Now that we’ve got the musical side sorted, and agree that the tempo of Dave’s song is 50, let’s discuss why entering this into a DAW creates problems. (Simple answer: many DAWS don’t support triplet (“compound) based n/8 time signatures, so they force the triplets into two 8th notes per beat instead of three, which becomes very confusing. The tempo becomes 1.5x faster for example, so that’s 75 instead of 50 bpm. All these problems go away if you use the n/4 time signature equivalent of the n/8 time signature e.g. use 4/4 instead of 12/8).


There are two types of 6/8 (or any n/8 time signature, like 6/8, 7/8 11/8, 12/8)

- “simple” meter, with two 8th notes per beat,
And
- “compound” meter, with three (triplet) feel 8th notes per beat. (Almost all 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 is triplet feel)

So, if you have a 6/8 compound time signature, and you try to enter into your DAW that only supports “Simple” 6/8, you will immediately encounter problems, as you are “putting a round peg into a square hole”. In this case you are putting a song with three triplets per beat into a DAW that is expecting two 8ths per beat.

Options 1” At this point, if it was me, I would say “OK, my piece requires compound time signature which my DAW doesn’t support. OK, I’ll just enter the n/4 time signature equivalent and forget about calling it 6/8 inside my DAW. Instead I’ll call it 2/4, or better still I group it by two bars and call it 4/4.
So;
- for 12/8, use 4/4
- for 9/8 use 3/4
- 6/8 use 2/4 (I prefer to use 4/4 which means two bars of 6/8 in each bar of 4/4. Either will work)
This solution entirely avoids the problems that you will get by forcing the 6/8 into a daw that doesn’t support it. You keep the tempo at original tempo, the same tempo that you tap your foot at.


Option 2: But if you insist on using simple 6/8 for a compound 6/8 piece, and want to use it in your daw, you need to accept the following:
- tempo in the DAW will be 1.5x the correct tempo.= (This is because 3/2=1.5). So if your song has a tempo of 50, use 50 x 1.5 = 75 as the tempo.
- the metronome will tap at 75 which will be very weird. You may be able to setup a custom metronome to tap a more musical pattern.
- the 8th notes you are going to see in the DAW each represent two triplets of the group of three triplets. If that sounds weird, yes it is weird, and confusing, But you are the one insisting on entering a compound time signature into a DAW that doesn’t support that. As mentioned , I would choose option 1. Otherwise, you will be confused at every stage of the project inside your DAW.

Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.