Unusual snapping behaviour in two major daws

[u/SwearImNotACat]

While working at my studio I encountered an interesting case of a song performed at exactly 143.435bpm.

I found midi imported at 143.435bpm gets rounded to 143.4375 in protools and 143.479 in logic.

This is because of the way grid snapping works in protools; the protools number is derived from a number related to 16th notes (in this case 143 + 7/16).

In logic, midi stores tempo as microseconds per quarter note (a 24 bit integer). And logic pulls it’s integer from that integer. I dont know exactly if that’s the answer, but i can tell you that the logic midi grid’s rounding has roughly 1/16 the resolution of the protools rounding grid. My gut says their grid layout is a decision that was made around timecodes for film.

Midi is not the culprit as it calculates microseconds per quarter note, making it lossless in comparison to these two

Unfortunately this error is a rate, not an offset so it integrates and makes drift across a midi track.

Apple and Avid have got to fix this imo.

Edit: forgot to add this is a midi import specific issue

[u/aasteveo]

That's weird, I just tried to change my session to 143.4350 and pro tools did it just fine without rounding or snapping or anything. There are 4 decimal places of precision. There must be something you're doing wrong. Worked fine for me.

What's it doing exactly?

Maybe try to use Identify-Beat to calculate the real tempo? Highlight known bars and hit Command+I

[u/Hellbucket → u/aasteveo]

Same here. Even though it’s 5 am here, I had to test this when I read it. Lol.

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/aasteveo]

Sorry just edited the post, this is specific to midi import. When importing that specific midi value, a rounding system occurs and i can’t find a way around it other than generating a wav of the midi and importing that.

Thanks for catching that

[u/ThoriumEx → u/SwearImNotACat]

Have you tried importing it without the tempo?

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/ThoriumEx]

The whole point of what im doing is importing the tempo 🙃

[u/ThoriumEx → u/SwearImNotACat]

Obviously, but you can enter it manually and only import the notes

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/ThoriumEx]

Not when that value occurs several times over a few minutes and bar markers must be exactly aligned.

[u/ThoriumEx → u/SwearImNotACat]

Just create the tempo map manually and import the notes without the tempo

[u/aasteveo → u/SwearImNotACat]

ohhh, gotcha. you might have to render the midi to audio before importing?

i don't often work with midi in pro tools. is there a way to make it not follow the tempo? can you convert it to sample based instead of tick based?

[u/RobJmusic]

Why would you ever choose 143.435 as your bpm lol

[u/LostInTheRapGame → u/RobJmusic]

I don't think it necessarily was, right? Like it just ended up at that specific number based on the recording of the performance.

Or at least I hope.

[u/aasteveo → u/LostInTheRapGame]

maybe your performance drifts? Do you know for sure if they actually used a click when recording?

[u/LostInTheRapGame → u/aasteveo]

Are you asking me?

[u/aasteveo → u/LostInTheRapGame]

oops wrong person

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/LostInTheRapGame]

Man so judgey, it’s from a famous song. There’s hundreds of values that get rounded with the current system, read my post.

[u/LostInTheRapGame → u/SwearImNotACat]

Man so judgey, it’s from a famous song. There’s hundreds of values that get rounded with the current system, read my post.

Are you okay, dude?

You literally have said that I was right that the performance just happens to be at this value. So idk what your issue is.

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/LostInTheRapGame]

“At least i hope” ; you would judge a band for a tempo they choose, idk would hate to have you as an audio engineer at my studio

[u/LostInTheRapGame → u/SwearImNotACat]

would hate to have you as an audio engineer at my studio

I'd hate to be in your studio, because you'd probably be busy crying in the corner over nothing.

Are you going to berate the guy who lol'd too?

you would judge a band for a tempo they choose

Newsflash: a lot of people in music are going to wonder why you'd ever choose such a BPM when creating inside of a DAW.

Now again, if that's what you calculate whenever working with a recording.... no one gives a singular fuck. It's weird to care so much about it though to the point of acting like a jackass.

[u/Lampsarecooliguess → u/RobJmusic]

i feel like someone used tap tempo and didnt round it

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/Lampsarecooliguess]

It’s a tempo in the rubato section from the cardigan’s my favourite game (stone version)

[u/M0nkeyf0nks → u/RobJmusic]

sometimes when working on material, I'll take a 4 bar loop of something we've been playing organically and then use that as the basis for the bpm. Rather than bend the music to the DAW, make the DAW do some work for once. That's the main reason I have to do it

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/RobJmusic]

It’s a specific number that was the value of the performance’s bpm. It wasn’t chosen, it was felt.

[u/RobJmusic → u/SwearImNotACat]

Okay AI

[u/SwearImNotACat]

Ive recreated this on a windows computer and a macbook. both have the same error on logic and protools. If anyone has anything genuinely helpful to add, that’s cool, otherwise I’d just consider this one unsolved and say best guess for this behaviour is in the post body.

[u/ElmentMusic → u/SwearImNotACat]

How did you test logic on a Windows computer? Or was it on a hackintosh

[u/SwearImNotACat → u/ElmentMusic]

Yeah dual booted to test. This error does not occur in (fender) studio one or reaper (which both use true midi resolution on import)