What EXACTLY does q-range in logic pro do?

I can get you a bit closer, no pun intended.

The range # is in ticks. Looky here:

The blue D is 74 ticks shy of the quarter note, the red Bflat on the 2.3 line is 20 ticks past the line. I set the quantize grid to 1/8 because there are a couple notes on the grid there (the two C's). Everything pops into strict quantize. As the q-range is dragged down, when the value = the number of ticks that the original note is off the grid that note is no longer quantized. So when I set the range to -21 the red note doesn't quantize any more. As I continue, more of the notes fall off the grid and back to the location you see above. The blue note stays on the grid until I get to -74. Incidentally, if you go slow you will see that at certain values the display changes from -60 to 1/64, letting you know the musical equivalent of the tick values.

As you go positive, you will see that a value of 1 kicks everybody off the grid, and then teases them in as you dial in their tick values. With positive values, however, there seems to be a 'relativity' to the relationships between the notes. In my above pic, the orange Bflat that is roughly at the same time as the blue note is 40 ticks shy. At a range of 10 it moves 2 ticks further away, and at a range of 20 it is 7 ticks closer. At a range of 40 it is 15 ticks shy, and at 41 it is on the grid. When I get to a range of 75, the blue note is on the grid and the orange note above it is 32 ticks past. There seems to be some relationships that affect the quantization (like it averages all the quarter notes and splits the differences, then looks at notes that are roughly at the same time and splits the difference again) but the manual doesn't really explain how that works.

Make a region and by holding cntrl+shift you can move notes by the tick value. Move some around and then play with the Q-range to see it in action. In the piano roll you can go View>Event float and a floating window will appear that has the info you want to monitor. Just select the note in the piano roll that you want to see the info for. You can also open an event list to see the info on all the notes at once.

David over at LogicProHelp just summed it up real nicely and gives light on the positive values:

David @ LPH wrote:

negative Q-range value quantizes anything that falls outside the defined range, and leaves the rest untouched.

A positive Q-range value quantizes anything that falls inside the defined range, and musically quantizes the other notes so the groove is maintained but re-centered, if the player is consistently behind or ahead of the beat....

....[positive] acts as a smart quantize that recenters your rhythmic center while keeping your groove.

Quantisation is a mathematical process performed very easily by computers, so it just comes down to exactly what it is you want to achieve - you can use groove templates to match up stuff rhythmically, but its not something I normally do.

Obviously, I use Quantisation quite a lot - there are quite a few options there when you want to capture the way that something has been played - sometimes its a combination of 16 and 12 to get them both right, for example.

A lot of the time, it can be just quantising to a straight 16, though !

I'm so sorry - I understand what you mean - Seeren has, as usual, given you an excellent explanation and the correct answer. My point is that there are different quantisation methods that work better for me in a more intuitive way, being a musician rather than a technician.

Oh, OK, that seems like a succinct explanation. More than likely I'll go back to my way of doing things when the occasion arises, but I can see where that idea's going !

Thanks for that - I only know three or four other people that use DAWS (lots of musicians, but that's another story) and they're using Cubase, so the forum's a good exchange of ideas to me.

Cheers.

Excellent Lesson. Thanks for posting the question and for all the great explanations. You guys rock!