Change music snap size display to per-beat
The way that grid works is, there's a number of dots per beat, and you can go further up and get 1 dot per 2 beats. So it really goes like this: 4 dots per beat (1/4), 3 dots per beat (1/3), 2 dots per beat (1/2), 1 dot per beat (1), 1 dot per 2 beats (2), etc.
But the display is based on a 4-beat bar. So: 4 dots per beat (1/16), 3 dots per beat (1/12), 2 dots per beat (1/8), 1 dot per beat (1/4), 1 dot per 2 beats (1/2), 1 dot per 4 beats (1), etc.
This is kind of confusing to me, as you can change how many beats are per bar for an instrument and then those 1/8 and 1/2 don't relate to that instrument any more.
Does music assume 4 beats in a bar to name units of time as well or something? I feel like my examples at the top would make more universal sense, but I'm not trained in music theory or anything.
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I'm confused about your post title, but these naming conventions are how music works.
Time Signatures
A time signature is written in the form of X/Y where X is the number of beats per bar, and Y is the note length that denotes one beat.
Examples:
- 4/4 time means there are 4 notes per bar, and a quarter note (1/4) is the length of one beat.
- 3/4 time means there are 3 notes per bar, and a quarter note (1/4) is the length of one beat.
- 6/8 time means there are 6 notes per bar, and an eighth node (1/8) is the length of one beat.
Note Duration & Naming Conventions
There are different types of note lengths as you've mentioned and they break down as follows:
- Whole note (The longest duration that can be written). These are referred to as Semibreve in Britain.
- Half note (1/2 of a whole note). These are referred to as Minim in Britain.
- Quarter note (1/4 of a whole note). These are referred to as crochets in Britain.
- Eighth note (1/8 of a whole note). These are referred to as quaivers in Britain.
- Sixteenth note (1/16 of a whole note). These are referred to as semiquaivers in Britain.
- Thirty-second notes (1/32 of a whole note). These are referred to as Demisemiquavers in Britain (lol).
Triplets are a bit of a special case, as they take up 1/3 of a given note type
- Quarter note triplets split a half note into 3 equal parts. Quarter note triplets are known as crotchet triplets in Britain.
- Eighth note triplets split a quarter note into 3 equal parts (in dreams this is generally what 1/12 is). Eight note triplets are known as quaver triplets in Britain.
- Sixteenth note triplets split an eighth note into 3 equal parts (in dreams this is generally what 1/24 is). These are commonly referred to as sextuplets in the US, and as semiquaver triplets in Britain.
Hopefully this helps you understand how the music grid snap is broken down.
My advice is to not change the time signature per instrument (this includes the playback speed) until you have a better grasp on these fundamentals. I feel very comfortable with this knowledge and I've screwed myself over in Dreams by doing that in the past. (E.g. I wanted quintuplets (5 beats per quarter note), and this makes reading the *inside* of an instrument pretty difficult).
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The way it works actually works correctly. Just tested the theory. For example if you make it a 7/4 time signature (which is 7 beats per mesure, on a quarter note basis), and chose the note snapping to 1/4 they will snap to their correct beat as 7 quarter notes per beat. The note snapping correspond to note length. for triplets (like in bluesy style music) that plays 3 notes per beat on quarter notes beats, you use 1/12 in the length snap. Sextuplets would be 1/24. Rule of thumb for triplets here: take the lenght of a note and multiply it by 1/1.5 that gives you the same legth in a triplet. There is no 1/3 (triplets of half notes) or 1/6 (triplets of quarter notes) though in Dreams, but they can be created. Simply draw your triplet eigths notes double, on a 1/12 snap, each notes would take 2 snap positions, 3 of those notes create quarter notes triplets (3 quarter notes played over 2 beats), I just tested it and it works just fine.
The display is not based off a 4 beats bars. You can change it in the timeline settings to whatever time signature you need, the note length snap (not the grid snap, it's a different beast and you should never use it for placing notes). But I believe if you change the time signature from 4/4 to 7/4 (7 beats per minutes and select the quarter note as the beat basis) but you already have placed notes they will probably not be synced correctly anymore, so you need to resnap their start and end, they should resnap to the correct note position. Now the best way to avoid problems would be to plan in advance what time signature you want for that part in your track. Believe me no softwares using piano rolls would fix it for you if you change the time signature of a bar. The notes you stamp will keep their length until you resnap it they should be fixed.
Sorry for that long explanation but I believe some theory about music is useful to understand how music creation software works and how to solve your issues. If your notes are not aligned anymore after changing the number of bars per beats and its base beat length, just resnap the notes to the correct positions. That's how music editing software works if you understand the theory behind it.
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I see comments!! It only took a week! XD
So... sounds like the point didn't come across properly, and there is some confusion. I understand how time signatures work, so that's fine. And I talked about this with Bogdan, and he said "yeah pretty much; note lengths are based on the length of a 4/4 bar for historical reasons," instead of based on the length of a beat. So dreams' music snap readout is based on the fraction of a 4/4 bar, and not the fraction of a beat.
When you want to do triplets, notes that are 1/3 of a beat in length, you don't use 1/3; you use 1/12. Because it's 1/12 of a 4/4 bar. Music note-lengths work that way because history, not because it's easy to understand.
So the reason the music note snap in Dreams is a fraction of a 4/4 bar was as I guessed: it's just arbitrary and "how things are done in music."
The post was a request for the notation to be based on the length of a beat, or at least have a setting for it. This would make the fractions easier to understand for non-musically-trained people like myself to use--which is one of the goals of Dreams in the first place, to make it easier for newcomers to get started. I think such an option sounds reasonable.
To avoid confusion for musicians watching a stream of Dreams or something, they could say "per beat" next to the fraction while that setting is on or something.
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