TidalCycles is oriented around cycles rather than beats, so mixing fractional steps yields cross-rhythms easily

TidalCycles models time as cycles, not beats. A pattern of N events divides a cycle into N equal shares by default; step-size notation (@) redistributes those shares. Because everything is rescaled to fit one cycle, mixing a half-step and a third-step event produces a cross-rhythm that would need explicit time-signature work in a beat-centric tool. This is the core abstraction that makes Tidal idiomatically different from MIDI sequencers and DAWs. The common misconception, held by learners from beat-centric tools, is that 0.5 means ‘half a bar’; in Tidal it means half of a step, and a step’s real length depends on how many events share the cycle.

Examples

d1 $ n "0@0.5 2@(1/3)" # s "superpiano"
-- a half-step against a third-step, squashed into one cycle: a non-obvious polyrhythm

Assessment

Explain the difference between Tidal’s cycle model and a DAW’s beat model; state what a 0.5-step event becomes when the pattern has two events versus four.