6.0

Synchronization
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nizes the current song position within this region, and
synchronizes to it.
Modern devices always use a combination of MIDI Clock
and song position pointer.
If a sequencing program has a higher timing resolution
than 1/96 note, the positions between must be interpo-
lated. The resolution of MAGIX midi studio generation 6
is 1/3840 notes.
Time-Referenced synchronization: Time-referenced
synchronization originates from the field of video syn-
chronization, but nowadays it is also used for audio work.
This is why it divides a second not into tenths and hun-
dredths, but into frames. One frame was originally the
time it took for a single frame of video (i.e. one image) to
pass through a video camera, or projector.
Unfortunately, the number of frames used per second var-
ies according to country, norm and usage. For video, the
international norm is 24 frames per second (fps). Ameri-
can black and white television uses 30 fps. With the intro-
duction of color television, the frame rate of the NTSC
norm, used in America and Canada had to be reduced to
29.97 fps for technical reasons. In Europe, a lower frame
rate of 25 fps was used from the start, and with the intro-
duction of color television this was adopted by the Euro-
pean PAL TV standard, as used in Europe today.
The original reason for the differing video rates, inciden-
tally, derives from the different rates of alternating current
used on the different continents (USA: 60Hz, Europe: 50
Hz), which corresponds to the number of half-frames of
video passing through a camera/projector per second.
SMPTE/EBU: It was the American Society of Motion Pic-
ture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) which first laid
down a norm for encoding the individual frames. This
designates exactly 80 bits per frame for encoding the hour
(0—23), minute, second, and frame (frame number
within the second). Some of the surplus bits are used to in-
dicate the frame rate, i.e. the number of frames per sec-
ond. This encoded data stream of 80 bits per frame is
known as SMPTE time code. Because the individual bits
themselves have a definite time spacing, they are also used
as a further subdivision of a frame, called a “subframe”.
This code was adopted without alteration by the European
Broadcasting Union (EBU), for use with the European
frame rates, and renamed “EBU Time Code”. In practice
this time code is usually referred to as SMPTE time code,
or just SMPTE (pronounced: “simptee”).