Folks,

Can someone explain what a tick is when it comes to tick counts in a measure for me?

I know when I am editing a track that I can select From - Thru and I put in 1:1:0 for measure one, beat, one, and tick zero and when I enter in let's say 34:3:120 that this is measure 34, beat 3, and ..... 120 is at the end of beat three, but that is all I really understand of what I am entering.

I do know that ticks range from 0-120 because anything else I enter pops up the splash window stating "hey you...only 0-120 work".

Would someone elaborate just a bit on this for me and I guess when and why would I enter anything else beside a 0 and and 120 when I edit a track?

Thank you for your time.

Mark

A single beat can be divided into a number of divisions. The default is 120, so each beat has 120 ticks, or 60 ticks for an eighth note, 30 for a sixteenth note. However when you record a midi part in this also means that each piece of data is getting slightly quantized to the nearest of the 120 ticks for that beat.

This 120 can be adjusted in Options - Resolution to much higher numbers for a greater degree of accuracy.
A lot of users don't understand that this 120th division also comes into play for audio editing. Since RB uses the measure-beat-tick setting to select the from-thru section the most exact you can get is the nearest 120th of the beat for an audio edit if left to default. If you go to the larger resolution numbers you can edit almost down to sample level.

The thing to remember also is that the bar number runs from 1 through whatever, the beat number runs from 1 to 4, but the tick number runs from 0 to (resolution size minus one). I set my resolution to 960. So if I want to highlight a full bar, I would select:

Bar Beat Tick
From = 1 - 1 - 0
To = 1 - 4 - 959

If the resolution is 120, the last tick in the beat would then be 119.

Just something to think about.

For precision, what jford says is worth noting.

Thank you both for your explanations.

I can see where redefining the resolution of a beat gives one more precise control as to when the notes should sound, etc. Great for fine tuning during the editing process.

If I understand this and take it a bit further, the better the resolution (> the number) the more notes you can put within a single beat....kinda like Kenny G how he plays all of those notes within a single beat. Well, 120 notes in one beat is pretty fast now that I think about it. Another point of interest is when in the Editable Notation Mode, you can right click on the vertical bar at the top of the sheet music and a Beat Resolution pop up window displays allowing you to enter more notes within that 1 beat. I take it this goes hand in hand or the same thing with the other setting rharv you were stating above in options/resolution field?

Pretty cool stuff here to experiment with.
Thanks again for your explanations.

Mark