Poll: Beatmeter or no beatmeter ?

[Toodo]

Hi,

I noticed that more and more Cock Hero releases are made with no beatmeter?

Personally i watch and play mostly videos with beatmeter, i like that more.
I find it more fun and more easy to play, you see what beats are coming.

But what is your opinion? Beatmeter or no beatmeter?

[Liquid]

Yes - but what is most important is that the audible beats match the basic tempo of the music. If it has a beatmeter but you can't play without, then the beatmeter doesn't add any value.

[mowlboon]

the way required did it with island is a good way without a beatmeter i think

[Required]

the way required did it with island is a good way without a beatmeter i think

I just copied the best: Flux Dance series.

If you have a beatmeter, you're not looking at the girls. Thing is, you have to match the music and make easy to follow instructions.

For me, that's the way.

[FCK88]

I'm a HUGE fan of beatmeters in CH-videos so for the most part I avoid those without it(I watch some of them but tend to avoid them because I lose my focus in those videos).

And to those who say that a beatmeter shifts your focus away from the girls/the video shown: It doesn't for me as I watch the beatmeter, learn the rhythm inside my head and then I can watch the video pretty well and still keep up with the beat.

[bhlombardy]

Firstly, let's answer the OP's question straight up... YES to having a Beatmeter*...
the game is Cock Hero... it's a tongue-in-cheek cock-in-cheek (?) take on Guitar Hero. Without the meter it's just porn set to music.

Second... the Beatmeter should be visual, just like the original GH concept. Audible is mostly an option, HOWEVER I'm personally strongly in favor of an audible one (be it a metronome or an added bass kick) in ADDITION to the visual one. Why? simply because many of the stroke commands in many of the videos don't always synch up with the pre-existing audible beats in the selected audio tracks (even if the stroking instruction is in time with the tempo otherwise). PLUS this also helps one to keep track of the beatmeter without necessarily having to keep your visual focus on the visual meter most of the time, It lets you instead keep your attention on the action where it ought to be.

Thirdly... regardless if there is or is not an audible beatmeter, (getting back to something i just eluded to) the stroke commands and pace should ALWAYS line up with the tempo and/or the naturally existent beats of the audio track selected. Making me wank like woodpecker when the portion of the track is a slow smooth pace is just not proper. -- the more perfectly constructed videos synch the action with the tempo as well too -- but that's a rarity.

In any case, there should be a beat meter of some sort... visual preferred, audible as a supplement gets my phone... but either one at least. Otherwise, you've just set music to porn.

my two cents...

*(I prefer the spelling of "Beat-meater" just to be punny)

[Toodo]

I totally agree with you bhlombardy, couldn't say it better why I prefer some beatmeter in Cock Hero videos

[lestrian]

voting no since i'd prefer not to have it if it's not needed. if the beats are complex, the way CH Audition does it by bringing up a beatmeter for a few seconds only when the beat changes is neat.

[wakel]

voting no since i'd prefer not to have it if it's not needed. if the beats are complex, the way CH Audition does it by bringing up a beatmeter for a few seconds only when the beat changes is neat.

totally agreed!! That way you get the best of both worlds.

[Xudmud]

My personal favorite is the "hybrid" style ones like CH Girlfriends used, where the beat meter comes on-screen when the beat changes, but then fades away after a few bars with the new beat once it's been established.

edit: yeah, just like what was said just above me. I can read.

[figroll]

My views on what makes a good CH:

1. Sync the beats to the music. In the early days people got this wrong but these days the techniques are well known enough that most people get it right.

2. Make the beats sympathetic to the music. Occasionally CHs have music that is in sync but is so out of place that it becomes very distracting. This was mostly when the fashion was for making the beats really hard to follow because creators were thinking too much like GH and making it a game. Counter intuitively in CH the harder beats are not some weird collection of off-beats but a strong steady, easy to follow beat.

3. Change the beats more often than not. You need to keep the player on their toes and change things up quite regularly. There was a fashion at one point for "Endurance Rounds" with a strong simple beat for a whole song. I don't miss these at all.

4. Taking 2. and 3. together we get the idea of changing the beats on the obvious sections of the song. People understand the Verse / Chorus / Verse / Chorus / Middle 8 / Verse / Chorus / structure of pop songs whether they ever thought about it or not and matching beats to this structure makes it easy to follow and creates tension and release in the same way as music does. There are some excellent rounds in (I think) the Flux videos where he used songs with a very slow verse and a very strong chorus and the subtitles say things like "One more time now...". Very effective technique that I thought.

