Numeric Timing

Reason: Numeric Timing Data in the Sequencer

The Inspector and Tool Window show timing information in a numeric format. Once you understand what these values mean, you can change them to make precise adjustments to one or more notes or automation/controller points.

Here is what you see in the Inspector when you select a note.

Timing data displayed in the Inspector bar for a note selected in the Reason sequencer

Identify bar, beat, 16th, and tick components of timing data

The Position (start time) and Length fields comprise four numbers separated by dots. The numbers indicate, from left to right: bar, beat, 16th, tick.

The number of beats in a bar depends on the current time signature (four beats to a bar for 4/4 time signature.) There are always four 16th notes to a beat.

Ticks

But what is a tick?

A tick is a very fine, tempo-dependent measurement of musical time. In Reason, there are 240 ticks per 16th note. That means there are 480 ticks per 8th note and 960 ticks per quarter note.

Sometimes you may see an asterisk (*) next to the number of ticks. This means that an event was recorded with a resolution greater than 240 ticks per 16th. Reason actually records with a resolution of 15360 ticks per quarter note. The extra resolution uses subticks. If you command-click the asterisk, it will round to the nearest whole tick value.

Adjusting Multiple Events

You can use the Inspector to adjust several events at once. For example, select multiple notes. Then click the match button to the right of the Position field.

Applying one piece of position timing data to multiple selected notes

After this, the selected notes all will have the same position as the left-most note.

After applying position timing data to selected notes, all the notes begin at the same time

The match buttons for length, pitch, and velocity work similarly.

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