Comments about new tempo lock feature

Diamond · August 21, 2006, 02:08:59

Hey guys, nice work on the latest release. Only a couple of comments about the new tempo lock feature. It might make more sense to put this option into the sample tab. This would allow you to enable it on a per sample basis which would give increased flexibility. As it is right now, if it's enabled for the instrument, then I assume it's enabled for every sample in that instrument? Also, I think it would be better if the tempo could be locked automatically based on the length of the sample. I.E. You tell it how many measures/beats the sample contains and it locks it to the tempo of the song taking the length into account. The only problem with the way that it works right now is that since it doesn't allow you to define decimal precision tempo values, if the sample doesn't have an exact BPM, it'll eventually drift out of sync with the song. For example, if the sample has a BPM of 98.256, you could only set it to 98.

Relabsoluness · August 21, 2006, 20:25:46

Quote from: "Diamond"It might make more sense to put this option into the sample tab. This would allow you to enable it on a per sample basis which would give increased flexibility. As it is right now, if it's enabled for the instrument, then I assume it's enabled for every sample in that instrument?

Yes, it affects whole instrument(all samples in it). Having it as sample property sounds reasonable, but what would actually be the benefits? The only ones that come to my mind are that one could use it without instruments and one instrument could have several samples(loops) instead of having separate instrument for every sample(loop).

Quote from: "Diamond"The only problem with the way that it works right now is that since it doesn't allow you to define decimal precision tempo values, if the sample doesn't have an exact BPM it'll eventually drift out of sync with the song. For example, if the sample has a BPM of 98.256, you could only set it to 98.

Indeed, I don't see why it would have to be integer value, although it doesn't sound joyful if one has to use the decimals

Diamond · August 21, 2006, 20:50:56

Quote from: "Relabsoluness"
Quote from: "Diamond"It might make more sense to put this option into the sample tab. This would allow you to enable it on a per sample basis which would give increased flexibility. As it is right now, if it's enabled for the instrument, then I assume it's enabled for every sample in that instrument?
Yes, it affects whole instrument(all samples in it). Having it as sample property sounds reasonable, but what would actually be the benefits? The only ones that come to my mind are that one could use it without instruments and one instrument could have several samples(loops) instead of having separate instrument for every sample(loop).

LOL aren't those good enough reasons? Part of the usefulness of instruments is being able to have multiple samples assigned with different properties. I can see situations in which you might want to have many samples assigned to an instrument, but have this option only affect some of them. And being able to set decimal values for the tempo is probably faster than having to modify individual loops in a sound editor first to give them an exact BPM. Many samples don't have that precise of a BPM by default.

LPChip · August 22, 2006, 07:57:37

Why not make one sample sound good, and then use the playback frequency to match the other samples?

rewbs · August 22, 2006, 08:52:17

Personally, I'd like to have a separate loop mode where you define the number of rows the instrument should last at C5. If the sample has a loop, we would adjust the pitch so that the loop lasts that many rows; if there's no loop it acts on the full sample duration.

The advantage of having it as an instrument property is that all samples would be affected in the same way without having to manually set the same properties many times. If you want a different duration, map the sample onto a different instrument. A corollary advantage is you can have multiple loop properties for the same sample across several instruments.

Diamond · August 22, 2006, 09:01:43

Quote from: "rewbs"Personally, I'd like to have a separate loop mode where you define the number of rows the instrument should last at C5. If the sample has a loop, we would adjust the pitch so that the loop lasts that many rows; if there's no loop it acts on the full sample duration.

Yeah I agree. At least with that part. That's how I had suggested this feature be implemented originally. Didn't want to complain too much though.

LPChip · August 22, 2006, 11:24:42

LOL @ "didn't want to complain that much though"

rewbs · August 22, 2006, 11:42:40

What is there to complain about?

The current implementation is taken from Alex's work on Modplug23, and is ideally suited for people working with Acid-style loop packs with well defined tempos. What Diamond and I would like to see is pretty much a different feature.

Diamond · August 22, 2006, 12:28:35

Quote from: "rewbs"What is there to complain about?
The current implementation is taken from Alex's work on Modplug23, and is ideally suited for people working with Acid-style loop packs with well defined tempos. What Diamond and I would like to see is pretty much a different feature.

Yes, Psycle does it this way and MadTracker does it based on the number of beats in the sample. But either way it comes down to the same thing. You tell it how many rows you want it to fit or you tell it how many beats long the sample is and it locks the pitch to the song's tempo taking the length into account. I think personally that number of rows is more flexible. Most newer trackers have some variation of this and I think it's a very powerful feature to have for loops.