Getting beats into the sequence editor

[Guest guest]

Hi

I have been lurking here since January when I downloaded the demo sequence editor. I have always wanted to automate my Christmas display and recently took advantage of the LOR sale to purchase my first 64 channels. In the course of playing with the sequence editor I see how time consuming and difficult it is to add the beats correctly.

I have been reading the various ways people do it.

I just found this method and thought I would throw it out for all of you to comment on, while not fully automated it seems fairly easy and quick.

I used the Audacity free software to load my song. I did "select all" and ran the beat analyzer. While the beats aren't where I want my lights to change I am sure with some adjusting of the threshold I will get that right. If anyone has found a good setting for the threshold level in Audacity let me know.

After that I used the export labels command in Audacity. It outputs a text file with each beat and the time it occurred. This I printed using MS Word.

I added a beat channel to the sequence and then just went down the printout and added a "on" command at the right spots. It was fairly simple, as the time appears in a popup box as you move through the sequence.

[Guest guest]

Steve, that is a very interesting way of adding the beats and I look forward to hearing more details about it as you progress. I'm somewhat intrigued by your method, we do have audacity on our computer and I may give it a try.

Call me old fashioned, but I use the tapper wizard to add my beats as thus far I'm technologically behind the curve.

[Guest guest]

I have Adobe Audition (is it the pay version of audacity??)

What I try to do is use the tapper just to tap out the 1/2 notes. No fast tapping required. I use the timing in Audition to check my 1/2s and make sure they are accurate.

Then I go in and add 3 intervals to each 1/2 note-effectively giving me 16th note grids.