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Cakewalk by Bandlab PPQ


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Cakewalk by Bandlab PPQ  

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  1. 1. Anyone changed the default sequencer resolution from 960 PPQ if so did Cakewalk perform better or worse ?

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3 minutes ago, Noel Borthwick said:

It should make no significant difference. Internally the MIDI engine runs at a higher resolution than 960 PPQ. 

this is confusing, does this mean the Midi engine is always operating at a high resolution even when the project PPQ is reduced to say for example 96PPQ ?

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If I'm understanding this  right, even at 96PPQ a quantization setting of 1/8 will always snap the MIDI event to the nearest 1/8 note interval, but if quantization were disabled at 96PPQ there would be fewer tics between the 1/8 note intervals where a MIDI event may occur as opposed to 960PPQ ?

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11 minutes ago, Guerilla Genus said:

If I'm understanding this  right, even at 96PPQ a quantization setting of 1/8 will always snap the MIDI event to the nearest 1/8 note interval, but if quantization were disabled at 96PPQ there would be fewer tics between the 1/8 note intervals where a MIDI event may occur as opposed to 960PPQ ?

Correct - with no quantizing - the resolution of timing is greater.

Edited by RBH
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PPQ is a remnant of legacy MIDI from the 90's. In CbB PPQ is really "display PPQ" internally the resolution is much higher than MIDI.
We have a 48 bit resolution for MIDI which is very accurate even for very slow tempos (eg 8 bpm). We updated this in the very first SONAR version back in 2000.

1 hour ago, Guerilla Genus said:

additionally, is there a relationship between the midi record input quantize function and project PPQ ?

No. The project PPQ should only be the display PPQ as noted above. It should not affect the resolution of data recorded. You should be able to verify this by a test.

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29 minutes ago, Guerilla Genus said:

ok got it, current day PPQ is really about sequencer display resolution, not sequencer timing resolution....my head is spinning

This was useful in the early 90's when people were migrating from older sequencers.

For example, I used Music-X on the Amiga before moving to Cakewalk which had a resolution of 192 ticks per quarter note.   I  spent most of my time in Music-X's event view, so being able to set Cakewalk's ticks per quarter note to 192 made the transition much smoother when using Cakewalk's Event View., until I slowly changed my workflow  to use Cakewalk's other features.

 

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55 minutes ago, Guerilla Genus said:

ok got it, current day PPQ is really about sequencer display resolution, not sequencer timing resolution....my head is spinning

Well not in general. The PPQ concept itself is still valid though its an old term - its a measure of accuracy or sub divisions of a quarter note. In the old MIDI days, the highest subdivision was 960 PPQ before computers could keep up. Since then most DAW's can handle far greater accuracy so the subdivisions are much more. 

Rather than get rid of the PPQ setting, concept we retained it such that the setting controls the display and editing resolution of MIDI. For example in the UI where you enter values in MBT we convert from our internal high resolution time to MBT using the display PPQ. That's one example where you will see the impact of that setting. Its also used when exporting MIDI files - i.e. internal timestamps of notes will be quantized to the display PPQ.  So the PPQ also affects outgoing data. Another way to explain this is that our internal representation of MIDI uses high resolution timestamps but when its used in the UI, or in editing operations its quantized to the display PPQ. 

Hope I haven't confused you further :) Its a bit confusing I agree and could probably be documented better.

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I always use a PPQ of 600, just so that note durations are in nice, round numbers, and easier for me to work with:

600  Quarter
400  Quarter Triplet
300  8th
200  8th Triplet
150  16th
100  16th Triplet
 75   32nd
 50   32nd Triplet

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What a great and educational discussion!  @Guerilla Genus, thanks so much for posting your initial question and poll.

@msmcleod and @Noel Borthwick, thanks for explaining the MIDI innards of CbB. 

Hopefully,  @Morten Saether will see this thread and will be able to add some of this information to the Cakewalk Reference Manual.

@bitflipper, @RBH and @tparker24 thanks for your input and keeping the path on course.

 

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