@browj2

Hi John

Tried Snap markers a while ago as a tool for aligning other objects to a 'master' after setting snap markers at points where I wanted the alignments to be, however I could do the same a little faster just using the timeline cursor.

For me not a particularly useful feature.

For me the Beat recognition feature for transitions to an audio track was better, though still required micro adjustments after setting the objects to get the transitions to match better with the music

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John,

I have found the BPM wizard rather cumbersome trying to get it to put markers on the transients or beats. Reviewing the music file, the show transients feature looks like it would have the advantage over the BPM wizard if one did not have many to do, and if the music lent itself to identifying the transients correctly. The transients show up clearly in cases where the music allows it. As you say, it is faster to just use the timeline cursor and dragging the interface of objects, photos in particular, to line up with a transient, thus avoiding first placing snap markers.

In the image below, you can see that the transients don't always show up on the beats. For reference, I tried another piece of the free music and it was very difficult to get the transients on the beats.

I find that showing the transients could be helpful in some instances and applying snap markers would probably only serve to line up something, like a video effect, to be done at a later time.

I noticed that deleting and reinserting an audio file does not undo the transient analysis. I assume that the transients become part of the temp file - HDP.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

This is not meant for sound drifting, but for placing snap markers at transients where one wants to use them for purposes of aligning something else, like cutting a photo or video to a particular transient. I often use snap markers in doing my tutorials to mark a spot in a clip that I want to line up with a certain point in the narration. (I don't record the screen and do the narration at the same time.) Snap markers stay with the object. I can put a second snap marker on the audio and then quickly drag one or the other so that the snap markers coincide - they snap together.

The same would be for adjusting the interface of two photos/videos to a particular point in dialogue or music. Put a snap marker in the audio and grab the interface of the two photos and move it until it snaps to the snap marker location.

As for beat markers using the BPM wizard, it's the same thing. If the markers are on the beat, it makes it a lot easier to adjust/cut photos/videos to the beat because of the snapping feature.

Another example of using a snap marker, in some of my videos, when I film someone, like my wife, taking a photo, I have a particular transition effect that I use along with a camera click, followed by showing the photo. I want particular point of the click to be aligned with a particular point in transition. I use a snap marker in the click audio object to quickly line up with my transition effect. Otherwise, it would vary from one to the next.

Since you mentioned synchronizing, it never occurred to me to try to use the transients for synchronizing two or more audio files, especially since there is a tool to do this. However, where that tool doesn't work, this one may be of assistance rather than using just the waveform, including placing snap markers. Interesting.

The same would apply for drifting. Get the transients, put snap markers at two or more points of two recordings that are supposed to coincide, line up the two clips using the first snap marker and if the second points don't line up, then one can be stretched until they do line up. Another interesting point.

John CB

@browj2

Ah!

Have you tried to altering lots of different video clips to sync to a sound track?

Ray.

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . I have found the BPM wizard rather cumbersome trying to get it to put markers on the transients or beats . . . .

Agreed, the last one I did I ended up creating an image object with its length set to the average beat and use that as a measure for locating the transitions of objects, the tempo had some drift which required tweaking.

John EB

@johnebaker @browj2

Hi John.

I agree it the drifting of musical beats and other intense sounds surrounding some beats that is the problem and by the time I'd finished playing round with the markers I find it as quick to do the job visually and just looking at the wave form. I take it you both use very short cross fades rather than straight cuts most of the time. Also do both of you then adjust the import time settings to the average length for the jpegs and then adjust if needed?

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . use very short cross fades . . .

Xfades or blur xfade usually between 6 and 12 frames long.

John EB

@CubeAce

Hi Ray,

The Snap markers/Transients is a feature looking for a use. Your videos are a use looking for features, or something like that. No, I haven't tried making the movement in videos fit the music.

I try to use hard cuts, but sometimes I make 3 or 4 frame cross-fade transitions to soften them up a bit. Often I find them too harsh. And when that doesn't work, I take it as a sign that I need a special transition.

For cutting to music, I think I'll just click on the Align.. button to get the transients, and then, where suitable, use the grey transition markers to align cuts.

