What is the difference between ticks and samples in pro tools

The first of the two screens above shows a kick drum track recorded at a tempo of 60bpm: you will see all the regions are on the beat and as the tempo is 60bpm they are every second.

In the second screen below, I've increased the tempo to 90bpm and the regions still play every second, but they are no longer on the beat. It has all gone wrong! Pro Tools 6. In tick-based mode, when you position a region on the timeline you are positioning it at a specific 'tick' point — say one bar and three beats. Now, when you change the tempo, Pro Tools 'moves' the region start point in time so it still starts at one bar and three beats in the new tempo.

Take a look at the third screen and see what has happened when we change the tempo in tick-based mode: Pro Tools moves the kick drum regions time-wise so they remain on the beat. However what tick-based editing doesn't do is time-compress or expand regions to make them fit the new tempo. The fourth and fifth screens show two drum tracks, both set to tick-based operation. The Kick track follows tempo changes perfectly, because each hit is a separate region. The Snare track, however, is one region and so stays at the original tempo!

In order to have the snare hits move in time and remain at the same musical positions, we need to separate it into one region per hit, as shown in the sixth screen. The kick track is sample-based clock icon , but the snare track is tick-based metronome icon. When you create a track, you can choose between sample or tick-based modes, but you can change your mind at any point. In the screen right you will see a new icon has appeared at the bottom left-hand corner of the track header section in the Edit Window.

Pro Tools uses a clock icon to represent sample-based mode as on the Kick track in this example and a metronome icon to represent tick-based mode Snare track.

MIDI tracks are always tick-based: as you change the tempo, note positions and lengths are adjusted so they retain the same musical position and length. I'm going to walk through a simple example where we want to introduce a rallentando to a two-bar drum pattern. With all the tracks set to tick-based mode below , we use the pencil tool set to 'parabolic' to draw a basic shape in the Tempo track, as shown in the centre screen don't worry about accuracy at this point, just aim to get the start and end points roughly correct.

A two-bar drum part in Pro Tools with each track set to tick-based mode. We can draw in a tempo change in the Tempo track When you've finished drawing your tempo change, Pro Tools will smooth the shape out see screen below and leave you with three 'adjustment points' with blue diamonds: one at the start, one in the middle and one at the end. When you go close to any these with the pencil tool, the cursor will change to a 'pointed finger' icon and you can adjust them accurately. To the right of the Tab to Transient and 'A to Z keyboard focus' buttons outlined in blue is a button allowing you to unlink the Edit and Timeline Selections.

It is also worth getting your head round the unlinking of the Edit and Timeline Selections. You can do this by deselecting the strange-looking button to the right of the Tab to Transient and 'A to Z keyboard focus' buttons under the zoom preset buttons left.

Install the app. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Difference between ticks and samples. Thread starter capoeiraike Start date Jun 30, Whats good? I need to know the difference between ticks and samples. I read somewhere that tick based is best for beat detective.

Can someone please give me some insight to this. Thanks IKE. Girl6 New member. A tick is usually defined as part of a quarter note.

The number of ticks per quarter note varies from sequencer to sequencer.