Timing grids and use

[pixeldigger]

I see so many posts here about using .10 timing or some other amount.
This always interests me, because the primary reason I went with LOR instead of a DIY solution is because you can use ANY timings you want.
I use vixen for part of my show, with DIY equipment, but limit it to animations and other parts of the show not synched to music, because you can't actually time it properly. You are stuck with a constant period grid.

With LOR, I use the tapper, and tap out the HALF NOTES in the song. Then I go back to each beat and insert multiple timings>7 for each half note space. I now have a grid of sixteenth notes, and every timing is exactly on the note in the music (if I tapped well enough) There is no need for extra timing tracks or anything else, unless you have a lot of triplets in the song.
To have a visual BEAT track with this method, just select the first cell, then skip 3, and select the 4th cell. Now copy this and paste multiple to the end. any changes in tempo in the song are still correct on the beat, because you tapped them out to begin with.

I found that if you try to tap 1/4 or 1/8 notes, you will generally lag in places, but most anyone can tap out 1/2 notes!

anyone want to weigh in?

[joneslights]

pixeldigger wrote:

I use vixen for part of my show, with DIY equipment, but limit it to animations and other parts of the show not synched to music, because you can't actually time it properly. You are stuck with a constant period grid.

So how do you combine the two. Been looking at vixen (because of the custom hardware)

[pixeldigger]

I use Vixen for things like my "toy Factory" and any other elemnets that are constant, and not sequenced to the music.
Many have background sequences in LOR, I use DIY hardware and Vixen for these.

There is a "trigger" plugin for Vixen, where I can send a signal from LOR using my DIO card to the paralell port of the Vixen PC, triggering a differentsequence as well.

[basis21b]

This year, after reading Marty Slack's tutorial, I did a number of songs where I tapped out only the first beat in the measure. I would align the beat to the wave form and then I would add multiple events to evenly divide the 'measures'.

Last year I had attempted to sequence a particular song. I set the timings at .05 seconds and only had the first few seconds done after an hour of work. I ended up abandoning it because I ran out of time. Using this approach I was able to start from scratch and within an hour I had all of the drum riffs sequenced. Anytime there was a repeated portion of the song I was able to just copy and paste.

I won't say this approach will work for everyone but it worked very well for me. I suspect that eight years of music training in my youth might have helped a bit too

Tom B (The other one)

[mcdeo]

So far, for me, I think there are options that work for different situations.

I tried the Beat Wizard for a song, fast tempo, it didn't seem to line up well and I was constantly making adjustments. Stopped that after an hour or so, then I tried the .02 setting. Someone suggested that for faster songs. I completed then entire song in about an hour! Was very surprised it went so fast.

I did another song, slower beat, used the beat wizard, all works really well! Have little to no issues. But it was a very straight forward, 140ish beats per minute song, no tempo changes.

So I think both options work for specific cases.

My 2 cents on 1/8 notes vs. time. Unless you're dealing with a specific 120 beats per minute (Sousa March or something) or Ballad at 90 beats a minute, dividing seconds into a straight number won't necessarily be better. I can see why the .10 and .05 recommendations are valid from veterans. They've done it, they should know.

[pixeldigger]

mcdeo wrote:

So far, for me, I think there are options that work for different situations.

I tried the Beat Wizard for a song, fast tempo, it didn't seem to line up well and I was constantly making adjustments. Stopped that after an hour or so, then I tried the .02 setting. Someone suggested that for faster songs. I completed then entire song in about an hour! Was very surprised it went so fast.

I did another song, slower beat, used the beat wizard, all works really well! Have little to no issues. But it was a very straight forward, 140ish beats per minute song, no tempo changes.

So I think both options work for specific cases.

My 2 cents on 1/8 notes vs. time. Unless you're dealing with a specific 120 beats per minute (Sousa March or something) or Ballad at 90 beats a minute, dividing seconds into a straight number won't necessarily be better. I can see why the .10 and .05 recommendations are valid from veterans. They've done it, they should know.

I'm not sure you understand what I'm doing. For a song with a constant unchanging beat, the beat wizard works well. for any other, a constant .05 or .10 secong grid means your grid does not match the music, and you will have "extra" grids every so often.
My point is that the 1/8 notes are in time to the SONG, not the clock. I'm not dividing seconds into 1/8 notes. I'm timing the 1/8 notes to the music. Asa musician I don't understand why, if I'm synching things to music, would I have timing NOT in synch with the music.
the timing I use end up looking something like
.9 .9 .9 .10 .9 .9 .9 .10 .9 .9 .9 .10
If I had tapped on top of a .10 grid, I'd have timings all over the place, or else, I would "lose" a beat every second and a 1/2.