Time signature acceptable changes?

[skywilliam]

I'm working on a song that has two time signatures scattered through the song.

[4/4 and 15/16]

Guitar Hero doesn't register 15/16, so is there a way to get a X/4 value from 15/16? surely you can't use 3.75/4 or 3-3/4/4. If not, then is my only option to move all notes at each 15/16 measure to the left?

Thanks
Sky

[skywilliam]

I'm working on a song that has two time signatures scattered through the song.

[4/4 and 15/16]

Guitar Hero doesn't register 15/16, so is there a way to get a X/4 value from 15/16? surely you can't use 3.75/4 or 3-3/4/4. If not, then is my only option to move all notes at each 15/16 measure to the left?

Thanks
Sky

[Riz]

You would use 15/4. Guitar hero has no concept of note "duration", so the bottom number (what duration of note gets "a beat") doesn't make any difference to anything. Given the signature, those bars are probably packed full of very fast notes. When transcribing, just make 1/4's where there's 16ths in the original, 1/8ths where there's 32nds, etc. The bar would have to add up to some combination of notes that would equal 15 quarter notes.

Riz.
_________________

[Riz]

You would use 15/4. Guitar hero has no concept of note "duration", so the bottom number (what duration of note gets "a beat") doesn't make any difference to anything. Given the signature, those bars are probably packed full of very fast notes. When transcribing, just make 1/4's where there's 16ths in the original, 1/8ths where there's 32nds, etc. The bar would have to add up to some combination of notes that would equal 15 quarter notes.

Riz.
_________________

[Bizarbus]

I'm not so sure 15/4 would work... the tempo in 15/4 would have to be insanely fast to match up with a 15/16 measure (sure it's not 15/8?).

Anyway, you have basically three options

1 measure of 15/4

3 measures of 5/4

or 5 measures of 3/4

Figure out which one will suit the notes the best and go for it.

edit -
DISREGARD THIS POST

[Bizarbus]

I'm not so sure 15/4 would work... the tempo in 15/4 would have to be insanely fast to match up with a 15/16 measure (sure it's not 15/8?).

Anyway, you have basically three options

1 measure of 15/4

3 measures of 5/4

or 5 measures of 3/4

Figure out which one will suit the notes the best and go for it.

edit -
DISREGARD THIS POST

[Riz]

actually, the tempo would not change at all...

15 quarter notes in a 15/4 measure are exactly the same as 15 16th notes in a 15/16 measure, as far as GH is concerned. GH has no concept of what a quarter note is, or any difference between a quarter and a 16th. All it knows about is notes, and how many beats are in a measure. People on these boards use terms like 8th notes and 8th note triplets, as a convenience term to represent the *spacings* between notes, but in terms of them really being notes of a specific "duration", GH has no clue.

Riz.
_________________

[Riz]

actually, the tempo would not change at all...

15 quarter notes in a 15/4 measure are exactly the same as 15 16th notes in a 15/16 measure, as far as GH is concerned. GH has no concept of what a quarter note is, or any difference between a quarter and a 16th. All it knows about is notes, and how many beats are in a measure. People on these boards use terms like 8th notes and 8th note triplets, as a convenience term to represent the *spacings* between notes, but in terms of them really being notes of a specific "duration", GH has no clue.

Riz.
_________________

[Bizarbus]

I guess you're right, I was thinking about it in awkward terms. Still, the tempo would have to be insanely fast no matter which time signature you use.

If you have 4 successive measure's of 15/16 (and have trouble speeding up the tempo that much), you may want to consider representing it with three measures of 5/4, each one being effectively split up into 20 16th notes, each one thereby getting a beat.

Or 15/16 could be one measure of 5/4, all tripletts

I don't really know though, in the end you're going to have to screw around and figure out what option best works for you.

[Bizarbus]

I guess you're right, I was thinking about it in awkward terms. Still, the tempo would have to be insanely fast no matter which time signature you use.

If you have 4 successive measure's of 15/16 (and have trouble speeding up the tempo that much), you may want to consider representing it with three measures of 5/4, each one being effectively split up into 20 16th notes, each one thereby getting a beat.

Or 15/16 could be one measure of 5/4, all tripletts

I don't really know though, in the end you're going to have to screw around and figure out what option best works for you.

