Weird timing issue on sequenced songs...

[walverson]

I am a newbie. This is my forayinto making a light show with LOR products. I have a 32 channel system and have sequnced 4 songs in MP3 format so far. I have definitely encountered the variable bit rate problem on 2 songs but was too far into the songs to try and resequence them with a constant bit rate version of the MP3 file. It obviousuly makes it hard since I find the waveform to be the most useful part in trying to pick out different parts of the song when sequencing, so I just go by the sound and the channel list lighting up as my guide.

Here is my issue. It takes awhile to create one of the sequences and I make sure to hit the beats dead on. I am sequencing in 10 second chunks or less and use the channel listed on the left hand side of the sequencing window as a guide to see how well I am hitting the beats(The channel lighting up feature when you are playing a song. I find this better than the animation). This translates well to when I view the actual lights being controlled. Everything is dead on then I play the whole song from beginning to end and the beginning starts out fine but by the end of the song the lights are slowly getting off beat. What is even more aggravating is if I play just a small section of the places that seem off in the long program, it is dead on when just playing a small section. It is just when I play the whole song that this issue occurs.

I haven't read all the forum postings yet, but the ones I have read all talk about using WAV files. Is this the only solution? Is there a way to salvage what I have without spending a lot of time? I don't have much left.

Any information is appreciated.

Thanks,

Warren

[Sthunder69]

The problem is still the variable bitrate mp3s, because the player doesn't start playing (mid-sequence) at a specific controllable point. So even when syncing by ear, the audio will still be off. Switch to a good audio file, open a new file, copy over the timings, resync the timings, then copy over your light controls.
S

[cmoore60]

Run your audio file through Audacity and export out as CBR 128. It should sync up with what you have.

Chuck

[DanCampbell]

I've been sequencing to wav files. I had a significant delay (1 to 2 seconds) starting play at any point in the song when using mp3's. Pretty sure they were encoded with CBR. And pretty distracting.

I switched to wav format early on, presuming they'd be less load on my old win2k machine, and easier for it to index to an exact point in time. It's worked great for me ever since. No timing goofs except ones I make myself.

So yet another thing you could try is use Audacity to export the song as a wav, go into the sequence editor's Media popup, change the path to the wav file, and see if the timing issues go away.

Hope this helps.

[walverson]

Thanks for the information. I thought that is what I would have to try. Hopefully it shouldn't take too long. I will let you know my results.



Thanks,

Warren

[walverson]

Well so far so good. The converted MP3 ==> WAV ==> MP3 seems to have fixed the issue of following the waveform correctly. I took a copy of my original sequence and mapped it to the new MP3 CBR file and the audio follows the waveform exactly. Now what I have it a lot of work readjusting most of the sequenced information to match the audio/waveform. Basically this is taking blocks of sequenced information and moving it back 1/2 a second, and then correcting for things I was off on due to my trying to sequence to sound as oppose to the visual waveform.

Thanks for the information.

[Sthunder69]

Glad you worked it out!
S