Timebase

A pattern's timebase represents the unit of time for the pattern, either in musical beats or wall-clock time (seconds, ms). It defines the unit and duration of a single step in patterns. The time base is static and thus can't be changed during runtime.

The default time unit of pattern is a beat.

The BPM and signature (beats per bar) settings are configured by the application which is running the pattern.

Supported Time Units

Beat-Time

• "bars" using the host's beats per bar setting
• "beats" alias for 1/4
• "1/1" 4 * 1/4
• "1/2" 2 * 1/4
• "1/4" a beat
• "1/8" 0.5 * 1/4
• "1/16" 0.25 * 1/4
• "1/32" 0.125 * 1/4
• "1/64" 0.0625 * 1/4

Wallclock-Time

• "ms" millisecond
• "seconds" whole seconds

Resolution

The resolution property acts as an additional multiplier to the time unit and can be any positive real number. You can use it to scale the unit or to create odd time signatures.

Examples

A slightly off beat time unit.

return pattern {
  unit = "beats", 
  resolution = 1.01,
  event = "c4"
}

Sixteenth tripplets.

return pattern {
  unit = "1/16", 
  resolution = 2/3,
  event = "c4"
}

A beat expressed with resolution.

return pattern {
  unit = "1/1", 
  resolution = 1/4,
  event = "c4"
}

2 Seconds.

return pattern {
  unit = "seconds", 
  resolution = 2,
  event = "c4"
}