Long gaps between songs in show

[LORi P]

Help!

I have three musical sequences in my show right now, so I set up a show with all three of them in it.

I am using S2.

At first I had 'Turn used lights off at the end of each sequence.' checked. But there was a long gap (about 10 seconds) between each song with no lights on. 10 seconds is long enough to make you wonder if they are going to come back on.

So I made sure to leave some lights on at the end of each sequence, and the same lights on at the beginning of each sequence, so that there would be some lights on all the time between sequences. And then made a new show where I have 'Turn used lights off at the end of each sequence' unchecked. I was hoping that this would make some lights stay on the whole time between sequences.

Wrong. Now the lights I left on at the end of the sequences, abruptly shut off when the sequence ends. All lights are off for the 10 second gap. Then the next sequence starts.

I have the 'Delay in seconds' set to 0.

My friends keep telling me the delay is too long, and that I need to shorten it because you can drive all the way by in between songs and not even know I have and animated display.

I cannot figure out how to make the gap go away, or at least really leave the lights on that were on at the end of the last sequence.

Please help!

I think someone on the forum had the opposite problem the other day, of having the songs all running too close together. I wish that was my problem.

[LORi P]

Grrrrrrr........

My show just ended for the night. And low and behold.... the lights I left on at the end of each sequence stayed ON. Why won't they do that after the sequences play during the show??!?!!!?

$5 to the first person who can solve my dilemma....

[Guest guest]

LORi P wrote:

Grrrrrrr........

My show just ended for the night. And low and behold.... the lights I left on at the end of each sequence stayed ON. Why won't they do that after the sequences play during the show??!?!!!?

$5 to the first person who can solve my dilemma....

Okay LORi,

Here's what works for me and it should work for anyone, if the gap is too long and the song has a long pause at the end, I go into the Sequence Editor and change the the total time of the sequence.



For example say you sequence is 3:00.00 long, but the actual song and lights end at 2:45.10, so I go to "Edit", then click on "Change Total Time and see where the song actually ends or where it fades out to the point you can't hear anything, once I find that spot in the end of the sequence I change the time length, so in this example I'd change the time to 2:45.15, possibly 2:45.20 at most. This way I have an almost, but not quite, immediate flow from one song into the next.

I try and use a .10, .15 up to a .20 gap at the end of the sequence that is just barely past where the lights have faded or turned off. Most often I use the .10 and that give just enough rendition to to shut off the lights, then start the next sequence before anyone driving by gets from one end of the house to the other end.

Hope this helps and works out for you. I've been using this technique for 2 years with great success, just enough of a gap to discern each song in the show from each other, but not long enough that someone driving by would miss the display!

Good Luck and let me know if it works out for you if you try this technique.

[LORi P]

Orville wrote:

Good Luck and let me know if it works out for you if you try this technique.

Thanks for the response Orville. I appreciate your suggestion.

My sequences are already begin and end within a very close time to the actual start/stop of the music and fade in/fade out of the lights. There is nothing left to trim off.

What really puzzles me, is that I edited my songs to night to have lights on at 70% intensity on a few elements right up to the very end of the sequences. And vice versa... the same few elements come on at 70% intensity at the very beginning of all my sequences. I was expecting that the 'gap' would not show up because I had lights on at the very end of one sequence and on at the very beginning of the next sequence.

Nope. The 70% lights shut off abruptly at the end of one sequence... everything remains off for about 10 seconds, the the 70% lights come on abruptly when the next sequence starts.

I have the 'delay' set to 0 seconds in the show builder and also have 'Turn used lights off at the end of each sequence' unchecked.

So the $5 'prize' is still available to anyone who can solve this problem.

[George Simmons]

Sounds to me like your gap might be related to the load time of the next sequence. How old is your PC? Does it take the Sequence Editor as long to load a sequence as it does the Show Player. (If you have a slow PC and trim the beginning of your sequence too close you might add to your problem by missing a few lighting commands when the song begins.)

Do you loop your shows? If so, in the successive play-throughs of the show the delay between sequences should be all but gone.

NOTE: S3 allows the use of compressed sequences which load almost instantly even the first time through a show.

[Ken Benedict]

You might check your computer to see if there's anything running in the background that could cause a delay; wifi, virus scanners, auto-indexing, auto-defragging, etc.

Also see if you have a short spin-down value for your hard drive; it might be spinning down after no activity on the keyboard for a while, and had to spin back up to get the next sequence in the show.

Just some random thoughts that might be related. Keep us posted.

[Guest guest]

I think you may find you can trim a lot more off than you think at the end. Now I also trim the beginning silence off my MP3 files using a music editor as well. So if it's the beginning of the song creating the problem, you may want to edit the music file and trim that excess beginning silence down as well.

It's the only other thing I can tell you to solve your problem. Too me it still sounds like the sequence is longer than the lights fading up/down or turning on/off either from the beginning, the end, or both.

I thought I didn't have enough "space" to shave my sequences down either, but I started experimenting with that and found I could sometime shave off in some cases, more than 1-2 minutes of the end of the song because it was at such a low level it wasn't discernable to the human ear. So I changed the total time and, like said earlier, it has worked well for me for 2 years now.

Maybe you should take a closer look at the waveform in full height and see if you could actually shave the time down more than you think possible.

[Ken Benedict]

A little far-fetched, but if you're using a Karaoke version of a song, the first 6-10 seconds is data for the Karaoke machine, but silence for most players.

