How are people dialing in on fast beats of a song?

[Penfold]

Hello all, I was just wondering how people go about dialing in on fast parts of a song. For instance the Techno Jingle Bells has some rapid beats and I have seen some fellow DIYCers perform an outstanding job of getting those beats dialed in. I have been unsuccessful in my attempts. Could any of the sequence Gurus out there teach me the ways of the fast schwartz? I have the song setup at 50ms right now.

Mike

[ErnieHorning]

The easiest way is to slow the sequence down. Use the buttons that have a note simple on them. I use the half speed mostly but occasionally use 1/4th . I’ve used the trackbar to go slower a couple of times. I found that you will sometimes want to move everything earlier by one time slot to get the light to come on a bit sooner for the really fast stuff.

[g2ktcf]

The easiest way is to slow the sequence down. Use the buttons that have a note simple on them. I use the half speed mostly but occasionally use 1/4th . I’ve used the trackbar to go slower a couple of times. I found that you will sometimes want to move everything earlier by one time slot to get the light to come on a bit sooner for the really fast stuff.


Also, some sounds are better heard at 30% or 40% of playback speed. I found that out just this year.

[rstehle]

could any of the sequence gurus out there teach me the ways of the fast schwartz?
Mike

Rofl...........

[djulien]

Turning on the waveform Visualizer helps a lot for songs that have notes without much background noise or vocals - you can see where the notes are, and then line up the cells more accurately.

don

[g2ktcf]

Turning on the waveform Visualizer helps a lot for songs that have notes without much background noise or vocals - you can see where the notes are, and then line up the cells more accurately.

don


Even if you have a really busy waveform...you can scale the waveform to make the waves larger...and you can make the columns wider to space out the waves for troublesome areas.

[Wayne J]

Turning on the waveform Visualizer helps a lot for songs that have notes without much background noise or vocals - you can see where the notes are, and then line up the cells more accurately.

don

I could not sequence without the Visualizer feature. :cool:

[WWNF911]

Hello all, I was just wondering how people go about dialing in on fast parts of a song. For instance the Techno Jingle Bells has some rapid beats and I have seen some fellow DIYCers perform an outstanding job of getting those beats dialed in. I have been unsuccessful in my attempts. Could any of the sequence Gurus out there teach me the ways of the fast schwartz? I have the song setup at 50ms right now.

Mike

Found this little gem this year. Really helped me alot!

take a look at Chris' comment in post #2.
http://www.doityourselfchristmas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8060
Leon

[Gary Martin]

Yep, if you want precision (and you do, trust me!) then you've got to slow the playback rate way down and get picky. It makes a huge difference on fast songs.

[g2ktcf]

I currently use 10 beat tracks. I the copy and paste form them into the actual channels. This enables me to really do the majority of the work early without regard for the final channel setup.

For instance,

Drums...channel 1
Brass...channel 2
Vocals...channel 4
Woodwinds...channel 5
Strings....channel 6
Piano...channel 7

This is just an example but it really helps me out.

[ErnieHorning]

Those that are using Vixen 2.5 can just use beat tracks that are one channel higher than your last used channel. Then you can Drag-n-Drop the beat channel anywhere you want. All channels will still work the same.

[dirknerkle]

Those that are using Vixen 2.5 can just use beat tracks that are one channel higher than your last used channel. Then you can Drag-n-Drop the beat channel anywhere you want. All channels will still work the same.

But even in 2.1, you can use the COPY/PASTE function to copy one channel to another channel, or you can use the channel copy function as well.

Of course, if you want to copy only a portion of a channel, the copy/paste function works best:

1. Highlight the cells to be copied.
2. Press CTRL-C (or Edit COPY)
3. Put the cursor on the starting destination cell.
4. Press CTRL-V (or Edit PASTE)

[ppohlman]

....
3. Put the cursor on the starting destination cell.
....

Make sure that the cursor is at the top-left corner of the section when several channels are highlighted for pasting.

[ErnieHorning]

But even in 2.1, you can use the COPY/PASTE function to copy one channel to another channel, or you can use the channel copy function as well.I did it this way up till 2.5. It works fine when a channel above or below is available but I’ve had times when there wasn’t. I got around it by copying the channel and temporarily placing it somewhere else.

It’s so much nicer to just slide the beat channel up and down and not see the beat channel pulsing something unwanted in the Visualizer. Or worse yet, seeing the beat channel show all of a sudden out in the yard!:eek:

[dadams14]

Also, some sounds are better heard at 30% or 40% of playback speed. I found that out just this year.

I thought about playing back a song that is so fast that it looks too busy in lights....
How does one playback at 90% speed?
I can change the playback speed and It works until I close the song and the next time it opens to 100 % speed again...
There is still a lot here I don't understand
Thanks in advance

[51fordf2]

I thought about playing back a song that is so fast that it looks too busy in lights....
How does one playback at 90% speed?
I can change the playback speed and It works until I close the song and the next time it opens to 100 % speed again...
There is still a lot here I don't understand
Thanks in advance

I may be wrong, and someone will correct if I am, but you can't change the tempo of the song, through Vixen itself - you would have to change the song FIRST, through something like Audacity (freebie program, that's really quite good). THEN you would sequence to the new, 90% speed song. You can only "preview" a song slowed in Vixen, which slows everything, but doesn't slow it in the actual rendering.

Plus, if you slow the song down with Audacity, then the sequence won't work any more with it, you'll have to figure out a way to change it easily, or re-do the whole thing. Again, maybe someone has an alternate answer, hopefully they do...

R

[dadams14]

WOW.
I can change it when If I change the playback speed, but not from a program?
sounds like an easy fix...
but as it is, there is no W A Y , I am rescripting the song that I have worked 10 hours getting to this point,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,so its full speed ahead captain...
Thanks anyway

[ErnieHorning]

You can change the speed for editing purposes only. This was only added to make it easier to sequence faster parts. The speed is not saved, so a sequence will run at full speed the next time its opened.

There is no easy way to change the speed of a sequence once it's created. At least not at this time, but you might want to make a suggestion to KC.

[NogginBoink]

Actually, that sounds like it could be a useful feature. Please submit it as a request in the Vixen area of the forum.

From a programming perspective, it (probably) wouldn't take much to store the desired playback speed in the .vix file.