John CB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

That's interesting. If I'm doing cross fades they tend to be between 3 to 5 frames long but specialist fades are longer than 12 frames. Sometimes because of where frames land I do find it better to do longer cross fades. I'm not one for a strict regime timing and go with what looks correct. Most of my edits of sound tend to be when there are other sound interruptions I want to get rid of and replace background and foreground sounds to fit, such as say a handclap. removing a car horn, that sort of thing. Where possible I'll duplicate a section from the same clip and repeat it. I don't use effects from other sources as the ambience is often wrong. I can use an impulse reverb unit like SIR that can take a clip of local ambience and replicate the background space as long as the source sound has no ambience of its own. The results are not always that good though. Good for large indoor spaces.

@browj2

You made me laugh!

Like you, I find butt joining a bit harsh which is odd as it worked fine with film stock. Still, I suppose there was no choice back then.

It's the main reason I can't edit sound with MEP. it gives the sound out in chunks making scrolling back and forth fast, like I used to freehand with open reel tapes impossible. I can with a smooth playback at varying speeds quickly forward or reverse wind and find an editing spot quickly. I used to edit album tracks down to a 30 second or one minute segment for adverts. I could edit a track in less than a few minutes. I could do the same with film reels as well with optical or magnetic sound tracks. Alas, a dying art.

When editing sound I found it best to cross fade over a short time frame with digital editing. Tape had to be cut at a diagonal to avoid getting clicks. I find a 20th of a second is normally enough but it's listening for changes in the instruments present that is the worst part. Luckily most editing programs now won't allow an edit at a point where the wave is not at zero amplitude. I still find doing edits visually or using my hearing to be faster than finding and adjusting automatically found arbitrary points a program has found. Totally useless for a lot of genres of music at best. In other specialised audio software I find replacing the timeline with bars and beats more effective as long as I get the settings correct.

While I'm thinking about it. I now know why some vsts were not working for me. My old copy of Cubase only works with 32 bit versions of effects and synths. It will work with some newer plug-ins providing they are 32 bit, hence I'm working in compatibility mode with it. Works well though and there is still new stuff out there for me to try with it. Actually, resource wise it's very efficient.I can run loads more synths and tracks of audio than I once could and the MIDI timing has really tightened up again. I've started composing music again after about seven years of neglect.

The only bad bit is I have to make a video file using old codecs at lower resolutions (Old PAL or NTSC standard) so it will import into the program to compose to. It's still easier to fit clips to a finished track than the other way around for me, but mixing is easier when looking at how the scenes change. It really has to be special for me to put that much effort into a project though. My music is not that good but at least I don't get copyright notices 😂.

Ps. Have you had time to try out Boris Titler yet? It is a really powerful bit of software. Much more to it than I first thought. Tons of textures, splines, and lighting variations almost makes what I can do limitless.

Thanks for the heads up. It is an unlimited licence. Now If I could get the particle bit going.......

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi

For many background sounds eg beach, waves etc, if the original has some intrusions etc and will not clean up satisfactorily.

I replace them with backgrounds generated using Atmosphere Deluxe which uses real sound clips and is customisable.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

Unfortunately that is not always possible for some of the editing I do. A good instance was replacing part of a chorus of a song in a small venue concert. Remaking an air raid siren from three separate takes because of people talking nearby. Stuff like that.

Ray.

@johnebaker @CubeAce

Back to the initial problem. I deleted the Snow Falls song from the project and I deleted the HDP and H0 files from Audio Temp, and since I'm using VPX, I deleted the Snow Falls song from the Project Temp Folder. Saved, closed, restarted VPX and the project, imported the Snow Falls song, turned on the transients without doing the analysis, that is, I did not click on the Align button. The transients still show up. So, where are they?

I'm doing a tutorial and I wanted to start with the transients on this song not yet analyzed.

John CB

@browj2

Hi John.

What happens if you open the song in a new project?

Are the markers a part of VPX or a part of the audio editing program?

Are there any temp files associated with that software somewhere?

Do you still not copy files into projects?

I wonder if it's embedded in the projects MPV file then.

Ray.

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . The transients still show up. So, where are they? . . . .

Edited:

AFAICS they are saved in the project - adding WAV or MP3, which has had markers applied, to a new project there are no markers present.

Is the audio file mp3 or wav?

John EB

@johnebaker @CubeAce

Good morning,

The file is: Snow Falls_normal.mxcOGG

which you should have as it's part of the free songs.

Yesterday, I tried deleting the HDP and H0 files, and then importing the song into a new project. Actually, I did this with a few of those free songs. The transients always showed up. I am wondering if there is not a second copy of the HDP file somewhere that Everything does not pick up.

