AGH!! (Sync Problems)

[SketchMan3]

Well, let's see your charts, and if the sync is good, we'll let you off the hook, Tormann71 ;)

Another very important thing is to make sure your software is synced and especially make sure your FoF is synced if you're using that to test your songs.

IMO, it's simpler just to listen to the song, adjust the anchor, then listen to the metronome to make sure it hits in sync with the song, than to tap the tempo in real time. I just know that it doesn't work for me, because of my work with freetar; human's are too prone to error in real time.

[Tormann71]

Well, let's see your charts, and if the sync is good, we'll let you off the hook, Tormann71 ;)

Another very important thing is to make sure your software is synced and especially make sure your FoF is synced if you're using that to test your songs.

IMO, it's simpler just to listen to the song, adjust the anchor, then listen to the metronome to make sure it hits in sync with the song, than to tap the tempo in real time. I just know that it doesn't work for me, because of my work with freetar; human's are too prone to error in real time.

I use anchors as well for very slight tempo changes when it gets a little out of sync. I just use tapping for finding major tempo changes. Most of my charts that I have up aren't as high quality as the ones I'm making now because I wasn't sure how anchors worked until recently.

[Hollowmind]

I saw earlier in the thread that someone said the .97b version of dB is the problem. I use that version and have no such issues. I use MixMeister also to get my initial bpm. There's nothing wrong with MixMeister. But if a song has lots of bpm changes then it'll just give you the average bpm of the song. Use it to get an idea of the bpm and to get your starting bpm. Use anchors to fine tune the bpm.

My general practice when working with an older song that has lots of minor tempo changes due to people just being human and not machines is to place an anchor at the beginning of each riff. Use offset to adjust the anchor to sync the first note of the riff. Place my notes, maybe fret that whole section until the riff changes. Then listen for it to get off sync, place any necessary anchors and adjust where needed. On a lot of older albums, especially songs recorded on a tight budget, they can go slightly off tempo very often. That's just the way people naturally play music.

If you don't understand how anchors work in dB they basically adjust the bpm for you. You can essentially move a note forward or backward in time that's placed on an anchor using offset and dB will automatically adjust the bpm of the section of notes between anchors to accommodate. Be sure to use the Claps feature with turning the playback speed down, too to help you sync notes. I end up listening to almost the whole song at half speed when I'm fretting.

[venom426]

I end up listening to almost the whole song at half speed when I'm fretting.

I'm much too lazy for that.

[heretodl]

I listen at 25% speed when charting drums, then 50% when i place guitar notes.

[acrox999]

Metronome or claps maybe??

[Electro Tomato]

I don't know what to do. Anchors don't seem to do anything at all.

[raynebc]

Anchors work as I described them on the first page of this thread.

[RealCheese]

I saw earlier in the thread that someone said the .97b version of dB is the problem. I use that version and have no such issues. I use MixMeister also to get my initial bpm. There's nothing wrong with MixMeister. But if a song has lots of bpm changes then it'll just give you the average bpm of the song. Use it to get an idea of the bpm and to get your starting bpm. Use anchors to fine tune the bpm.

My general practice when working with an older song that has lots of minor tempo changes due to people just being human and not machines is to place an anchor at the beginning of each riff. Use offset to adjust the anchor to sync the first note of the riff. Place my notes, maybe fret that whole section until the riff changes. Then listen for it to get off sync, place any necessary anchors and adjust where needed. On a lot of older albums, especially songs recorded on a tight budget, they can go slightly off tempo very often. That's just the way people naturally play music.

If you don't understand how anchors work in dB they basically adjust the bpm for you. You can essentially move a note forward or backward in time that's placed on an anchor using offset and dB will automatically adjust the bpm of the section of notes between anchors to accommodate. Be sure to use the Claps feature with turning the playback speed down, too to help you sync notes. I end up listening to almost the whole song at half speed when I'm fretting.

I had very bad sync issues. My note came too early when I played them in FoF. Even when I anchored the notes were still off. I almost gave up fretting because I was havng so many problems with the sync. I figured out that it was my version of dB when I opened up one of Puppetz songs to review in Feedback and the notes were way off. I looked at his newest tutorial and noticed that he used db 0.96b, not 0.97b. I downloaded 0.96b and I haven't had anymore problems. 96 was also the version I had on the first and second computers that I used to fret.

[Puppetz]

How I sync is written in my tutorial... I sync a whole song using tempo changes on almost all beatlines (when there are drums), when there are no drums, I sync almost all notes. This is for songs that are old and has tempo changes all the time.

And for me, I don't use anchors, just pure simple bpm changes.

I use 0.97b now also... Been using it a long time.

What I've seen so far in all Top10 competitions there aren't many great syncers in this forum. Most of them only chart songs with constant BPM, so it's hard to tell...

