what feature did you actually want

for me timing is basically:
1. find the correct bpm
2. correct offset
3. you’re done

most music isnt that fucking variable. unless it’s a super horribly done and offbeat, it isn’t the case (piano pieces excluded)

not sure how does your method work, it just looks weird to count beats

variable timing is when basically you have a bpm change every beat lo

Hello,

Thank you for your answer
While what you're saying might be true on some songs, it's almost impossible for a musician to keep a beat to the 1/100 second for 5 minutes. Especially in classical music or any kind of music with "respiration".
The thing is that almost all maps I looked at with the editor were mapped as you say, and the result is pretty terrible. If you play the song in the timing section, with a computer beep every beat, it never matches almost. That's why in a LOT of maps, it's almost impossible to have an UR less than 100/120 in HD (that is when you base your clicks on what you hear), and completely impossible to go lower than 80 for example.

I really mean no disrespect, but looking at your profile, I don't think you're according that much importance to the precision of the ticks. This is fine, everyone focusses on different aspects of the game.

Thanks

Edit: Btw, I'm trying to map a music played by an orchestra, that's why tempo varies a lot, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.

Not sure if this feature would be useful, as the mapper would still need to manually count the number of notes, overall not saving much time. Also, for orchestral music, to have it truly perfectly timed you'd have to change bpm every note due to human error in playing. And even if the map was perfectly timed, the player's UR would still be high as the player can't predict all the little bpm changes.


p.s. if this is your first beatmap, I strongly do not recommend variable bpm music like classical stuff, because it's a pain the ass as you rightly said. Here's a map of the 3rd movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and as you can see the timeline is jam packed with red lines.
https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1101611

Thanks for your answer.
Indeed, you'd still have to count the number of notes, but that's a constant once you have it (and takes one listening with paper to take notes as the song progresses). However, if you change offset to a beat point by 10ms, the bpm before and after both change, and have to recompute both of them. In a 5 minute song, I have about 50 bpm changes, and what takes me the most time is to recompute bpm every 30 seconds to ensure that I set the starting note and the end note right.
You're pretty wrong about the BPM changes, because players play maps a lot when they want to train on it, or just love it. When you heard an interpretation a thousand times, you know the fluctuations, for sure.

Yes, and if the feature I'm asking was implemented, the composer of that said beatmap would have been pleased, I'm sure.

By my personal experience, musicians, especially classical ones, are always playing some extremely light rubato in every single phrase.
That means even if you mark these important notes you have to time the ones inbetween separately as well.
It also has to be noted that many notes doesn't equal high bpm.
The bpm value directly affects how distance snap plays out and how fast the sliderball rolls and as such it does not determine the amount of notes but the actual tempo of the song. I know, kind of self-explanatory but for that exact reason I don't think your method is a good approach as it doesn't really care about that.
I definitely agree that the editor could need some kind of automatical bpm adjustment for variable bpm songs but that should only apply after the mapper made the call on how fast the song actually feels in that moment.

elie520 wrote:

Hello,

Thank you for your answer
While what you're saying might be true on some songs, it's almost impossible for a musician to keep a beat to the 1/100 second for 5 minutes. Especially in classical music or any kind of music with "respiration".
The thing is that almost all maps I looked at with the editor were mapped as you say, and the result is pretty terrible. If you play the song in the timing section, with a computer beep every beat, it never matches almost. That's why in a LOT of maps, it's almost impossible to have an UR less than 100/120 in HD (that is when you base your clicks on what you hear), and completely impossible to go lower than 80 for example.

I really mean no disrespect, but looking at your profile, I don't think you're according that much importance to the precision of the ticks. This is fine, everyone focusses on different aspects of the game.

