Question for Mr Mpc3000

"it proves that even with a Bpm of 120, the delay time equals 5.208ms "

What do you understand `delay time` to be?

"What do you understand `delay time` to be?"

All i know is that as it states in the passage above, the human brain is capable of detecting timing irregularities of between 5-10ms and a 96Ppqn reolution @120bpm gives a delay time of 5.208ms, which i think, is within the detectable range.

Yes a computer is tighter...

You can just dump your drum hits and arrange sequence the audio in most Audio production packages, and you don't even have to stuff around with MIDI at all....

Come on Jiggins you mean to tell me that music is more better sounding or more accurate since motu and emagic went on this ppqn war about 6 years ago? This triple digit midi timing sh!t is fairly new in comparison to how long midi been around.

"the human brain is capable of detecting timing irregularities of between 5-10ms and a 96Ppqn reolution @120bpm gives a delay time of 5.208ms"

I do not see where that statement was made. I thing you are mixing two unrelated issues.

At 120 BPM a 96 ppqn sequencer will record an event to the closest pulse. The closest pulse will always be within 2.6 ms away (5.2 / 2). So, in effect, with sequencer quantization off, there is still low level quantization below the threshhold of human perception. Notes may get shifted forward or back 2.6 ms, but no one can reliably play that accurately, expecially since one cannot hear it.

Companies (particularly Roland) spent a lot of time and money for research to ensure that most everything will occur within the 5ms threshold back in '82.

"I do not see where that statement was made"


"For example, if recording a piece whose actual tempo is 60 BPM, to obtain
better recording PPQN resolution, use a "virtual" tempo of perhaps 240 to
minimize the delay of 1 PPQN from 10.4178ms to 2.604ms. I recommend always
trying to, since the ear can perceive timing fluctuations as small as from
5-10ms, use the chart to "compensate" for better PPQN resolutions based on
tempo."

"minimize the delay of 1 PPQN from 10.4178ms to 2.604ms"

In that case, he has a conceptual error.

Even at 60 bpm, an event will still quantize to one of the clock pulses that occurs every 10 msec (60bpm / 60sec-min / 96ppqn ). Assuming the WORST case, the event will get recorded 5 ms later or earlier. As you well pointed out, that is at the threshold of human hearing (and expert hearing at that)

jigginz can you PLEASE stop saying "delay". you are somewhat missing the point here, which i feel mpc3000 has clarified.

although im an audio engineer (and science grad) ive not read much into the human cababilities of distinguishing pulses per quarter note, which is what we are essentially talking about. NOT midi, NOT delay, etc.

now i feel sorry for someone if they read one article and think its fact, but this article, and the one mike posted, do raise some interesting theories.

i for one do agree that excessive ppq's are a marketing white elephant, and become irrelevant considering most people write with harsh quantise on anyway. i see it all the time in the studio.

the "bigger numbers" war is interesting but nothing to take seriously.


one of the most pretentious things this article and jigginz try to enforce, is that a higher ppq (or "virtual" ppq to quote the mistaken jigginz) is somehow superior or most interesting to the ear.

this is obviously not the case and such a claim is based on biased statistics anyway. in the end this is all VERY VERY subjective conjecture as obviously, there is no universal law for what sounds good.

my personal feelings are that 96 is fine by me. hell ive worked my ass off in studios correcting the shitty drumming of real drummers so i have NO problems with a drum machine that is both tight/accurate and still retains a randomness (albiet a predictable randomness...)

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"one of the most pretentious things this article and jigginz try to enforce, is that a higher ppq (or "virtual" ppq to quote the mistaken jigginz) is somehow superior or most interesting to the ear."

No, i actually stated "is less interesting".