[raynebc]

I just want to point out that there is not really any downside to using anchors. They calculate the appropriate tempo change for you, accomplishing what Puppetz is doing, with less work. The use of anchors can be and is abused though, so they shouldn't be used any more often than necessary. Unless a drummer sucks, he should arguably be able to keep a single tempo for more than a few beats. That's why picking an accurate tempo is important.

[ryanpanties]

I think people just blame db/chart2mid for their slips because they don't have an "on fire" at the end. Several of you are arguing about which version of feedback it is that deserves the blame when I thought the collective opinion from elsewhere on the board was that the problem was in the chart2mid conversion, and personally, even experimenting with multiple versions of feedback and multiple ways of converting to midi, I've never seen a single sync error that I could honestly blame on anything but my lack of care in charting.

I'm capable in both EOF and db at this point, though I use db by choice. Basically, my humble opinion from my own experience is that the people blaming the software (either) for their sync issues just don't know how to chart with it. Hurray for this thread turning anchors-educational!

Raynebc, i assume you are talking about EOF-anchors when you say "they calculate the appropriate tempo change for you", because basically... anchors don't really do that, right? But you could look at it as though they do in EOF, because you click/drag/drop and "tahdah!"it's in the right place. The reality of the situation is that in either program you have to calculate the tempo change, and then reflect it by placing the anchor in the appropriate spot in the manner supported by your chart editor. EOF has you place a note in the right place (click) before you move the anchor to it, and db has you place the anchor in the right place (using bpm adjustments) before you put a note on it.

[RealCheese]

there aren't many great syncers in this forum.

That's definitely me weak point..

---- EDIT ----

I think people just blame db/chart2mid for their slips because they don't have an "on fire" at the end. Several of you are arguing about which version of feedback it is that deserves the blame when I thought the collective opinion from elsewhere on the board was that the problem was in the chart2mid conversion, and personally, even experimenting with multiple versions of feedback and multiple ways of converting to midi, I've never seen a single sync error that I could honestly blame on anything but my lack of care in charting.

I'm capable in both EOF and db at this point, though I use db by choice. Basically, my humble opinion from my own experience is that the people blaming the software (either) for their sync issues just don't know how to chart with it. Hurray for this thread turning anchors-educational!

Raynebc, i assume you are talking about EOF-anchors when you say "they calculate the appropriate tempo change for you", because basically... anchors don't really do that, right? But you could look at it as though they do in EOF, because you click/drag/drop and "tahdah!"it's in the right place. The reality of the situation is that in either program you have to calculate the tempo change, and then reflect it by placing the anchor in the appropriate spot in the manner supported by your chart editor. EOF has you place a note in the right place (click) before you move the anchor to it, and db has you place the anchor in the right place (using bpm adjustments) before you put a note on it.

I used anchors... Notes came early in game... I downloaded .96... I used anchored... Notes came at the right time in game

[ryanpanties]

I used anchors... Notes came early in game... I downloaded .96... I used anchored... Notes came at the right time in game

I personally have not had any version of any software related to chart/mid/gh/fof throw notes out of sync since I stopped using that browser-based freetar converter that used to be up somewhere. That's all i'm saying really. Are you talking about something that would simply require the use of an offset, or something that was truly over-all out-of-sync?

Edit: Also, some freeware game ported over for softmod Wii that ran from fof song format... i forget what it was called. Made nice charts look like bad freetar editor attempts, where triplets are always spaced like oo o, though the hits seemed to register appropriately.

[raynebc]

Raynebc, i assume you are talking about EOF-anchors when you say "they calculate the appropriate tempo change for you", because basically... anchors don't really do that, right? But you could look at it as though they do in EOF, because you click/drag/drop and "tahdah!"it's in the right place. The reality of the situation is that in either program you have to calculate the tempo change, and then reflect it by placing the anchor in the appropriate spot in the manner supported by your chart editor. EOF has you place a note in the right place (click) before you move the anchor to it, and db has you place the anchor in the right place (using bpm adjustments) before you put a note on it.

In EOF, the act of creating an anchor by dragging beat markers calculates the appropriate tempos automatically. Sure, an anchor can be created in other ways, but this is by far the most useful way. In EOF, you can place notes before or after altering anchors, the user has the option of whether anchor operations will move notes that have been placed in the affected portion of the chart. It certainly is easier on the humans involved to beat sync first, so grid snapping can be used effectively.

Edit: Also, some freeware game ported over for softmod Wii that ran from fof song format... i forget what it was called. Made nice charts look like bad freetar editor attempts, where triplets are always spaced like oo o, though the hits seemed to register appropriately.

I believe you're referring to GuitarFun. And you're right, in the state it was/is in, it sucks horribly. My posted analysis concluded that not only does it not honor the chart's delay value, it doesn't process tempo changes correctly. So a chart would theoretically have to have a delay of 0 ms and no tempo changes in order to play correctly. And on top of that, the controller input detection sucked on the Wiimote. It just wasn't worth it at all to convert charts to use with that homebrew.