beat track

[duane.mosley]

i am a total newbie and i have a question about the beat track. is there a way to automatically enter the beat track? or do you really have to sit and hit the ctrl key for every beat break down? i have been reading, threw both here and diyc forums and not really seeing anyting to answer that question. i have watched the video on you tube about sequencing and he skips threw the beat track so i didn't get to see exactly what he is doing. i have my profile, i have the picture of my house all set up with the colors and channels located where i want them. i'm just having issues laying down the beat track. i can see it when i sit hit the control key but is that the only way to do it?

thanks in advance

duane

[onesmoothhead]

I do not use a beat track. I do lay a beat track for one channel of a device. Example front edge of house. I then copy that track to other devices, like leaping arches, trees, and such.


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[duane.mosley]

i understand how to copy and paste the beat track once it's on one of the channels, my question is do you have to hit the ctrl key on every beat or is there an automatic way of doing so?

[onesmoothhead]

I tap it in for all tracks. What I tend to do is listen to the music a bunch first and then beat track different stuff. Maybe long counts on one channel and short counts on another. It really does not take long.


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[deplanche]

There is no automatic way to do a beat track.  There are some add-ons that will use notes or volume to do this, but they aren't that effective IMO.

[Greg]

As others have said, There is no automatic way for Vixen to do a beat track, but there is a free add in that many of us have used that may prove helpful called Tap Tempo by Johnathon Reinhart.

What Tap Tempo does is calculate the beats per minute (BPM) based on your tapping the keyboard beat, divides the BPM into a number of event times per beat and sets Vixen sequence timing to the calculated milliseconds per event and optionally inserts evenly timed beats on the channel of your choice.  Its not perfect because the input (your tapping and the musicians variances) isn't rock solid like a metronome but it can get you fairly close.

I use Tap Tempo to help determine a good sequence timing value and then I manually tap in the beats.  I then go back and add or remove cells to compensate for my reaction time and make any other minor adjustments as needed.  How tedious it can get all depends on your personal level of tolerance to imprecision.

If you want to try Jonathon's add in, you can get it on his web site at:
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Have fun,

Greg

[duane.mosley]

thanks for the replies, tap tempo sounds like something to try. i like the idea of doing the different counts on different channels as well. i will try both and see where i go. all part of the fun of diy!

thanks

duane

[WWNF911]

The best thing I've seen/ used when creating a beat track, especially when trying to create one for a very complicated track or portion that is very complicated is to select the empty track you intend to use as your beat track. You can do this by simply clicking on one of the cells in the track. Then hit the play button to start playback of the song and while the song is playing tap the spacebar. For complicated beat tracks or parts of the song that are complicated do the same thing but slow it down. You have several selections for doing this. Since you've select the track before hand you'll notice that as the song is playing and you're tapping the spacebar you are actually creating your beat track. With this method I've been able to successfully create a very acurate track no matted how complicated the passage.


Leon

[jnealand]

I also have a great deal of trouble trying to define a beat track myself.  I just have no musical sensitivity or knowledge.  My technique is to find a song that I like where I can download a shared sequence.  Then I can try to use the beat track some else did.  LOL.

Last year in trying to learn how to use smart string effects I created new sequence where I changed the effect every 20 secs.  Each 20 secs was different color, or chase timing or chase type, etc.   While I was watching it and other people watched everyone liked it so I just added a song I liked and added enough effects to go the length of the song.  Turned out great and I did not need a beat track.  This year I will be adding a small 7ft pixel tree and I do not see how I am going to use beats to sequence spirals, meteors, etc so I am going to create another non beat sequence to show off my tree and the smart string functionality.  I'm probably too old (70) to ever learn enough about music to be able to do a great sequence where everything is precisely on the beat, but I do appreciate those that I have seen and I am aware of how much effort goes into creating those sequences.  Those folks are awesome and the ones to learn from.

