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Old 02-28-2016, 12:35 PM   #475
schwa
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: NY
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kerryg View Post
- there's an implied "invisible bar line" which divides a bar of 4/4 into two equal parts
In general, REAPER uses the rhythm pattern set by the user to decide where to divide beams and tie notes. You can set the rhythm pattern by right-clicking at the start of a measure (or using the time signature/tempo marker dialog), and you can change the rhythm pattern without changing the time signature or tempo.

By default the pattern is always ABBBB... with as many Bs as there are beats in the time signature, so ABBB for 4/4, ABBBBB for 6/8, etc. In 4/4 if you set the rhythm pattern to ABAB, then beams will break at the middle of the measure. In 6/8 you can set up the rhythm pattern for either ABBABB or ABABAB, both of which are common.

We could change the default so that if the user doesn't set a pattern, we always break up the measure every 2 beats. You'd then lose the ability to choose *not* to break up a measure, if you wanted to beam all 6 beats of a 6/8 measure together. The benefit would probably outweigh the cost though, because the default behavior would be more as expected.
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