Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

[talisman]

Curious as to what methods you guys use if you want to do a classical song or a rock song or basically anything instrumental.

Personally, I have my own way, but it's somewhat ass and I'm looking for shortcuts

[what I do is this:

1. find general idea of bpm 2. ctrl R tap through the song with my eyes closed to the beat four times (set to 64ths natch) 3. write down to the 100th of a second where on average each measure hits 4. put that **** into excel and make it calculate the bpm for each measure 5. reenter all those bpms back into the song.]

This works fine (and is the only way I've found that actually works as opposed to pretending you can trial and error your way by feel through it), but it's still quite ass.

so what do you do?

[Yesssss]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

It might be a little more precise if you set the bpm to something really high when you ctrlR. You might want to try that with your method. It would also probably be better to do that part in SM 4.0 due to the fact that current second displays to the thousandth of a second as opposed to earlier versions that displays only to the hundredth.

You could also use Aperson's method, and Taifun's script works well with that.

Plus there's also DDReamStudio that you can use as a seperate editor with more robust syncing capabilities than SM.

Trial and error is the only way to get it perfect though since syncing every 4th will not give you a perfectly synced file.


Personally I can't sync non-constant songs very well due to the fact that I want my files to be absolutely on beat, and syncing non-constant like that would take waaaaaaaaaaaay too much time.

[talisman]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

Speeding the bpm way up would technically make it more precise, but since there's four data points for each beat, it doesn't matter all that much unless there's a lot of variation in how you tap.

I rarely would ever want to sync something to the quarter note (from now on talking with a song in 4/4 in mind) since that takes ass long and is more prone to small mistakes you might have on a particular note. But syncing to the measure works within the limits of my perception.

And that really is what it boils down to... our brains are amazingly good at fooling us into thinking that a song is onbeat if it's within a certain margin of error. Little subconscious adjustments to when you think you remember seeing, hitting, and hearing the note throw everything off and make just pure trial and error fairly worthless, in my opinion. that's why I have to tap with my eyes closed... if they're open, I will subconsciously start to hit closer to whatever color pattern I have going.

What does aperson do? Look at it in goldwave or something? That seems like it would be even more ass.

[macgravel]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

I do it by ear. Seems to work nicely for me.

[bmah]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

I've been thinking about this not too long ago. I haven't tried this idea yet, but here's what I might do:

1. Cut the song into sections with different BPMs using the Audacity program and save each section as separate mp3s.
2. Use the MixMeister BPM Analyzer program to determine BPM of each mp3 section. Sometimes the program isn't completely accurate, so adjust accordingly by ear.
3. Step the original song with the BPMs that you have found.

Might be a bit time consuming, and some songs have really weird BPMs that you just might have to figure out yourself. I've heard that there are some programs that calculate multiple BPMs too.

[Dj_Ossa]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

Yeah that happened with Selecta, one part is at 140 the othe ris at 90.

I just found that out myself though.

[talisman]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

It's easy to do if the song is electronic.

But if you're dealing with something instrumental, it's nearly impossible to get the bpm correct by ear. Suppose the bpm for a certain measure is 176.83. What are the chances you will find that bpm? If your ear is really amazing, you might guess 176. Most people would probably settle on 175, and it wouldn't feel that off, if at all.

[Yesssss]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

With one measure I can get it to the closest .5 bpm. I also notice if things are off beat very quickly and that really annoys me.

One thing you might also want to try is to step songs at double their bpm and sync to the closest 64th, and then half the bpm at the end. That doesn't help with bpm changes though.

Your idea is probably the best idea I've heard yet for syncing quickly and effectively. I think I'll try it the next time I try to take on a non-constant song.

[dAnceguy117]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

It seems to me like syncing to the measure would be pretty faulty. Like, noticeably faulty. I dunno. I'm gonna try a few songs like this pretty soon, and I'll probably just make up my method as I go. As long as you put time into it, it should turn out fine.

[talisman]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

As long as it's fast enough and there's isn't much variability in the bpm itself, syncing by measure works pretty well for me (it's how I did my fotbb trumpet version if anyone still has that). syncing to the quarter note would take forever.

[macgravel]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

But if you're dealing with something instrumental, it's nearly impossible to get the bpm correct by ear.

Rebirth's TGWP.

[hi19hi19]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

0.3

[Yesssss]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

0.2 is much much better

[aperson]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

I synced stuff iteratively mostly. First you sync each 4 measures to the beat, then each 2 measures in places that have a lot of variation, then each 1 measure if those still vary, etc.... With a bit of effort you can break your brain from autocorrecting close gaps, and using j5 you can get stuff pretty tight into the marvelous window just by ear.

[taifunbrowser]

Re: Methods for syncing nonsteady bpm songs?

I'd like to advocate my script for a few seconds:
- is ALWAYS faster than by ear
- is ALWAYS perfectly on beat, assuming your audio visualizer isnt wrong
- has Lyrics support, which is really nice
- is organized and you can use it for pieces of a file.
- its in v.6, and there are NO BUGS that I know of

Try it. if you get past the fact that there are a lot of different commands and options (since there are lots of things you can do) I think you'll find that my script is the ultimate option for synching.

Go to it at www.smgroove.com/forums, go to the tutorials forum and click on "taifunbrowser's synching thread (w/apps)"