This morning, I tried on my laptop, searching with Everything, deleted the HDP and H0 files, and importing into a new project. No transients. So, I think that I missed finding the correct temp files. I'll look again.

I watched the HDP file and after clicking on Align...., the file was updated. So, I'm now sure that the transients are added to this temp file, which contains the waveform presentation. That would explain why adding snap markers and clicking on Align a second time does nothing - the HDP file must signal that the transients are already there in the image.

Yesterday, I played around with Musical Editing Adjustment and BPM wizard. My example was not very good as I had only 3 video objects on the timeline. As well, the Magix free songs (Snow Falls) indicate a BPM of 120. I would have assumed that one would not have to use the Remix Agent/BPM wizard (aka Beat Recognition Assistant) except to get the snap markers. However, one does have to use it and the tempo varies, making it very difficult or labourious to use the BPM wizard. As well, the tempo is not 120 BPM, at least I can't get that. BTW, the tempo detected and used shows up on the object and is saved in the temp file.

With enough photos on the timeline to cover the entire song, I selected Edit, Musical Editing Adjustment. Without much adjustment of the snap markers within the BPM wizard, I accepted everything to get it on the timeline and noted that most of the photos were properly adjusted to snap markers, but not all.

I went through a discussion with Magix about a year ago about doing something to make the BPM wizard or Beat Recognition Assistant more usable, to no avail. Inputting the tempo would definitely help.

John CB

I'm bringing this subject back up but this time for VPX12.

I can put snap markers on the audio file (try the free songs from Magix) using Ctrl+P and snap markers using the button under Effects, Audio Effects, Snap Markers. On my desktop, with the audio clip (free song) selected and zoomed in, I placed a couple of snap markers, put the playback marker on one and clicked on Align snap markers with transients. The audio is analyzed and snap markers show up, sometimes, without clicking on the Show transients box. The snap markers did not appear to have moved.

I tried the same thing on my laptop with 2 songs purchased from Magix, and the snap makers moved when the button was pressed. So, I had partial success. The way to check is to put the playback marker on a snap marker that looks like it would not be at a transient. The snap marker should move away from the playback marker after pressing Align transients. It seems that this is a one-shot deal. Moving or adding snap markers then pressing Align snap markers with transients does not move the snap markers.

My conclusion is that this works once, but cannot be done again once the transients have been detected.

To better see the transients, switch to full waveform.

Can someone please test this in VPX12, firstly to make sure that the snap markers do indeed move the first time, secondly, that this can only be done once?

Please, this has nothing to do with anything other than checking to see if the feature works.

Thanks,

John CB

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . put the playback marker on one and clicked on Align snap markers with transients. The audio is analyzed and snap markers show up, sometimes, without clicking on the Show transients box. The snap markers did not appear to have moved . . . . My conclusion is that this works once, but cannot be done again once the transients have been detected. . . .

The snap markers moved for me with both Magix music and my own and as you have surmised only the first time you click the Align option after that adding more snap markers automatically align with transients - this is what I would expect given this text in the Snap marker effect dialog.

. . . . Only the first added marker shows up - adding others do not show until the Show transients is checked. . . .

I get the same behaviour and sometimes the Show option turns on automatically when adding the first marker.

HTH

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John EB,

Thanks for checking.

I did another test on my desktop using a song purchased from Magix. This time, the snap markers moved to the transients, or close to them. Snap markers can only be at frame edges, thus they may not be exactly on a transient.

...after that adding more snap markers automatically align with transients...

However, adding transients by clicking on the Set Snap Marker afterwards (after applying the Align snap marker with transients the first time) does not put the snap marker at the transient, it actually puts it at the frame interface. As we know, in VPX we can move the audio to less than a frame and thus also move the playback marker to less than a frame.

For the second time round zoom way in. Using the left or right arrow, move to the frame location then move the playback marker to be between the frame edges and where there is no transient nearby. Press on the Set snap marker and it will be placed at the left frame edge, not on a transient.

Are you actually getting the snap marker to show up on a transient the second time round?

John CB

I just tried MEP2021 and the result was slightly different. You can't put a snap marker anywhere but a frame edge. Move the playback marker to between frame edges and release the button and the playback marker jumps to an even frame.

Interestingly, the snap markers actually moved to transients the first time even though they were not on a frame edge.

Again, adding a snap marker after the first analysis by pressing on the Set Snap Marker puts the snap marker at the location of the playback marker, not at a transient.

John CB