Meter

This is the number of beats in a measure. It determines how song positions are displayed throughout the application. If meter is one, song positions are displayed as beats and ticks, whereas if meter is greater than one, song positions are displayed as measures, beats and ticks (also known as MBT). Meter is one by default, and can't be less than one. Meter is purely cosmetic, in the sense that changing it has no effect on the application's MIDI output. Meter affects how the current position is displayed in the status bar, and also affects the display of Start Position, Loop From, and Loop To.

Since polymeter is the use of multiple meters at once, it might seem pointless to specify a meter, but it can still be useful to change how song positions are displayed, particularly if your composition emphasizes one meter more than others.

Song position

A song position is a location within the output MIDI sequence. Song positions are maintained internally in ticks, but they're displayed either as beats and ticks, or as measures, beats and ticks (also known as MBT), depending on the Meter property. Ticks are zero-based, whereas both beats and measures are one-based, hence a song position of zero ticks is displayed as 1:000 if meter is one, or 1:1:000 if meter is greater than one.

Song positions are unaffected by the tempo. But if a song position is converted to a time, the resulting time does depend on the tempo. The status bar shows the current position in both measures, beats, and ticks on the left, and time on the right.

The following table shows the effect of some common meters on various positions in ticks, assuming the default timebase of 120 ticks per beat. The asymmetry in how negative positions are displayed is due to measures and beats being one-based.

	Meter
Ticks	1	3	4
480	5:000	2:2:000	2:1:000
360	4:000	2:1:000	1:4:000
240	3:000	1:3:000	1:3:000
120	2:000	1:2:000	1:2:000
0	1:000	1:1:000	1:1:000
−120	0:000	0:3:000	0:4:000
−240	−1:000	0:2:000	0:3:000
−360	−2:000	0:1:000	0:2:000
−480	−3:000	−1:3:000	0:1:000

Navigating within a song

To move the song position to a specific location, use one of these methods:

In the track grid or song grid, left-click the desired location in the ruler at the top of the view.
To move to the start position, use the Transport menu's Rewind command.
To specify the desired location numerically, use the Transport menu's Go To Position command.
To move to the nearest convergence, use the Next Convergence and Previous Convergence commands on the Transport menu, or their keyboard shortcuts: Alt+Right for next convergence, or Alt+Left for previous convergence.
In the Step Values bar, left-click a step value to move to the corresponding location.
In Song view only, use Shift+Right to move to the next dub, or Shift+Left to move to the previous dub.