Units of measurement in Computer Music

Computer Music has a variety of different units of measurement that are used for things like editing.
By understanding what these divisions do,
your understanding of Computer Music and music in general will deepen,
allowing you to improve on your workflow.

「ms（millisecond）」

Milliseconds are displayed starting from「1」, with the length being a「1000th of 1 second」.
It is often used in delay times.

The larger the number, the longer it takes for the delayed signal to play.

ms（millisecond）explained

「Samples」

Because Computer Music is created digitally, numerical data is turned into sound when played.

Sample rate designates how detailed the sound will be in a 1 second span.
The higher this number, the better the sound quality.

In general 44100（44.1kHz）or 48000（48kHz）is used,
and can be set when you first start a project.

It is also used when moving material.

For example, if you songs「sample rate」is set to 44100,
if you move the material by「1 sample」, it will move 1/44100th of 1 second.

Sample rates explained

「Bit Depth」

Bit depth determines how much digital sound will be managed in 1 second.
It can be set up when exporting music from your DAW to wav, and when audio recording.
In general「bit depth」is split into 8bit, 16bit, 24bit, and 32bit.

The higher the number, the better the sound quality, but also the bigger the files size.

8bit generally is not sufficient in sound quality, and many softwares aren’t 32bit compatible,
so 16 and 24bit are generally used. In addition, be sure to use 16bit when burning to a CD.
Try comparing 16 and 24bit songs on iTunes.

Bit depth explained

「Tick」

It is a unit of measurement for MIDI,
with a quarter note generally being split into「480 ticks」or「960 ticks」.
It can be edited in your MIDI settings on your DAW.

Of course the bigger the number, the more detailed and expressive your sequencing can be.

• 4th note length – 480ticks
• 8th note length – 240ticks
• 16th note length – 120ticks

Different from the 3 types of subdivisions mentioned earlier, it is split according to the quarter (4th) note,
so the length of「1tick」depends on the songs tempo.

With a tempo set to 120, a quarter note is 0.5 seconds.
By dividing 0.5sec by 480, 1 tick is equal to 0.001 seconds.

When the tempo is 60, one quarter note is exactly 1 sec, and 1 tick equals 0.002 sec.
Though the amounts seem very small, shifting something by a few ticks can make a big difference in the feel of a song.

Tick explained

「Decibels」

The loudness (volume) is shown in dB.

A track is set to「0dB」as a default, and raising this number raises the loudness.
Lowering the number to negative amounts will result in the volume becoming quieter.

When looking at 0dB as X1

• 6dB is X2
• 12dB is X4
• 20dB is X10
• 40dB is X100

In addition, -6dB would be X0.5（1/2）, with -12dB being X0.25倍（1/4）.

dB（decibel）explained

「Semitones」and「cents」

This is a numerical value for pitch.