[Announcement] Beatmeter Generator 0.2.4

[kerkersklave]

I finally found the time to fix a few issues, the new version has the following improvements:
- Better render quality of the simple flying balls style beatmeter (there were some minor issues due to rounding to whole pixels before)
- A background and a position marker for that beatmeter style to improve visibility. If you do not like it, set the colors to transparent
- Ajustable size and speed for the scaling effect of the beats
- Better error handling if you open a file and referenced audio files cannot be found (i.e. you get a warning but you can still open the file)

Here is an example of the new style (of course all colors can be changed via the settings dialog and custom images for the marker and beats can be provided):


You can find downloads and more information on the project website:
https://gitlab.com/SklaveDaniel/BeatmeterGenerator

And information and example videos in the original thread:
viewtopic.php?f=25&t=20113

[Huston]

Great work as always.

[3xTripleXXX]

I’m starting to fiddle a bit with this. Do you have any idea what the max size wav file would be, if there is such a limit? I’ve got 16GB RAM, and the file in question is about 200MB, so you’d think there’d be plenty of space. It’s an idea for a 20m CH, but since the songs are mixed directly into each other, there are no clear separations (breaks are for wimps ;). I’ve tried opening it, but if it’s ever going to actually open, it seems to take forever.

[kerkersklave]

I would recommend to edit the beatmeter round by round so something like a 5-10 min wav file should be fine.
The problem is, that the waveform visualization is not really implemented efficiently, basically it just renders the whole thing into the scene graph and lets the graphics system deal with it.
Also you might reach the limit set by the Java Virtual Machine before you reach the limits of your hardware (in which case you have to adjust its settings and increase the limits).
I might improve this at some point and implement a custom component for the waveform which does the rendering more efficiently.
But I think the best approach is to edit beats one round at a time anyway.

If you do not have any breaks long enough to clear the screen, you could try to split the files up with a little overlap.

PS: Just tried it. My computer is fine with a 23 min wav file with something over 200mb. So just give it a try.

[3xTripleXXX]

Hmm… thanks for the tips. I tried opening a file just around that size and let the program sit all the way overnight, and it was just stuck on loading. I had to kill the JVM to stop the software. Maybe something else glitched? I can give it another try tonight. Or maybe you’re right, that I need to change the memory settings for it.

The idea I’m fiddling with is basically a no breaks, each round feeding right into the next round kind of thing, but I’m sure it’s possible to split it up into pieces and then put them back together with some overlap, like you say. I haven’t gotten to the video part at all, so I still need to figure that out, but I figured the music and the beat track would be the best place to start. Seems like it’ll be easier to fit video clips to music and beat than the other way around.

Appreciate the answer. Thanks. :)

[Rule63MePlease]

Yeah, you try to load and it just never gets there.

[3xTripleXXX]

Just tried to up the memory allowance for Java to 2048 MB. Still never gets there. Tried regenrating the .wav directly from its source too (the previous file was converted from an mp3) just in case it was a conversion error, but I still get the same problem. I’ll try again when I have time with a smaller .wav just to make sure that it’s not a general problem vs. a size one.

[ViceCityLights]

Just tried to up the memory allowance for Java to 2048 MB. Still never gets there. Tried regenrating the .wav directly from its source too (the previous file was converted from an mp3) just in case it was a conversion error, but I still get the same problem. I’ll try again when I have time with a smaller .wav just to make sure that it’s not a general problem vs. a size one.

Maybe you are clicking Open instead of Load Audio by mistake? I've done that a few times when making beats haha. I used this version to make Outrun 2 and didn't have any issues with loading MP3s converted to WAVs in Audacity. I also tested a few different lengths of audio to see what worked and what didn't. A full 2 hour album didn't work, so I lowered to an hour, still didn't work, then 45 minutes and that didn't work either. Worked perfectly fine at 30 minutes though, the WAV size was 311mb. I also only have 8gb of RAM.

