DiyLightAnimation
Software => Nutcracker: RGB Effects Builder => Topic started by: jnealand on November 20, 2013,
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My technique for marking up songs manually differs a little from what Sean has shown in his tutorials and maybe this will help someone else. I have trouble using the Ctrl-B method to mark a "phrase". Instead I have found that Ctrl-M will make a timing mark without the phrase spacing and can be saved and imported into nutcracker just fine.
I listen to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever I want a change, reminds me of the old Vixen using the space bar to mark a beat track. The first time you press the key combo a label track will be created. Continue listening to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever you want to have a sequence change. I also put a mark at the end as the music quits / goes silent because I have found that sometimes xlights does not turn the lights off after the music ends. This way I have a mark where I can put "none, none" in the grid and force the lights off.
After doing the first mark up I listen to the song again and using the mouse I can move the marks a little in each direction to adjust for my poor keystroke timing. I have not figured out how to delete a mark I do not want, so I just drag the mark as far to the right as I can. Likewise you can add another mark by just pressing Ctrl-M again.
Now I go back and click in the first (leftmost) little square box and type the number 1, then click in the next box to the right and type the next sequential number, etc until all the boxes that I want to save have a number. There is no need to press enter before clicking the next box. Do not put a number in the boxes for marks that you want to delete.
Once I am satisfied with mark placements, I change the name on the label track to match the song and do the File, Export Labels. I then save the project, but leave the project open.
At this point I open up the label track created above in notepad to check it out. Any marks that I dragged all the way to the end I can now delete those lines and then resave the text file.
Now I go back to Audacity and delete (x out of ) the label track. Then I do a File, import labels to bring back the file that I edited using notepad, save the project again and close the project. If you did not edit and make changes to the label track. You can just close the project and move on.
Now move to the next song and repeat the above.
Anyone else have a better way to do this, just post your comments. I'm basically lazy and will use any shortcuts you post. LOL
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Sounds good to me. I'm just coming at it from a position if already having a ton of sequences and wanting to "add on" which isn't easy because there is currently no wAy to utilize what was already done ... So entering timings is clunky but doable
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My technique for marking up songs manually differs a little from what Sean has shown in his tutorials and maybe this will help someone else. I have trouble using the Ctrl-B method to mark a "phrase". Instead I have found that Ctrl-M will make a timing mark without the phrase spacing and can be saved and imported into nutcracker just fine.
I listen to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever I want a change, reminds me of the old Vixen using the space bar to mark a beat track. The first time you press the key combo a label track will be created. Continue listening to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever you want to have a sequence change. I also put a mark at the end as the music quits / goes silent because I have found that sometimes xlights does not turn the lights off after the music ends. This way I have a mark where I can put "none, none" in the grid and force the lights off.
After doing the first mark up I listen to the song again and using the mouse I can move the marks a little in each direction to adjust for my poor keystroke timing. I have not figured out how to delete a mark I do not want, so I just drag the mark as far to the right as I can. Likewise you can add another mark by just pressing Ctrl-M again.
Now I go back and click in the first (leftmost) little square box and type the number 1, then click in the next box to the right and type the next sequential number, etc until all the boxes that I want to save have a number. There is no need to press enter before clicking the next box. Do not put a number in the boxes for marks that you want to delete.
Once I am satisfied with mark placements, I change the name on the label track to match the song and do the File, Export Labels. I then save the project, but leave the project open.
At this point I open up the label track created above in notepad to check it out. Any marks that I dragged all the way to the end I can now delete those lines and then resave the text file.
Now I go back to Audacity and delete (x out of ) the label track. Then I do a File, import labels to bring back the file that I edited using notepad, save the project again and close the project. If you did not edit and make changes to the label track. You can just close the project and move on.
Now move to the next song and repeat the above.
Anyone else have a better way to do this, just post your comments. I'm basically lazy and will use any shortcuts you post. LOL
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My technique for marking up songs manually differs a little from what Sean has shown in his tutorials and maybe this will help someone else. I have trouble using the Ctrl-B method to mark a "phrase". Instead I have found that Ctrl-M will make a timing mark without the phrase spacing and can be saved and imported into nutcracker just fine.
I listen to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever I want a change, reminds me of the old Vixen using the space bar to mark a beat track. The first time you press the key combo a label track will be created. Continue listening to the song and press Ctrl-M whenever you want to have a sequence change. I also put a mark at the end as the music quits / goes silent because I have found that sometimes xlights does not turn the lights off after the music ends. This way I have a mark where I can put "none, none" in the grid and force the lights off.
After doing the first mark up I listen to the song again and using the mouse I can move the marks a little in each direction to adjust for my poor keystroke timing. I have not figured out how to delete a mark I do not want, so I just drag the mark as far to the right as I can. Likewise you can add another mark by just pressing Ctrl-M again.
Now I go back and click in the first (leftmost) little square box and type the number 1, then click in the next box to the right and type the next sequential number, etc until all the boxes that I want to save have a number. There is no need to press enter before clicking the next box. Do not put a number in the boxes for marks that you want to delete.
Once I am satisfied with mark placements, I change the name on the label track to match the song and do the File, Export Labels. I then save the project, but leave the project open.
At this point I open up the label track created above in notepad to check it out. Any marks that I dragged all the way to the end I can now delete those lines and then resave the text file.
Now I go back to Audacity and delete (x out of ) the label track. Then I do a File, import labels to bring back the file that I edited using notepad, save the project again and close the project. If you did not edit and make changes to the label track. You can just close the project and move on.
Now move to the next song and repeat the above.
Anyone else have a better way to do this, just post your comments. I'm basically lazy and will use any shortcuts you post. LOL
cool jim, i will use this sometimes also.
btw, if i highlight a label on the label track (your method leaves the labels blank which is ok), that timing mark is highlighted and i can press DEL to get rid of it.
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Thanks for the tip Jim! I was hitting p to pause, then mousing to the area selecting it...now I just ctrl-m along the way.
I'm doing Jingle Bell rock by randy travis right now.... trying to keep it as simple as I can. have 13 timing marks my first time through.
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I have now marked up several songs, but have not started to put effects in them. Trying to teach my wife how to use nutcracker. She is interested, but going very slow. I wanted to document something that other folks could use. I often need to read something and I do not want to watch a one hour (plus) tutorial to learn one little technique. If this has helped anyone I finally get to pay it back for all the help I've received over the years.
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Thanks, Jim... Great info!!!