The MIDI Timing Optimizer Dialog

 

 

The Timing Optimizer finds an optimum combination of time shifting and time scaling to align selected notes on quarter note, half note, or whole note (measure) beats.

 

 

Optimize on Beat

 Select the beat to which the selected notes are to be matched.  For example, if you have selected a series of notes which occur twice in a four-beat measure, select Half Note.

 

Time Shift
Optimize Shift When checked, the time-shift will be optimized.
Minimum Shift Enter the minimum time-shift (as MIDI ticks) to consider.
Maximum Shift Enter the maximum time-shift (as MIDI ticks) to consider.

 

Time Scaling
Optimize Scaling When checked, time-scaling will be optimized.
Minimum Scale Enter the minimum scale to consider.
Maximum Scale Enter the maximum scale to consider.
Scale Delta Enter the amount to change the scaling on each pass of the optimizer.
Optimize on Notes Select the notes to be used in the optimization.  When this dialog is initially opened, the selected notes will be the same notes that were selected in the timing statistics window.
All Select all notes
None Deselect all notes.

Strategy
Exhaustive "Exhaustive" optimization will literally test every possible combination of shifting and scaling.  Unless the shifting and scaling ranges are quite small and a relatively large scale delta is used, this can be extremely slow, and is not recommend.  Once initiated, optimization can be cancelled however.
Alternating The optimizer "bootstraps" by first optimizing the shift, then using the best shift to optimize scaling, then using the best scale to re-optimize the shift ... etc.  This is generally quite effective, and much faster than the exhaustive strategy.

Each shift optimization / scale optimization is considered a "pass".  Enter the total # of passes to perform.

 

Optimize
Begin optimizing.  A progress indicator will appear.  Pressing Cancel will cancel the optimization.  Otherwise, when optimization has completed, the optimizer results window will open.

 

 

Optimizer Results

This window displays the results of the optimization, graphing the mean offset from the beat as a function of time-scaling (at the optimum time-shift) or as a function of time-shift (at the optimum time-scale).  Select the desired view from the View drop-down list. 

In the example shown, the mean offset achieves a strong minimum for both of the selected notes at a time-scale factor of 0.901, suggesting a successful and relevant optimization.

Pressing the Apply button opens a menu which with commands to transfer the optimized values back into the Note Window.