As detailed above, edit the front of the waveform.

Happens in theatre all the time when dance groups bring in a karaoke CD.

One of my shows uses an old laptop with XP and there's no more than one second gap between sequences. 192 channels.

[George Simmons]

Yo - Lori P - did you get this figured out yet?

[LORi P]

Hi George-

Thanks for asking. I am still working on this. Last night I wrote up a big reply, but deleted it accidently. I was frustrated so I went to bed. Forgive me if my answers are a little curt. I am typing this on my phone and I am still tired and frustrated form yesterday.

Computer: dell laptop that is 9-11 yrs old. 2 ghz processor. 640 mb ram. I thought 'any old' computer was good enough to run a show. I have not yet tried my 'newer' laptop (4 years old). I followed Ken's advice and disabled wifi card and virus scanner. Nothing else is running on the computer now.

I do not know how to check spin-down speed. I looked in system settings device mgr and did not see anything like that. In performance options, I changed to give programs (rather than OS) priority for both using the processor and memory. Neither disabling wifi and virus scanner nor changing perf options made an improvement.

I edit my mp3s in audacity to make them shorter so I don't have to do so much sequencing (because I am slow). 4 minute songs are too long for me, but I can handle 2 minute songs....

I have 3 sequences. There is NO excess to trim. I purposely trimmed them close when editing the songs to begin with because I did not want a bunch of dead space. One song is 1:51 with 0.55 and 0.2 sec at beginning and end inaudible. Another is 1:55 with 0.6 and 1.5 sec at beg. & end inaudible. The third is 2:30 with 0.35 and 0.8 inaud. I do NOT want to trim them any more. I use that time for fades and have fades that are already rushed because I did not leave enough room at beg and end of songs to do fades I wanted. And in one song I am missing the first couple of commands.... apparantly because my computer is slow and sequence starts too close to the beginning of the song (as I learned from your previos post). Anyway... I am not going to trim my songs and sequences. They are not the source of the 10 second gaps between songs.

My show just has 3 songs that loop continously for 4 hours. Until this weekend. No start-up, no animation, no interactive, no shutdown. Just 3 musical sequences that play in order; 0 sec delay; no clean-up seq. About as simple as you can get.

I tried setting the delay to 0.01 sec in case there was some bug affecting '0'

This weekend I added a background sequence that leaves some deer on all the time because people were leaving during the gap when it was completely dark. If the show cam back on before they had driven away - they would stop again... but still... Even with the deer on the whole time, ppl still leave. I onyl have about 3-5 cars an hour - I definitely don't need to encourage ppl to move along to clear traffic congestion. Adding the background sequence did not change the gaps (neither shorten or lengthen).

I used to load the songs the first time they were used... according to the log:
load song 1 took 16 sec, then played song 1
load song 2 took 16 sec, then played song 2
load song 3 took 17 seconds, then played song three.

Each of the songs then plays in a loop wihtout repeating the loads. I changed the show setting to load all the songs before playing any of them... but that did nto solve the gap issue - I did not think it would - but it does not hurt to try.

Thanks for sticking with me through this....

Lori

[George Simmons]

Trimming your sequences isn't the answer. The 640 RAM is a far more likely culprit. There might not be anything you can do. After the first time through the sequences, they should load much faster as the show loops. If you're running only one show in a continuous loop I don't know of anything else that I can tell you that will speed things up. Try the laptop.

[LORi P]

Thanks, George - I hate to tie up my 'good' laptop running the show - but if it solves the gap problem, I might have to. I have to work late this week, so I will probably not be able to try the other computer for a few days...

Thanks for sticking with me.... LORi

[George Simmons]

What does the log show for end time and start time of the next sequence after the show has started looping?

[Ken Benedict]

Lori P - Find your screen saver settings; use a plain non-animated screen and check when your computer goes to sleep, when the display blanks and when the hard drive gets turned off.

Set them to Never or Forever.

You may also have a small swap file that's working itself to death.

Find some computer savvy folks nearby that can look at it.
Sometimes office supply stores like Staples have a computer department that can look at it.

[LORi P]

George Simmons wrote:

Trimming your sequences isn't the answer. The 640 RAM is a far more likely culprit. There might not be anything you can do. After the first time through the sequences, they should load much faster as the show loops. If you're running only one show in a continuous loop I don't know of anything else that I can tell you that will speed things up. Try the laptop.

I am afraid you are right, sir....

The good news is I hooked up my 'good' laptop tonight and the gaps are gone.

The bad news is that my good computer is in the garage running the show and I am having to use the ratty old laptop. It is good enough for the forum, though!

Did I happen to mention the gaps are gone? Yippee!!!!!!

Thanks to all who helped me sort this out.

[George Simmons]

I could've swore I saw something somewhere about a reward...

[LORi P]

George Simmons wrote:

I could've swore I saw something somewhere about a reward...

You are absolutely right! If you send me 4.95 for shipping, I'll get a crisp new Lincoln right out to you!

Actually, if you PM me your email address, I'll send you and Amazon Gift Card so you can buy 5 new songs or something... or if you prefer, I could send $ via PayPal or snail mail. Don't let anyone tell you I won't stand by my promises.

Believe me, it is worth it to me... this is my first year and I get so excited every time I see a car.... and yesterday a woman that I used to work with said that she and her husband drove by one night and that the lights were off... :shock: :shock:
Sometimes the gap was as long as 15 seconds, but usually somewhere around 10 seconds.... long enough for people to miss it.