Longer Audacity timing marks ? If that makes sense

[chadowamsley]

Hello,

Im still new to using Audacity for timing marks and to Xlights. Im trying to play around with the software before purchasing pixels for 2015. I open Its the Most Wonderful Time of the Year in Audacity and then create my timing marks. I use a few different plugins to get different timing marks, but wondering if there was a way to adjust when creating timing marks.

When I create my timing marks, a lot of short timing marks are created which makes it hard when trying to add effects. If I was able to create less timing marks so that I can keep an effect up longer or able to sequence better is what Im wondering. I try to delete a timing marks from Xlights, but then I just have nothing there. The marks I do have are around a half second long which I think is way to fast for what Im looking to do with my tree.

Hopefully what I have wrote kinda makes sense to somebody.

Thank you

[flyinverted]

I use the Bar and Beat Finder:Bars plugin.   Set the count to 4 beats per bar.  You should get ~ 60 marks per 2 min song, depending on tempo.

That is a good starting point for most songs.  From there, if you need to add timing marks, just do the math to get the quarter note/8th note timings.

Good luck!
-Steve

[danj]

Chad:
Here is the xml file I did late last year for "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (Andy Williams' version by the way).   I agree with your thought process to have "longer" timing marks.  What I have been doing since last fall is to set timing marks either manually with xltap or using one of the Audacity plugins, autogenerate effects, then see what it looks like with the autogenerated effects.   Most of the time I end up putting "space" between a lot of the timing marks, then most of the time I delete a lot of the timing marks so the sequence is not so busy.  I hope this helps.

[chadowamsley]

Thank you for the replies, and I will try some of those suggestions.

I just seen a post from Sean at DIYC about V4. Looks like that version will have what Im hoping for as far as being able to adjust timing marks. I seen that you will be able to move timing marks around, and hopefully, be able to expand an effect to last longer. Then I can just delete timing marks and expand effect if I want it to last longer.

I guess expanding the time an effect is displayed is what Im looking for instead of longer timing marks.

[jnealand]

An effect keeps playing until another effect takes over for that particular model.  That could encompass multiple timing marks without limit all the way to the end of the sequence.

[sean]

an effect keeps playing is an xl3 concept, xl4 will not need this.
xl3 only had start timng
xl4 has start and ending timing.

sample snippet from new xml file from XL4
<ElementEffects>
<Element type='model' name = "Whole House">
   <Effect id="1" Protected="0" startTime="  0.000" endTime="  0.100">Off,Off,Effect 1,IT_CHECKBOX_LayerMorph=0, ... </Effect>
   <Effect id="2" Protected="0" startTime="  0.100" endTime="  0.262">Bars,None,Effect 1,IT_CHECKBOX_LayerMorph=0, ... </Effect>


We no longer need "None,None". We no longer need blank cells to mean keep on playing.

In XL3 we had all timing marks from all models merged together.
in XL4, if a model is on 3 times during your sequence, it will just have 3 rows of effects, each with a start and end time.

in XL4 you can have unlimited timing tracks. Manual, audacit bars, beats, note onsets, make your own percussion, trumpet, vocal tracks. When you select one effects that are dragged and drop will use those timing marks to set start and end time.

[JonB256]

Too many changes. I quit.





 

[danj]

Don't give up now Jon it is getting better and better...  Maybe even TX size better!

[Lights On Fifth]

Too many changes. I quit.





 

LOL