[Riz]

OK, I was prepared to argue here, once again, that the tempo would NOT change, because a beat is a beat, and in 15/16 a sixteenth getting 1 beat is exactly the same, at least from GH's perspective, as being in 15/4 and a quarter getting 1 beat. However, in talking it over with some others, apparently there is a concept of bpm being tied to a specific duration of note (ie, 132 bpm assuming that quarter notes are getting 1 beat). I'm still not entirely sure that this distinction is actually relevant to GH charts, so I can't say for certain what you'd have to do with the tempo. You'll have to find out.

However, for the purpose of star power usage, you would NOT want to split it up into 3 bars of 5/4 or whatever... you would definitely want to annotate it as 15/4, and transcribe sixteenths to quarters as I said previously. What you end up needing to do to tempo, I donno, you'll have to listen to the end result and find out.

If you have actual sheet music for the song, it is supposed to be annotated what the tempo change is when the time signature changes, ie. either there will be a <sixteenth symbol> = ### or <quarter symbol> = ###, above the bar where the TS changes. If it is a quarter, then I would definitely expect the tempo to skyrocket, as Biz says. If it's a sixteenth, then the tempo probably stays more or less the same. If it's <dotted half-note> = ###, then I don't frackin' know...

Or something. I'm definitely at the outer limits of my knowledge of musical theory here... someone more knowledgable can feel free to chime in if they think they can authoritatively do so... otherwise, I'm afraid we're probably just confusing the lad. Sorry about that.

Riz.
_________________

[Riz]

OK, I was prepared to argue here, once again, that the tempo would NOT change, because a beat is a beat, and in 15/16 a sixteenth getting 1 beat is exactly the same, at least from GH's perspective, as being in 15/4 and a quarter getting 1 beat. However, in talking it over with some others, apparently there is a concept of bpm being tied to a specific duration of note (ie, 132 bpm assuming that quarter notes are getting 1 beat). I'm still not entirely sure that this distinction is actually relevant to GH charts, so I can't say for certain what you'd have to do with the tempo. You'll have to find out.

However, for the purpose of star power usage, you would NOT want to split it up into 3 bars of 5/4 or whatever... you would definitely want to annotate it as 15/4, and transcribe sixteenths to quarters as I said previously. What you end up needing to do to tempo, I donno, you'll have to listen to the end result and find out.

If you have actual sheet music for the song, it is supposed to be annotated what the tempo change is when the time signature changes, ie. either there will be a <sixteenth symbol> = ### or <quarter symbol> = ###, above the bar where the TS changes. If it is a quarter, then I would definitely expect the tempo to skyrocket, as Biz says. If it's a sixteenth, then the tempo probably stays more or less the same. If it's <dotted half-note> = ###, then I don't frackin' know...

Or something. I'm definitely at the outer limits of my knowledge of musical theory here... someone more knowledgable can feel free to chime in if they think they can authoritatively do so... otherwise, I'm afraid we're probably just confusing the lad. Sorry about that.

Riz.
_________________

[Bizarbus]

Sorry if I stepped on your toes at all Riz. I didn't mean to supply any false information or to counter anything you had said as false

I actually have some decent music theory and real life composition experience, so I'll try to lay things out as I see them clearly and concisely.

In an actual score to be performed, if you were to switch from 4/4 to 15/4, the measure would therefore become one quarter note short of 4 measures of 4/4, thus almost 4 times longer. If it switched to 15/8, it would be one eighth note short of two measures of 4/4, thus lasting almost twice as long. If it switched to 15/16, it would be one sixteenth note short of a measure, thus being almost the same length as a normal measure.

This is all, of course, assuming a constant beat AKA each note value stays the same length. Unless a new tempo is given, for real music in the notation Riz mentioned (e.g. quarter note = 128, eighth note = 200, etc. etc.), it is assumed that the actual duration of each note is the same. Whether you're in 13/16 or 7/4, each eighth note, each quarter note, every note will have the same actual duration.

GH cannot do what I mentioned earlier about assigning a tempo value to a specific kind of note (e.g. quarter note = 128, eighth note = 200, etc. etc.) GH can only assign tempo values to quarter notes.

Thus, the problem when putting this into GH terms is that guitar hero will only accept time signatures over 4 (?/4). Say we want to create a measure of 15/8. If we were to make it 15/4 in GH, the tempo would have to DOUBLE to allow the input of quarter notes to simulate the actual length of the previous eighth notes.

If we were going to a measure of 15/16 and wanted to put it into GH as 15/4, the tempo would have to QUADRUPLE in order to allow the input of quarter notes to be the same length as the previous sixteenth notes.

I hope that makes more sense to what I was trying to say before. In the end, it's going to take some experimentation. I think it's obvious that neither Riz nor I have ever come across this in GH much before.