[3xTripleXXX]

Just tried to up the memory allowance for Java to 2048 MB. Still never gets there. Tried regenrating the .wav directly from its source too (the previous file was converted from an mp3) just in case it was a conversion error, but I still get the same problem. I’ll try again when I have time with a smaller .wav just to make sure that it’s not a general problem vs. a size one.

Maybe you are clicking Open instead of Load Audio by mistake? I’ve done that a few times when making beats haha. I used this version to make Outrun 2 and didn’t have any issues with loading MP3s converted to WAVs in Audacity. I also tested a few different lengths of audio to see what worked and what didn’t. A full 2 hour album didn’t work, so I lowered to an hour, still didn’t work, then 45 minutes and that didn’t work either. Worked perfectly fine at 30 minutes though, the WAV size was 311mb. I also only have 8gb of RAM.

Haha, I just came back to say that that was exactly my problem. When I used Load Audio, the 200-someodd MB song came in just fine. PEBCAK. Sorry about that, but maybe it’ll help others who’ve made the same mistake. On the bright side, that means that I can now hopefully create a fancy beatmeter. :D And then I need to reacquaint (and reacquire) myself with Premiere after that. :)

[3xTripleXXX]

Ok, I finally have a mix I like, so I’m back to trying to make a beat track. I got the .wav imported, I set up the base track, detected BPM, and everything seems happy. When I test play the .wav, the beats sound like they line up with the lines on the base track.

However, when I make a beat pattern, it doesn’t snap to the base track.

I’ve clicked the s in the base track and gone through the basic workflow directions several times. I also made sure to have downloaded the latest version (64-bit Windows), since the latest fix sounded like it had something to do with beat scaling. However, nothing seems to snap.

I can’t quite figure out what I’m doing wrong.

Please help me, Obi-wan. :)

[kerkersklave]

Just tried it an it seems to work (there is always a risk, that I mess something up when changing something as I do not have a test team .

The snapping however works with an absolute time interval, so you might have to zoom in to see the effect.

[3xTripleXXX]

Just tried it an it seems to work (there is always a risk, that I mess something up when changing something as I do not have a test team .

The snapping however works with an absolute time interval, so you might have to zoom in to see the effect.

Hmm, I’ll try to fiddle with it tonight. I did a test play though, and the beats are definitely not snapped to the detected beat. The click sound didn’t seem to have anything to do with the actual music playing. Could it be tied to it being a longer track? It’s a 23 minute music file. I’ll test it with something shorter tonight, just in case, but I’d figure some sort of error would be thrown if it ran out of memory or something.

Kudos on using a functional language, btw. :D Just noticed it was Scala. I’m crap at it, but I’ve fiddled with both Haskell and F#, which is probably the closer of the two to Scala.

[kerkersklave]

Hm, maybe you have the wrong idea of the feature?
There is nothing hapening automatically, "snapping" just works like in typical graphics software, if you drag something near a snapping point it will snap to it.

If you just insert some beat pattern, it does not snap automatically, you have to drag it to some point, where you want it to start and you have to scale it (drag duration marker and hold ctrl) to fit your base beat.

[3xTripleXXX]

Oh, maybe. I assumed that the beats in a new pattern would snap to the current detected BPM. So that if I dropped a new beat pattern in, it would automatically be in time with the current beat from whatever point the pattern was currently on, and that it would update if I moved the pattern to another spot on the timeline. DJ software often works like that when you line up songs, for example, where it helps beat match for those of us who don’t have the facilities to do it manually. So the snapping is just for the actual positioning of the pattern, but then you have to make the beats match up with the tempo yourself?

[kerkersklave]

The snapping is for the positioning and the scaling.

You can scale patterns, when you press ctrl and move the end marker. The pattern is then scaled proportionally.
You should move the end marker exactly to the beat, were the next repetition starts.

I've attached a screen shot. The little black bar is the "end marker". If you move it when pressing ctrl the whole pattern stretches. Here I have stretched it by moving it to the fifth beat, so the 1-2-3-Pattern lines up perfectly.

I could implement more magic that does something like that automatically. Professional software is more polished in that way of course.