You want to create two red timing sections near the beginning of the song and near the end of the song.
Don't worry about their BPM just yet, what's most important is to make sure their offsets are on existing beats, so when the metronome passes over the red timing sections it makes a click on time with the song.

Once both timing sections are placed on beats within the song, you can then go back to the very first timing section and mess with the BPM of it.
The main idea is that if the BPM of the first section is correct, when the song reaches the second timing section, the next beat will be exactly where the second red timing section is.

Huh that sounds confusing
Let me try an example

Let's say the first timing section has an offset of 0, and the second timing section has an offset of, oh, 100000
The first section has a BPM that sounds right but slowly goes horribly wrong by the end of the song.
If we delete the second timing section and try to scroll to that same place (100000) using the first section, it might be in the wrong place, like 100200.
That means the timing is getting 200 ms off! (wow). This means we should change the BPM of the first timing section till that beat is at 100000 ms at that very part.

lolcubes wrote:

But yeah I am not sure if listening to metronome ticks is always the best idea, for me they are always off ;_; (4~7ms too early).

lolcubes wrote:

I mean in general. Everytime I get ~5ms early on the metronome, it's just about perfect normally.
I use default normal hitsounds and circles on several key spots on the map though, after finding the basic bpm through tapping (I seem to get the BPM right with tapping though hehe).

Gonzvlo wrote:

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this should be translated into other languages. (with Charles permission, of course)

Charles445 wrote:

Gonzvlo wrote:

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this should be translated into other languages. (with Charles permission, of course)

That'd be great!

I am willing to translate the videos into german! (by adding subtitles)

Just tell me where I should upload them.. I thought you want to create an extra Youtube Channel for the tutorials?

Sakura wrote:

Actually it'd be better if it was on the wiki, it's easier to handle different languages there.

Also you could add subtitles (i think youtube allows that?) even english CC for people that arent good at listening to english but can understand by reading.

D33d wrote:

Besides that, timing these things accurately will still result in a map that's awkward to play, given that the approach circles will jitter all over the place.

D33d wrote:

It should also be noted that, even if a line or part of the rhythm goes out of time, it may drift back into time almost instantly. Vocals do this a lot, as a lot of singers will swing their lines or otherwise sound "natural" over a rigid beat, so it's worth paying close attention to parts where it's actually better to ignore the fluctuation.

D33d wrote:

On another note, mm once pondered about the possibility of a time-stretch tool, which could read all of the red sections in a map and even out all of the timing changes. If done properly and with automatic crossfading, this would ensure that songs would have consistent timings and the maps would be much more readable. The person who makes such a thing would earn my undying respect.

Charles445 wrote:

It can be done. It just needs to be carefully handled by the mapper.

Charles445 wrote:

Do not fall into this trap. I have seen people put literally 30 ms off objects just because the timing switches right back a tick later. Off timing is off timing and it should be handled, not ignored.

Charles445 wrote:

This sounds like it would mess with the audio and could make a song sound really really weird. Personally, I'd avoid this.