bought in the US. Unfortunately the contractors thought the measurements were inches but were actually centimetres. The resulting chateau was 2.5 times bigger than intended.
2. I came across this one while reading a biography of the actor David Niven.
He had a residence in the south of France and employed a local firm to construct a swimming pool in the grounds. His hand written instructions were in feet which they thought were metres, so the pool was about 40+ feet at the deep end.
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
In this video, we explore the updated Piano Roll, complete with a modernized look and exciting new features. You’ll see new filtering options that make it easy to focus on specific note groups, smoother and more intuitive note entry and editing, and enhanced options for zooming, looping, and more.
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
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SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
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FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
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MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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