Rayzoon Technologies LLC

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I don't know if this would be helpful to someone else. I sometimes "get" something to an extent, but feel like I haven't gotten it entirely clear. I'm sure most people would rather not think of this detail, but maybe one or 2 might...

When I tried to learn how to do these triplet 16ths I was having trouble visualizing it in an absolutely clear way, so I got out a piece of paper and cemented it in my brain, and then decided to upload my results in case anyone else may search '16th Triplets' in the forum.


The Bar Grid in Jamstix is shown in 16th notes but there is access to 8th triplets (which there is an easy way to create by simply selecting a set of them and right clicking and checking the option to "Force" the shuffle); And there is access to triplet 16ths (easy and perfect) and 32nd notes, and triplet 32nd notes (in a limited way).

Triplet 16ths, in 4/4 (16 16th notes) occur on slices of 1/24th of the 4/4 bar. (24th notes of a 4/4 bar); one can think of these positions as "would-be" triplet 16ths. (+24th in Jamstix). One can also think of the bar as sliced into 32 slices for 32nd notes (+32nd in Jamstix), or 48 slices for triplet 32nd notes (+48th in Jamstix).

WHY THIS BECAME CONFUSING TO ME IS THAT....MIDI sequencers use various Pulses Per Quarter Note settings, aka Ticks Per Quarter Note settings, for their granularity, and at 96 PPQN/TPQN this means that a quarter note occupies 96 ticks.

(I BECAME CONFUSED in seeing +48 and so forth, and started thinking in terms of PPQN - DO NOT DO THIS obviously) (FL Studio defaults to 96 PPQN).

[Note that some 'partially swung' timings that actually overlap as ratios, poorly approximate the true ratios (which might sound good to some people into rhythmic things... when subdivided with this - like quintuplet-based swing for instance. ) I may use 384 or higher PPQN in FL Studio, for editing audio, (e.g. if I want to explore the subtlety to a live drummer's performance.)]

So for an example to fully explain Jamstix' approach, in 96 PPQN, I'll show a quarter of a bar of Jamstix in a granularity of triplet 32nds, so that each triplet 16th will occupy 2 consecutive triplet 16th spans, and there would be 48 subdivisions; at 96 PPQN, a 16th note would be 1/4 of that, or 24 ticks, and a triplet 16th would be 1/6 of that, and of all things, 16 PPQN ticks, and a triplet 32nd would be 1/12 of that, or 8 PPQN ticks.

In my example I'll show a quarter of a measure of these 8 PPQN units. Every 3 of these will be 24 PPQN ticks = 1 16th notes. Every 2 of them will be 16 PPQN, or 1 triplet 16th notes (There are 3 triplet 16ths in the space of 2, i.e. one 8th note).

96 ticks per quarter note * 4 = 384 ticks per measure.
Therefore +32nd is really forward 1 32nd note in the measure. And +24 is really 1 24th note forward in the measure (although these are usually referred to as triplet 16ths). And +48 is 1 48th note (usually called a triplet 32nd note). Actually Ralph's description is very accurate, unless one changes the length of a bar so that its no longer 16 16th notes. But that is not extremely common for commercial music. The term Pulses Per Measure would be appropriate for this situation (which is 99 % of music in the U.S. and England probably.

Example of quarternote worth of time (series of 8 PPQN ticks) with 16th pulses on top, and triplet 16th pulses on the bottom. Notice that these top and bottom row time pulses align every so often, at their 8th note positions (every 48 PPQN ticks at 96 PPQN):

. - - . - - . - - . - - .

. - . - . - . - . - . - .


As you can see the bottom row has dots/periods where triplet 16ths would occur.

"- first note is just a normal note to start the triplet
- second note is on alternate limb on the same tick as the first but set timing mode to +1/24th (right-click bar editor menu) (this is equivalent to + 16 PPQN, or one position to the right, on the bottom row of my example, of the first note).
- third note is back on the original limb on the next tick (16th) and must have the timing mode set to +1/48th." (Because one is on the next 16th one has already moved forward by 24 PPQN ticks; then +48 adds another 8 PPQN, so a total of plus 32

+24 means 1/24th of a measure, i.e. 16 ticks out of 384 Pulses Per Measure.

So one can create a 1st closed HH (CL HH) in a Right Hand-RH(or RF, or RP) grid position, then uses Ctrl+Drag to drag a copy of it (a 2nd note) directly (vertically) above that 1st note's position (e.g. just up to the LH row, but not over any), and then one can set the offset of that 2nd note to +24. By doing so one has then moved the start of this 2nd note so that, in the Example above, in the bottom row, it will have moved one dot/period to the right. Now, if we use the next RH (RF,RP) position to the right of our 1st note, and create a third note in it, but this time make its offset +48, our total is 32 PPQN (Each position is 8 PPQN forward. Periods are at 16 PPQN intervals; 32 PPQN is 2 dots/periods to the right, and our 3rd triplet should be this. I.e. 3 triplets should be 0 PPQN for the first triplet 16th, 16 PPQN for the 2nd, and 32 PPQN for the 3rd.)