Audio Scrubbing while sequencing

[Timon]

Please LOR please can you add audio scrubbing when editing?

For those that don't know what audio scrubbing is here is one definition:

"The process of moving within an audio file or tape to locate a particular section. The term originally comes from the days of reel-to-reel players, when rocking a reel would give the impression of scrubbing tape across the head. Many audio scrub tools today allow the user to drag a cursor across the wave form to audition different sections of an audio file."

Why, because it really makes it MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to locate the exact spot you need to set a lighting action to. This is REALLY helpful when working with singing and talking heads. Finding that exact spot without having to constantly move the reference point then hit play, then move it again, hit play, you get the point.

It's really not that hard to add scrubbing if you put your mind to it.

Now if you don't think it's needed please tell us why.

So again LOR Please add audio scrubbing to S3 ASAP and not wait for S4.

Thanks

John

[Guest wbottomley]

As they say... send your wish to wishlist@lightorama.com

[Timon]

That's find and been done but bringing it up here allows it to be discussed.

[Guest wbottomley]

We've been asking for a while. Hopefully it will make its way into the program.

[Timon]

So everyone make a lot of noise here and maybe they'll assign a junior programmer to put it in. This can't take that long as it's not that hard of a programming assignment. I'd also rather see that come out in the next few weeks as now is the time we need it rather than something we could wait a couple of extra weeks for that's not a part of sequencing.

IMHO

[Guest wbottomley]

Timon wrote:

So everyone make a lot of noise here and maybe they'll assign a junior programmer to put it in. This can't take that long as it's not that hard of a programming assignment. I'd also rather see that come out in the next few weeks as now is the time we need it rather than something we could wait a couple of extra weeks for that's not a part of sequencing.

IMHO

Hold your breath.

[Guest Don Gillespie]

Timon wrote:

So they'll assign a junior programmer to put it in. This can't take that long as it's not that hard of a programming assignment.

Are you offering to be the junior programmer to get things underway

[htebault]

This function would REALLY make finding our mark so much easier. I'd used this on other audio tools, but did not know it was called scrubbing.
I also used to edit audio tape - and still have a Revox B77 machine here - so rocking the tape to find your sound location is REALLY helpful.
In the GUI having the ability to place a vertical line across all rows - then move it with the mouse, or left/right arrows works. As it moves, the sound track is played back and the vertical line moves.
In an aside - having the ability to add "markers", small triangle shapes, at selected points (rt mouse button) on the soundtrack window (when displayed) would be helpful to indicate the start, high point, low point, end of a chosen sound element.

[Timon]

I think the main issue is that if you've not used scrubbing you don't realize how really useful it is. This is why I think LOR has not put it in, they've never used the feature to know how useful it is.

To me it's something I expect in any program that either edits audio/video or allows you to sync something to audio/video to have. Maybe it's because I had it when I was and engineer on a college radio station. You scrubbed audio all the time when editing. It's no different editing a lighting sequence except your not changing the audio just the lights.

Bottom line, Once a audio scrubber always an audio scrubber.

[George Simmons]

Personally, I've never done any audio scrubbing so I clearly don't know what I'm missing.

But having said that, I've been able to use the existing tools that are and have been available in both S2 and S3 to pretty easily and accurately find the exact spot for lighting commands. I'm not sure how much easier it could be.

[LightORamaDan]

It is on our list but will not be available in the short term.

I generally highlight a short area on the time line and have repeat at end set. Then when it plays i get a good fell for where things go. Works well for me. Also i will do the same thing with the wave form in a look, listen and watch the wave form. After a couple loops I know exactly where I want to put the marks.

Dan

[htebault]

LightORamaDan wrote:

It is on our list but will not be available in the short term.

I generally highlight a short area on the time line and have repeat at end set. Then when it plays i get a good fell for where things go. Works well for me. Also i will do the same thing with the wave form in a look, listen and watch the wave form. After a couple loops I know exactly where I want to put the marks.

Dan

That is exactly how I have learned to use LOR and it does work for me as well. I would encourage your reconsideration of the scrubbing function - it would be a great improvement and reduce the time to sequence quite a bit.
What I really appreciate here is that LOR does listen and so many LOR users share so freely of their experience and passion. Thanks.

[Guest guest]

LightORamaDan wrote:

It is on our list but will not be available in the short term.

I generally highlight a short area on the time line and have repeat at end set. Then when it plays i get a good fell for where things go. Works well for me. Also i will do the same thing with the wave form in a look, listen and watch the wave form. After a couple loops I know exactly where I want to put the marks.