[hicksjo]

I've tried 3 different methods:

1) as jnealand mentioned, start with someone's completed sequence that they've shared, especially if they have shared their preview file as well, and you can pick out channels that follow different musical cues ... find one you like, and copy it to your sequence, then manipulate as needed ... keys to do this, make sure your timing is the same and you have the same version  of the song - this is fairly fast and less tedious, with pretty good accuracy (depending on who you copy)

2) listen to the song and hit a key to place marks on one or more channels for various cues (beats) in the music ... I usually have 3-5 different cue channels based on different instruments, etc in the songs ... copying and pasting, then modifying with fade in  /fade out, chase, etc. from these cue channels onto my actual light control channels.  This is the most time consuming and tedious, but if enough effort is put in, the results have been the best sequences in my opinion

3) i have also used the functionality in Vixen that analyzes the tone frequencies in the music and maps these to channels, and when a frequency is heard, it activates that corresponding channel.  I don't just use this as my sequence, but use the result of this mapping as my cue channels, from which I can make further modifications, etc ... basically just use this instead of manually going through the listen and key stroke entry beat track method.  Very fast method, but results not as good as other methods.

[mms]

What hicksojo said.

For intricate pieces I slow Vixen down too.  This will give you more accurate timing.  Unfortunately, there's nothing automatic about it.

For a first song I'd recommend starting with a shorter song so that you can find what works for you and you'll have a completed show sequence.

[zwiller]

Also, viewing the waveform should help.  In most songs the beat will often be clearly visible as a large transient spike.  Truthfully, I deliberately place cells that i want on just prior to the transient. I find that it looks better that way.  I am at 25ms.

If it weren't for the various versions and different settings of the user I would do beat tracks for you guys since this sort of thing clicks for me.

[duane.mosley]

if i try to slow vixen down and press the play tab in vixen, i get this message:  arithmetic operation resulted in overflow, when i close that box, this message appears: object reference not set to an instance of an object, operation has been stopped. i loaded a pre designed sequence, loaded the music from the same sequence, have it matched up to my profile, and i get the messages above when i try to play it back.

thanks
duane

[Gary]

Duane, have you tried a different song to see if they all crash when you try to slow down the music?


If I remember correctly, the Vixen Tutorial videos on YouTube shown how to put in a beat track the hard way... opening up the Sequence menu and choosing the Audio option, and using Ctrl to set up the beats. If you wanted to re-do the beat track of only a certain part of the song, it's a pain to find the right time to move the slider to as well. I also found that it was sometimes hard to get the timing right when a song is playing at full speed.

When I found the Space Bar trick (totally by accident) that others here have mentioned, it saved me so much time. I realized that you can slow down the music to make getting the timing easier and more accurate--a godsend if you're trying to get timing right on extremely fast songs.

Another useful tip that you may not know about is that if you highlight an area you want to play, and choose the "Play Only the Selected Range" option, and can turn on the "Loop This Sequence" option, you can play the same section over and over again to get the timing right in your head, and when your hand is ready, you can use the Space Bar.

I also noticed that once you've finished using the Space bar to get your timing in, if you keep playing the same loop over and over, you can do even more fine tuning by double clicking in each square with your mouse to turn it on or off. Very handy.

When I did my first ever sequence in Vixen, I was never very happy with my timing. As time went on and I discovered this new technique, not only was I able to do very accurate beat timings, I was able to hit individual song notes with great accuracy as well.

Here's an example with my arches:
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Here's an example with my light poles:
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The downside is that sequencing a song takes much longer. 

[chrisatpsu]

Ear to hand coordination is fairly Inaccurate as well. They have done tests where they take multiple people to time a runner crossing the finish line. As you can imagine the times were very different from each other. think of it as hitting a drum with a drumstick. Some people are very timid and afraid to hit the drum. They'll almost always be behind the beat. Some are very agressive and tend to rush and get ahead of the beat. And honestly some of us have no sense of timing and will be all over the place.