Metronome effect

wgslager

Is there a metronome effect or beat function or flashing light that can be activated on lyrics only songs to ensure you are on beat for lyrics that are time stamped? If so, how is it activated?

Damir

wgslager Is there a metronome effect or beat function or flashing light that can be activated on lyrics only songs to ensure you are on beat for lyrics that are time stamped?

Not yet, I believe Peter is on to it as we speak.
We have all put in suggestions perhaps you have some ideas , it would be good to get as much input as possible so we end up with something that works well.

My suggestion was to use the volume slider for setting the flash speed this also is a BPM adjustment, this is a non utilised area in Lyrics Only songs, perhaps that whole slider area can flash to the beat and a central knob allows you to manoeuvre left or right to set a BPM setting and a double tap to revert to preset setting for that text song.
The 2 buttons on the side might be an on off of flash in the fader and the other switch might turn auto scroll on and off.

So that bottom section of interface gets used more wisely when using lyrics only songs.

The waveform area should have a playhead that allows you to scroll through the text of you lyrics by finger or foot as there is no audio the waveform area would be great to have 12 points where you can touch and just jump to them just like audio loops , these points to look like loops and able to be instantly touched to cue up your text at points of our choice, this would allow us to program sections of text like verses and choruses and quick access to this text if you didn’t want to use auto scroll , and didn’t want to hunt around the text to find a spot you need , it would be preset and instant and accurate.

Now all this would be made to operate very simply so not much time would be wasted setting it up but it would give you a visual click and very quick on the run method to access any part of your song text.

Now that’s my idea of how I would like to operate, what do you think ?

Oh another little thing , on the left side of the fader have a TAP to program BPM button for that text song, if you long press that button you can then use the slider to accurately enter the BPM and another long press stores that to be the default for that song , if the flash feature is on that’s the rate of flash you get if you adjust the fader it changes this flash rate but the default remains for next time use, this gives you quick and easy way to set a default flash rate and very easy adjustment tweak on the run.

peter

No, I am not on to it as we speak. Having a metronome will only work reliably when there is a beat detection on the audio files. In all other cases a metronome can run out of sync with your audio file. Even if it is in sync, your file most likely does not start on a beat so there would be an offset.

So my suggestion if you need a metronome is to use the multitrack feature with a click track.

Damir

peter Having a metronome will only work reliably when there is a beat detection on the audio files. In all other cases a metronome can run out of sync with your audio file. Even if it is in sync, your file most likely does not start on a beat so there would be an offset.

So my suggestion if you need a metronome is to use the multitrack feature with a click track.

You don’t seem to understand the simple requirements we are asking for , we basically want a self timed metronome but instead of it clicking audio it would flash the fader this has nothing to do with audio sync or even beats , it’s purely a simple programable flashing display that can be set for each lyrics song to give us a guide of the tempo, since we are running totally free we don’t need any particular beat counts , we just would have a preset BPM flashing screen segment to go by but not necessarily be perfect it’s an aid to start us off and if needed you can easily speed it up or slow it down , it is only a visual thing that works with lyrics only files that don’t have to have a time set. We are talking about total freedom to perform with an easy way to jump to any part of lyrics that are pre programmed, all live music played by musicians using a flash signal on screen to get rough timing and easy access to any part of song lyrics.
No complicated programming involved.
Load the text select a tempo for flashing screen place a few simple jump points and go for it , you could set a time to auto scroll but that’s a rough thing as well it’s probably easier to just jump to sections as needed.

As I said you basically already have it all using stereo tracks and loops.
Load the actual song and it’s lyrics, create loops to suit the text points you need , mute the audio, now you select the song you see your first lyrics , start live performance and just select the lyric points you need as you go, no need to run the track unless you want automated scroll, you can use speed to slow down or speed up the scrolling and you can easily jump around to pick next text required.

So what I am proposing just give us a self contained metronome that just gives us a flash on screen to guide us to start in a pre determined tempo as a guide only, and use the wasted space you have at the bottom like volume slider and the other buttons that aren’t used for anything useful with lyrics only files.
This is for people that need lyrics only and a visual metronome to perform fully live.

Damir

Damir So my suggestion if you need a metronome is to use the multitrack feature with a click track.

That’s the last thing we want as it’s complicated, lyrics only track are used by people that want to run very simply and are using ST3 as their lyrics display, they need simplicity and usefulness of all things on screen , anything not used by lyrics only should not be on the screen. To simplify the look of the interface as much as possible and make the users experience more enjoyable.

wgslager

I am not using audio files. I am using lyrics only and using the iPad as a display for performance. I have the BPM and song time entered. I have time stamp the lyrics at various points - typically at verse, chorus, bridge, solo, etc. I was hoping the app could link to that data and set a flash or other beat indicator that would help keep me on time.

Damir

wgslager I am not using audio files. I am using lyrics only and using the iPad as a display for performance.

Yes I know exactly what you would be happy with, a simple cut and paste of lyrics, set the BPM flash on screen and an easy way to jump from verses to choruses, and presto your away.

Well that’s not how ST3 was really designed for, it assumes you want audio backing and accurate lyric sync, and it delivers quite nicely.

But as I pointed out before to users that don’t want audio backing but easy way of jumping around their lyrics, Just use the standard stereo track for this as it has better advantages than lyrics only tracks to do lyrics only display, the reason is you can create loops that store your lyrics positions, name the segments mute the audio or just don’t bother hooking it up and also don’t bother using stop start as it’s of no use just use the loop select button to step through all the text loop points or your finger to select the loop/text you want , very simple and flexible on stage , you need two buttons to select songs and one button to manoeuvre within the song if you have the original song loaded you can time stamp it and let it run this gives you time to choose next song and Xfade to it easily since there is no audio you can be pretty rough with your preparation and no one will hear any difference as you are in full control of your lyrics and the sound does not matter.

I think lots of users would be using it this way as I could never find a easy to use and powerful lyrics storage software, the advantage of also using an audio track as a bed is you can always engage the audio when rehearsing a song you haven’t done in months.
So there are a lot more benefits than negatives using stereo tracks as lyrics only tracks as well.

Another idea if you perform simply with original songs or just your versions of songs, just use a simple app recorder like Twisted Wave, record yourself, load that in as you time template in ST3, load your lyrics time stamp them to the parts you want and loop those areas you need and you are done you have full lyrics control suited to you version of the song by foot or finger control.

Cheers Damir

wgslager

Thanks for you reply