Dan

Yep, exactly how I do it too.

I always thought that was pretty darn close to audio scrubbing because you can highlight the area for the area you're working on, and I've been able to do that pretty precisely too, using the above technique that Dan describes.

So personally I don't really see a use for another tool, when there is one that works very well, and what I always considered just about the same thing as an audio scrub tool, I know it is not exactly the same thing, but it's darn close.

[JoeKinne]

I always have the wave form up and will play that section and get my points from that. a true scrubber would be nice but I am making due very well at this point.

[CLD Kevin]

I think why Timon, aka John is asking for the scrubbing...please correct me if I’m wrong...is to pick the exact locations for the words in a song. The current method and tools Dan and others suggested I use too and is easy to mark the beats of the song. I’m guessing John is trying to narrow that down ever more for the actual words being sung in the song. Those are very hard to pinpoint when they are not part of the beat and don’t show up on the waveform. Being able to ”moving within an audio file or tape to locate a particular section” would be helpful in this aspect.


Kevin

[Guest guest]

CLD Kevin wrote:

I think why Timon, aka John is asking for the scrubbing...please correct me if I’m wrong...is to pick the exact locations for the words in a song. The current method and tools Dan and others suggested I use too and is easy to mark the beats of the song. I’m guessing John is trying to narrow that down ever more for the actual words being sung in the song. Those are very hard to pinpoint when they are not part of the beat and don’t show up on the waveform. Being able to ”moving within an audio file or tape to locate a particular section” would be helpful in this aspect.


Kevin

I do a lot of "animation" to words being sung in a song using the same technique Dan had described previously, when I'm doing the actual singing of the song, I now use a .05 timing grid, highlight the section of the song, use the repeat play option, and use the space bar to stop/start the highlighted area. It works very well and I can pretty much pinpoint where a word starts and ends. Creating the actual effect to emulate the word using nothing but lights {not like you and others with mouth movements, but blowmolds or single strand wire frames, like my WF Skulls}, anyway, I can still emulate the words pretty accurately using that method.

I've almost got it down to a science now, and the lights are close enough to the words, it's not at all very noticable if you're off by a fraction or so.

You can see the effects of how I use this method in this video:

https://vimeo.com/groups/109696/videos/43373090

May not be the best song or best video, but it shows how the lights have been sequenced to emulate the words being sung in a song uitilizing the method Dan describes. And I think it works pretty darn good for what it is.

[gizmomkr]

As an old video editor - Scrubbing would really help count my vote in.

I'll just add - one very frustrating part of "send your idea to wishlist" or even a post - You only get a following if other understant the idea your pitching.

You might have a really great idea, but if you cant explain and convince the general user base how great it is - its never going to see the light of day.

Scrubbing is just a great example of this because if you know what it is, youd probably favor the idea, if you dont know what it is, you have made do, dont care, and will never know what it could have been.

I dont have a perfect answer... im just saying....

[htebault]

I will risk adding a note. In a GUI, there are many variations of what is "right", many ways to do things. As has been correctly pointed out, LOR has the ability to work with a small range, and using that run it again and again to zero in on that trigger you want to choose.
Scrubbing would place a 1 handle point that you could use the mouse - "hold" onto the scrub-line, and move it back an forth directly to find the point. For me, it takes several fewer key strokes and my time to find/mark the point I want. That is all I am pointing out in supporting the feature request of adding scrubbing to LOR. It is not a dis of the existing method, only an encouraging suggestion that there is a potentially easier way to do the work.

[jerrymac]

Having used audio scrubbing in LSP, I would have to agree that it is a great tool. I use the wave form in LOR all the time but have found one of the weakness's is that it displays amplitude and specific pieces get lost in the beat and instramental. Scrubbing would really help and/or audio filtering by frequency.

[Timon]

I think what I have been reading proves my point. If you've never use audio scrubbing you don't see it as being useful or care if it's added. If you have used audio scrubbing then you feel that it really needs to be added to the product and wonder why it hasn't been added yet. I'll bet that you could take anyone that posted in this topic who has said it's no big deal and let them work with scrubbing for a few days and you'd find they would come over to the "It's needed" camp.

So I believe that LOR has not added it because no one that's working on S3 has ever used audio scrubbing so they don't see the benefit. I really believe that if someone who is working on S3 had come from an environment that use audio scrubbing we would have seen this feature added long ago.

Personally I think they could find the very few hours it would take to add it to S3. I'm still surprised that once LSP had it early on LOR would have added it but then what do I know.

My bet, we won't see it till next year at the earliest nd by then I may have switched to HLS.