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Time units used within FL Studio

FL Studio uses many different time formats, and it is important to understand them all, so that your scripts can correctly interpret time-related data.

Beats

A beat represents a musical beat, the central unit of time when playing live music.

Bars

A bar is a collection of beats, grouped based on the value of a time signature.

Steps

A step is a subdivision of a beat. These are the same length as a unit in the step sequencer. By default, there are 4 steps per beat.

Ticks

A tick is the smallest subdivision of MIDI time. By default, there are 96 ticks per quarter note, but this value can be adjusted by changing the timebase (PPQN) of a project. The project timebase can be determined by calling general.getRecPPQ().

Ticks can be used as in an absolute format (number of ticks since the start of the arrangement), or in conjunction with other beat-based time unit (see B:S:T).

B:S:T

"B:S:T" is time counted as bars, steps and ticks. It is comprised of

  • The bar number within the current arrangement.
  • The number of steps since the start of the current bar.
  • The number of ticks since the start of the current step.

Seconds

The same as seconds in real life. If you want to know more, here's a link to the Wikipedia article.

Minutes

One minute is equal to 60 seconds.

Centiseconds

One centisecond is equal to one hundredth of a second.

Milliseconds

One millisecond is equal to one thousandth of a second.

M:S:CS

"M:S:CS" is time counted as minutes, seconds and centiseconds.

  • The number of minutes since the start of the current arrangement.
  • The number of seconds since the start of the current minute.
  • The number of centiseconds since the start of the current second.

Fractional

Fractional time is represented as a percentage of the way through the song. For example, 0.5 means that the playhead is half-way through the song.

Fractional time is measured based on ticks, so tempo changes will cause the rate of change of fractional time to vary.