Why is song set at a speed of 5?

[Bleetz]

This has always puzzled me. This track is at 5?
https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=174913
I always use 3 or 6. Is there to be a certain advantage to using this speed or is it just personal choice?

[Saga Musix]

While I would argue that most of the time this is just personal choice, there is an actual advantage of choosing speed 5 (or any other speed that is a power of two + 1) over speed 6: It is easier to slide to any note using portamentos (commands E/F or 1/2) with easy-to-remember parameters. One portamento unit is 1/16th of a semitone, so at speed 5 you can slide on one semitone in one row using F04, or two semitones with F08, etc... at speed 6 the math is more complicated and often you need a fine slide on the next row to reach the wanted note.
But as said, most of the time it's just personal choice. Back in the very early days of MODs, the only way to set the tempo of a song was by changing the ticks per row, so if you wanted to be slightly faster than speed 6 / tempo 125, the only option was speed 5 / tempo 125, and not something like speed 6 / tempo 140. Speed 3 and 6 are most often chosen because they result in "true" BPM (or at least close enough to true BPM) with classic tempo mode.

[rncekel]

It may be another good reason to use something different to 6: multiplets. If you want, for example, to do a quintuplet of quarter notes, you need to be able to divide the time in five equal parts, so if a quarter note occupies for example 2 rows, at speed 6 there isn't any way to write it, but at speed 5 you only need to use the SDx effect; you would write something like (using IT effects; only the note and effect columns)
C4
D4 SD3
--
E4 SD1
F4 SD4
--
G4 SD2
--
This will take the same time as four quarter notes, but will sound as five equal notes from C to G.

[Saga Musix]

Yup, another good point. Great to see you back posting here!

[nikku4211]

Also, at 5 TPR (Ticks Per Row), you can get some unique sounding arpeggios.

Really, the arpeggio command is extremely dependent on the ticks per row command. It's one huge reason to differentiate TPR from tempo.

[Bleetz]

Thanks for the great answers!