Playing Audio while Sequencing

[TitanBry77]

Ok, am I missing something or is this not possible. When I've done some video editing in various software, you are able to "scrub" back and forth as you work on sections.

Is this doable in the LOR software? I can't believe I have to stop and start from the begining everytime. No way to scroll back and forth through the music and try to match up to my different channels?

I've got a few sequences that I downloaded and fit to my display, now I'm doing one from scratch and it's proving very frustrating.

Any help/tips/tricks much appreciated.

[Caleb Linburg]

not sure if it is what you want. if you go to PLAY, PLAY Range, From selection. this will allow you to strt listening where you want.

[TitanBry77]

Thanks, I think I just figured out what I wanted. I found that if you are up in the yellow bar where it has the time numbers, you can click and drag to make a selection, then if you hit the "Space bar" it will play just that portion.

Any other tips are appreciated too! Thanks

[LORi P]

I also use the 'visible screen' play range a lot.

You can find more sequencing tips and tricks here:
http://forums.lightorama.com/forum80/26004.html

Good Luck!

[TitanBry77]

Thanks Lori! I am noticing something weird though. When I select a time frame, and then pick say a loud, boom in that part of the song, I'll select all the cells in that range, and set them to "On" so to get an effect like the big boom in the song, all the lights "On"

Then when I play the song from the begining, the timing is off, all the lights aren't "On" at the boom. But, if I highlight the selection again and play that, it seems to be in sync?

[Guest wbottomley]

TitanBry77 wrote:

Ok, am I missing something or is this not possible. When I've done some video editing in various software, you are able to "scrub" back and forth as you work on sections.

Is this doable in the LOR software? I can't believe I have to stop and start from the begining everytime. No way to scroll back and forth through the music and try to match up to my different channels?

I've got a few sequences that I downloaded and fit to my display, now I'm doing one from scratch and it's proving very frustrating.

Any help/tips/tricks much appreciated.

No scrubbing in LOR software. Though it would be nice. I use that feature quite a bit editing news stories.

[TitanBry77]

Thanks William, btw, your show is awesome! I followed it on the live web feed.

Yes scrubbing would be great, I used to use it when I did some video editing (for fun, not professionally)

I don't know why it gets out of sync when you zoom in to a section. Maybe the wave view isn't very accurate, but I find it hard to believe that it is 2 seconds off. I wasn't sure if it was LOR or my computer so I opened the song in a WAV editor that I know is accurate, and the first "boom" was at 2.92 seconds, on LOR it was showing up at 4.25. hmmmm

[Guest guest]

TitanBry77 wrote:

Thanks Lori! I am noticing something weird though. When I select a time frame, and then pick say a loud, boom in that part of the song, I'll select all the cells in that range, and set them to "On" so to get an effect like the big boom in the song, all the lights "On"

Then when I play the song from the begining, the timing is off, all the lights aren't "On" at the boom. But, if I highlight the selection again and play that, it seems to be in sync?

Try this before just highlighting the area of your boom. Play the sequence from the beginning using your space bar to start/stop as it progresses. Watch the other areas of the sequence, if you're using "tracks" this could be the problem, I've ran into this on several sequences I've done.

I would highlight the area I want a specific option, fade, twinkle to be in (this using TRACKS) and would want this effect in ALL TRACKS at the same area.

So I turn on the effect across all the blocks/cells I want the effect.

Now I copy that line and paste it into other rows in the same track since all cells in each row have the same effect.

Now I have the arrow clicked in the tool bar that just allows me to move around in the sequence and not put anything in a cell except when I paste what I'm copying.

So I highlight a vertical row and line it up with the next track and paste the sequence effect into those cells using the multiple paste command if more than one row is being placed.

Then I go to the next track by following the highlighted row all the way down to the last track I'm going to use this particular effect in.

Now I play the song, and I can see two tracks at the same time, here comes the effect I pasted in the first track, but, the second track IS NOT at the same location, it is moved off to the right of it, sometimes by as much as 5-20 seconds or more!

So now I will highlight each track to be sure I am at the correct part of the song as it still seems tracks move independantly of each other in the SE, which can cause this, which then causes a lot of clean up issues, if you have saved it you can't UNDO it, that's the only real complaint I have with the software, why is it once you save the file you can no longer UNDO what you did, so now I never save a sequence until I know all my effects are where I want them in each track and in the correct cells. All my other software I use I can UNDO anything, even after I save it, but LOR SE won't allow it once the sequence has been saved, only way to go back is to exit the SE, delete the .lms file and rename the lms.bak file to that sequence name and reload and redo, which isn't what you really want to do if you just saved a bunch of new changes that were made that worked prior to this one area.

It's a pain in the butt, yes, but it's the only way to make sure you have your effect in the proper placement in the sequence I've found, again, this is only if using tracks, if you're using just a single track with all channels, then I don't know why you'd be off like that. As when I did it that way everything always lined up perfectly, but seperate tracks does tend to create this issue when editing sequences.

[George Simmons]

TitanBry77 wrote:

Then when I play the song from the begining, the timing is off, all the lights aren't "On" at the boom. But, if I highlight the selection again and play that, it seems to be in sync?

Are you using a variable bit rate mp3? That would cause exactly what you describe. If you are, use an audio converter (like Audacity) to convert it into a constant bit rate (128 is what LOR prefers). Or convert to a .wav file.

[Nurples]

make sure your song has a constant bit rate. If it has a variable bit rate, it can cause this issue too I believe... You can search the forms for a lot of info on changing the bit rate of your songs using free software.

EDIT: looks like George beat me to it

[TitanBry77]

Thanks for all that info Orville.

I seem to have isolated it down. I don't think I am using tracks because all I have is one song, and I went to File < New Musical Sequence and loaded up my mp3.

If I play the song normal just using the Play button and the option is "Play entire Sequence" it matches up perfect.

If I stop it either by the button or Space bar, and scroll back some, and hit Play again, it's off by a couple of seconds. Even though it is in fact in the right place, scrolling back and playing again throws it off.

If I start it over from the begining using "Play entire Sequence" it gets back in to sync??

[TitanBry77]

Ok guys, I am going to convert it, in my search I saw something about that, I will report back with my findings.

[TitanBry77]

Bingo! Converted to WAV, scrolling back and forth so far, messing with selections it seems to be spot on no matter how I play it, either by "visible screen" range etc.

Wow, I was going bananas! It seems as WAV also I am able to get more accurate in general.

[George Simmons]

You're on your way to a happier life. Enjoy!