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How do you sequence your songs!


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Posted

When you guys are doing your sequencing to music that has vocals, where do you get the beat from the actual beat or the vocals. When I do one with the tapper I always end up with the vocals.

Talk about being musically challenged:(



Thanks

Roman


Also do you usually do one channel at a time and then go on to the next channel.

Posted

What I do is assign the 0.1 timing all accross the sequence. Then I go into tools, tapper wizard and tap out each beat, vocal, instrument that I want to focus upon as a "make a particular channel turn briefly on, then turn off, when a tap occurs". I will repeat this process until I have as much complexity in the sequence as I can stand. And if I happen to deviate from vocals to beat, I will either redo the tapper wizard, or fix the switch while sequencing while listening to the song at half speed.

I also reassign the Input option to Mouse Down and Mouse Up as a single tap. It keeps me from having to remember when to release the tap.


Good Luck

Posted

ANSWER: I make several fake channels at the top to make markings in that aren't tied to any channel. Then, if there are major vocal beats along with major drum beats, I'd map them both in their own fake channels up above. Likely, thoughout the song, I'd coordinate to the drum beat, but there would be sections where I would sync to the vocals.

Also, if I use the tapper or not, I always go in any hand-tweak my timings at 1/2 speed, bit by bit, to make sure everything is spot on perfect. Dealing with bad timings costs time and effort later.

Posted

[align=left]I started out the easy way, being musically challenged myself. My experience has told me to sequence to the beat regardless of the vocals, with a few exceptions where you want to make a real punch.[/align]
Using the tapper, my first song was Jingle Bells by the Trans Siberian Orchestra. From a sequencing standpoint, this song is plain vanilla. No vocals to distract, clear beats and the length of song short. This is a great beginner song.

Next was Faith Hill - Winter Wonderland, clear beat, vocals easy to separate from the beats.

Later on with some experience in sequencing under my belt, I sequenced Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You. This was a challenge, but also the song I’m most proud of for its impact and attention getting ability. The song is a very long song (4 Mins), vocals occasionally wonder far from the beat and beats that fade way into the background where they are very hard to hear. On this song I came back to it perhaps a dozen times (on different days) to pump up the special effects and impact. These upgrades made the "WOW rating" skyrocket.

I will again be glad to make the same offer that was previously made to all PC members. Based on my 'beginner" experiences, I have prepared an 8 page Beginners Guide in MS Word. It is designed to assist the enthusiast who just received their first LOR controllers trying to get their feet on the ground. I will be glad to provide it free just for the asking. Send me an email at ggregzim@yahoo.com

Posted

Well, for example, Bing Crosby dosn't follow the beat of the music. So, you have two beats to deal with, the instrumental part and the vocal part. He also drags out his notes. I choose to follow the instrumental beat for the instruments and the vocal beat (which varies, I might add, from verse to verse, word to word) for the vocal portions of the music. His 'crouning' is great for the flicker function. In such cases, I try to 'tap' on any major down-beat and later fill in with 'Insert Mulitple Events," the number you think you need to fill the space, tunring lights on and off as the notes very in intensity. The down-beat timing marks in the Edit mode, can adjust if you don't hit them directly-on in the tap mode. Do the best you can. You don't have to be 100% accurate. It will all come together. If you spend more than an hour or so per song (3 minutes), you are spending too much time. My first musical sequence took 8 hours.

Sneaking home with a church hymnal might help. Don't get caught!

Posted

Roman A. Gurule Jr. wrote:

When you guys are doing your sequencing to music that has vocals, where do you get the beat from the actual beat or the vocals. When I do one with the tapper I always end up with the vocals.


Also do you usually do one channel at a time and then go on to the next channel.


Hey Roman,

Here is an example video using vocals. When doing a sequence you mostly want to focus on the main beats/sounds. In other words the sounds that stick out the most. The smaller a display the more you want to focus on the main sound and less on the background sounds. As your display gets bigger you can use more sounds that overlap, otherwise (in a smaller display) it will look like chaos. Vocals are good to use especially when you got repetitive beats and you need a change.

http://christmaslightshow.com/lorvideo/Christmas_5.wmv

Posted

I found the best way so far to sequence my shows is just listening to it and manually putting a Time Code Channel in to mark the points of interest...

Posted

I use either .10 or .05 depending on the speed of the song. With .05 you can hit just about anything you want. I have a few that are even faster but not too many as it is hard on the eyes!

Mostly I will go through and do the vocals first then go back and fill in with the main beats and then go back and do the other music.

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