quantized metro output order

Exit Only's icon

I was wondering if there was a predetermined order of operations for two metros quantized to different timevalues.
Say I have a

[metro @interval 1n @quantize 1n]

and a

[metro @interval 4n @quantize 4n]

Is there a way to predict which one is going to bang first?

David Zicarelli's icon

That's a great question and it allows me to clarify something that seems to have come up when people use metrical timing units. No there isn't a pre-determined order, in the same sense that if you had two metro 100 objects that you started simultaneously, you couldn't count on which one would fire first. Metrical times are really just dynamically updated millisecond intervals. If you want to ensure an order of operation you should restrict yourself to a single timing object and then use an ordering object such as trigger. If you want different things to happen with different subdivisions of a beat, you can use counters, delay objects with metrical intervals, etc.

If you have a specific problem that you can't figure out without the need for explicit ordering of multiple independent timing objects, you could post an example and perhaps someone will have a clever workaround.

David Z.