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Meaning of numbers

A couple quick questions about the significance of numbers used in NWC:

1) When selecting a track, the lower right corner contains a description of the track and a number expressed as a percentage. Is this a relative indication (i.e. percentage of available RAM) or an absolute (i.e. a percentage of the maximum size imposed by the program)?

2) In the MPC dialog box, what is the exact relationship between the number set for Linear Sweep Contour and Time Offset Multiplier? Is there a direct way of calculating how many events are inserted in a given time?

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #1 –
Fred,

I think Eric explained the first one once. Each stave has a maximum amount of items that it can hold. So for example, a chord of three notes would be three items.

The percentage is an absolute percentage against the maximum number of items that the highlighted stave can hold.

(You will have to be 'going some' to reach 100%, at which stage you will get an error message - I can't remember what it says but I remember once doing a multiple paste just to see what happened)

The linear sweep contour is a strange item. I hope that someone wil post and make it crystal clear. I find this difficult as well.

If you get this wrong, you end up flooding your sound card with so many midi instructions that it can't cope. So I think that it is dependant on the sound card you have got as to what noise you get out and how smooth the change is.

Of course I may be talking a load of rubbish but I'm sure someone will correct me if I am.

Richard

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #2 –
Re: the linear sweep contour. Yes, I've done that (jammed up the midi stream) with the contour set at 1. I set it to 3 and that cleared it up. It would be nice to know, though how the number relates to how many events are actually generated.

I almost did some experiments, i.e. doing a bunch of different mpc's at various settings, exporting to mid, converting to text, ... sounds a lot like work...

::sigh::

Fred

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #3 –
Just a precision about items: a chord is one item, how many notes it has. Try this yourself : create a new staff, keep the Enter key down until you reach 2%. Delete back to get 1% again, just before 2%. Now add how many notes you want but as a chord to existing (last or not) note. You'll stay at 1%.
I approx. count 1% being 110 items (a bar, a clef or a rest are items too)

Eric gave more details somewhere, but can't find out where. Just sought into the last offline help without success.

Ha! Found it in the newsgroup archive (Thanx to Richard!!), I quote the reply here below:
----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----
From: "NoteWorthy Support" <support@noteworthysoftware.com>
Subject: Re: Status bar question
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 09:23:10 -0400

>>What does the percentage on the status bar refers to?
>% of available memory for that staff.

A staff can hold approximately 12000 items. A chord consititutes one item.
If you added 1000 notes and 200 bar lines, you would see that the staff shows roughly 10% of capacity (in our tests, it says 11%).
----8<--------8<--------8<--------8<----

Otherwise, I supposed that online help was enough for MPC. I once jammed my sound card (is this related to Midi Timer settings, btw??) by giving a very small value to the linear settings contour. But I find it's linked with the time offset multiplier (or am I wrong?).
What I usually do is to set a value about 5 or 10, then I decrease (for pitch bend especially) the value till I get a proper result (i.e. seems ok to my ear).

HTH!

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #4 –
The Linear Sweep Contour defines how large a change to the controller value will be considered significant. In the case of pitch bend, where the value can be swept over thousands of values, each and every change of only 3 or 4 is not very important. In this case, you might use a value of 100, or even more, depending on how smooth you wish the pitch bend to be. This allows NWC to lean out the number of control changes sent to the MIDI device, which can significantly improve performance.

Think of it like this. If you started at 0 and wanted to count out loud to 10000 in 2 minutes, then:

- using a contour setting of 1, you would count like this: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9..." all the way to 10000, and you would have to speak very fast to finish in 2 minutes

- using a contour setting of 100, you would count: "100, 200, 300, 400, 500..." all the way to 10000, and you would probably have no trouble finishing in 2 minutes

The same is true in an MPC. A higher contour value makes it easier for NWC to change the value from the value of 1 up to the value of 10000.

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #5 –
Thanks, NW Support. That clears it up totally!

Fred

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #6 –
Now I understand. At last!

Please NWC-Support, can you include such an example in the Help file for the Multi-Point Controller? It will clarify things a lot.

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #7 –
Maybe if you called it "the controller sampling interval" it would convey the idea more easily.

Re: Meaning of numbers

Reply #8 –
Another mystery cleared up.
Wonderful - Linear swwep contour no longer a puzzle.

Thanks

Richard