5. Add captions. The original CHs had the two competing voices in PINK and YELLOW to either help you succeed or try to make you FAIL. I think this works very well and people should do it more. It's important that these are kept brief; you just want to plant a thought in the player's mind that sets them off or makes the next section "harder" (by which we mean "hornier" of course).

6. Don't add a story. People are looking at porn and thinking about their dick. They really don't care about the story outside of some simple mechanism (E.g. the classic Good vs Evil narrator as in Pseudonym's work).

6. Do add a story. Story or plot can that allows "cool down" periods works really well. Much better than the timers we saw in the early days. Cock Hero Island does this very well although I often wonder who is really paying much attention to what is actually happening (CH's are like Michael Bay films. You are here for the tits and ass / explosions and helicopters not a great work of literary genius).

7. Mix the sound well. You want the beats to be easy to pick out but not horribly jarring in relation to the music. Mostly this means picking a good sound that works both fast and slow (wood block, handclap, etc. not some big resonant bass drum) and getting the sound level of the click track right. This is quite hard to do well but it's worth the effort as it makes a huge difference I think.

And to answer the original question, the thing about Beatmeters is the better you make the video the less you need them. Which is why many of the best (Flux, Pseudonym, Maskeraid) either don't have them or don't have them full time. If the beats are in keeping with the music you don't need them just like you don't need a beatmeter when everyone is dancing at your sister's wedding reception (Note: Do not get your cock out at your sister's wedding reception).

The only reason to have them is really is because some people like and expect them. I think that is less common than it was simply because there are so many really good ones that don't have them, but if you really want to reach the widest audience then adding a meter can do no harm and might help you.

[Blank]

I'm not for or against in general, I think it depends on each creator to decides if his video works better with or without. For sure technically they are or they should be useless, as a good cock hero should have clear audio beats and adequate instructions and warnings for beat changes. But conversely I think it would be a shame to get rid of them completely, as when they are done well they can contribute to the visual appeal of a video, give it more the feel of a game, less of a porn compilation. For example Cock Hero Beta Test wouldn't be the same without the ''HUD''. I've so much associated them with the genre in my mind, that I think adding one randomly to any type of video would make it subconsciously sexier.

[SexualChoc]

I do not do cock hero videos often
but I really love the meter
reason why: (1) I usually watch the video without sound.. often I love the video but do not like the music.. or I simply can not have sound on because of others within hearing distance and yes I am to lazy for headphones.
(2) You can not catch all the beats without the meter.. Sometimes some music makes it difficult to tell when there was a beat.
(3) there is something sexy about being forced to stroke to a visual meter.. so sexy in fact that sometimes I like the meter more that the videos! ( What can I say I am weird)

[ComboNo1]

my $.02

There is no right or wrong way. It's up to the creator. But we all know this.

When I first starting watching these videos, I found the ones with beat meters easier to follow, so I watched all of those exclusively for a long while. It took some work and a little adjustment for me to be able to play the ones without a beat meter, as I have no rhythm, can't stay in time with music, can't dance, etc.

2 other points:

- Complex beats: I can put "123-123 & 1234567-" on a beat meter and you can follow it. I don't think that works without it.

- Psychological terror: I think "Double time" is way more frightening for the player when you can see ALL THOSE BEATS coming at you and they seem like they are never going to stop!

[figroll]

- Complex beats: I can put "123-123 & 1234567-" on a beat meter and you can follow it. I don't think that works without it.

That's because CH doesn't use the proper notation that a musician would recognise. Those rhythms should be "1+2 3+4" (say 1 and 2 3 and 4) and "1+2+3+4" (1 and 2 and 3 and 4) so that the position of the beats don't move around (e.g. 2 is always the second beat in the bar). The use of this notation, which I think comes from GH, is meant to make it easier for non-musicians but I think just makes it harder and means you never learn to count properly because the notation doesn't really work.

Also you can count the rhythm which is why everyone can do DOUBLE TIME (i.e. "1+2+3+4+") without looking at the beat meter. i.e. you are counting 1 2 3 4 subconsciously and when it says double time you just know how to double that count. This is all built into our brains and the number of people who cannot do this is vanishingly small.

(None of this really matters of course it just bugs me as a guitarist).