Riz is absolutely right about star power, so make sure to keep that in mind.

Again, I apologize if I caused any confusion. I hope this post helps set things down.

[Bizarbus]

Sorry if I stepped on your toes at all Riz. I didn't mean to supply any false information or to counter anything you had said as false

I actually have some decent music theory and real life composition experience, so I'll try to lay things out as I see them clearly and concisely.

In an actual score to be performed, if you were to switch from 4/4 to 15/4, the measure would therefore become one quarter note short of 4 measures of 4/4, thus almost 4 times longer. If it switched to 15/8, it would be one eighth note short of two measures of 4/4, thus lasting almost twice as long. If it switched to 15/16, it would be one sixteenth note short of a measure, thus being almost the same length as a normal measure.

This is all, of course, assuming a constant beat AKA each note value stays the same length. Unless a new tempo is given, for real music in the notation Riz mentioned (e.g. quarter note = 128, eighth note = 200, etc. etc.), it is assumed that the actual duration of each note is the same. Whether you're in 13/16 or 7/4, each eighth note, each quarter note, every note will have the same actual duration.

GH cannot do what I mentioned earlier about assigning a tempo value to a specific kind of note (e.g. quarter note = 128, eighth note = 200, etc. etc.) GH can only assign tempo values to quarter notes.

Thus, the problem when putting this into GH terms is that guitar hero will only accept time signatures over 4 (?/4). Say we want to create a measure of 15/8. If we were to make it 15/4 in GH, the tempo would have to DOUBLE to allow the input of quarter notes to simulate the actual length of the previous eighth notes.

If we were going to a measure of 15/16 and wanted to put it into GH as 15/4, the tempo would have to QUADRUPLE in order to allow the input of quarter notes to be the same length as the previous sixteenth notes.

I hope that makes more sense to what I was trying to say before. In the end, it's going to take some experimentation. I think it's obvious that neither Riz nor I have ever come across this in GH much before.

Riz is absolutely right about star power, so make sure to keep that in mind.

Again, I apologize if I caused any confusion. I hope this post helps set things down.

[Fangor]

I think for star power purposes, 5/4 with triplets instead of 16ths or 3/4 with quintuplets instead of 16ths are your best bets if it is a perfect compound time signature. That is listen to where the major beats fall, and make those the first notes in the series. Ignore the tempo in the tab just sync every note until it works. I've been in this situation, it's not fun messing with nasty times(my first song followed the pattern 4/4, 7/8, 4/4, and 3/4 for about 40 measures).

Alternatively you can break the measure up into smaller measures as you see fit. Or you can just ignore bars altogether and write everything afterward shifted over by a 16th (this is somewhat reasonable if you are constantly going in and out of it, and you know that eventually notes will end up back on track.)

[Fangor]

I think for star power purposes, 5/4 with triplets instead of 16ths or 3/4 with quintuplets instead of 16ths are your best bets if it is a perfect compound time signature. That is listen to where the major beats fall, and make those the first notes in the series. Ignore the tempo in the tab just sync every note until it works. I've been in this situation, it's not fun messing with nasty times(my first song followed the pattern 4/4, 7/8, 4/4, and 3/4 for about 40 measures).

Alternatively you can break the measure up into smaller measures as you see fit. Or you can just ignore bars altogether and write everything afterward shifted over by a 16th (this is somewhat reasonable if you are constantly going in and out of it, and you know that eventually notes will end up back on track.)

[skywilliam]

Thank you Riz and Bizarbus!

I used a mixture of what you both said with a bit of what I was going to do if nothing had worked. I ended up going with a single measure of 15/4 time signature with quadrupel tempo. In tabit, I made quarter notes for all the sixteenth notes I had and half notes for the eighth note. Then I hit the delete key to move the timeline (starting after the last note of the 15/16 measure) to the left by one. I did this for all 15/16 sections.

Now I just have to mess around with slight tempo variations cause appearantly, the song isn't a constant tempo after all... *sigh*

thanks again!

[skywilliam]

Thank you Riz and Bizarbus!

I used a mixture of what you both said with a bit of what I was going to do if nothing had worked. I ended up going with a single measure of 15/4 time signature with quadrupel tempo. In tabit, I made quarter notes for all the sixteenth notes I had and half notes for the eighth note. Then I hit the delete key to move the timeline (starting after the last note of the 15/16 measure) to the left by one. I did this for all 15/16 sections.

Now I just have to mess around with slight tempo variations cause appearantly, the song isn't a constant tempo after all... *sigh*

thanks again!