Thanks

Edit: Btw, I'm trying to map a music played by an orchestra, that's why tempo varies a lot, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not.

not boasting but im p sure i’m better at timing than many ppl
You should said earlier youre timing a orchestra! saves a lot of misunderstanding
also, sometimes the timing may not be 100% accurate, but that’s ok. You won’t notice when playing (unless the timing is very bad)
there’s also those offbeat timing lo

elie520 wrote:

Thanks for your answer.
Indeed, you'd still have to count the number of notes, but that's a constant once you have it (and takes one listening with paper to take notes as the song progresses). However, if you change offset to a beat point by 10ms, the bpm before and after both change, and have to recompute both of them. In a 5 minute song, I have about 50 bpm changes, and what takes me the most time is to recompute bpm every 30 seconds to ensure that I set the starting note and the end note right.
You're pretty wrong about the BPM changes, because players play maps a lot when they want to train on it, or just love it. When you heard an interpretation a thousand times, you know the fluctuations, for sure.

Yes, and if the feature I'm asking was implemented, the composer of that said beatmap would have been pleased, I'm sure.

5 minute song, only having 50bpm changes? for a classial music perhaps that’s not enough lol
btw I’d fucking love to see a feature that do the timing for you, but variable... thats hard

Thanks to both of you.

First of all, a solo performer will have a tendency to add a lot of rubato, true, but that doesn't mean that he/she will change the beat every second note. This becomes especially true with on orchestra, where rubato are less possible as a group. But in concerto for example, there may be moments when the soloist is alone, and enjoys his/her "freedom" with more rubato; while he/she won't be lingering freely on note when the orchestra is following.
I invite you to hear this song that I'm talkibng about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSOMXrdTGEE. I finished the timing with 74 sections, and I'm very happy with the result.
In the first 23 seconds for example, it's barely noticeable but the baet changes several times. You just can't keep one bpm, or it'l be ugly. I changed it 5 times in this period, with BPMs going from 154.589 to 155.844. There is no rubato, but still, a tempo irregularity.

To focus on the feature I ask for, it's very simple to implement, and to use, and won't disturb any one. It follows this way :
Instead of one "BPM" field, there would be one BPM field plus a "number of notes before next marked point". Moreover, there would be 2 check boxes, one for each field. And then, the mapper just checks the box he/she wants to be manually set. The other one is automatically computed. Simple as that

Cheers!

The song you linked has nothing to do with orchestra performance or anything. It lacks the fluctuation of an actual artist performance.
It is music composed and played by a computer at the end of the day.
Compare it to something like https://osu.ppy.sh/s/92795 which fluctuates too much to be represented by a single 60bpm section although it is 60bpm throughout.
An actual instrumental song played turns out as an abomination like https://osu.ppy.sh/b/671988

For an actual orchestra it is not too much different compared to a solo performer as the character of the timing is still determined by one person alone: the conductor.

Also, the point I made still stands: many notes does not equal high bpm.

Played by a computer ? Hmm no.
Your "point" I don't see why it's there, noone ever mentioned high BPM.
And you are mistaking obvious fluctuation (due to rubatos for example) with unvoluntary flunctuations due to the humans performing, who can't keep a bpm to the 0.1 because none on earth can (and it wouldn't even make sense to dishumanize the music this way).

So... I don't know what to tell you, I don't understand what you want me to say, I still stand by what I said, and that such a little feature would be a great tool.

If you don't think it is played by a computer, then why does the artist say something like this?


If there are 5 notes in 1 second, it doesn't mean the actual speed of the song at that spot is 300bpm.
Depending on their meter, the actual rhythm and everything its actual bpm could be everything. It is not feasible to middle over short timeframes.
And if you have long timeframes, then why aren't you simple using the way of tapping to the beat as offered by the editor through the T key within the timing window?

Lol, that has nothing to do MIDI or not. There are lots of musics played by people, turned into midi, because people like the retro look of it, and it's adaptable to lots of supports. It IN NO WAY shows it's computer played. And if you just listen, you know it's human played.

Y agree with you, high quantity of notes doesn't mean high BPM but again, who mentionned that ? I don't supporrt that claim. Please let us not deviate from the original subject, which is the useful feature.
I don't use the beat technique because it's way not procise enough on 5 second timeframes, and it's way more precise to do by hearing. I adjusted my timing tonight. I had to move some notes y 0.010 some times, thus changing the bpm by 0.200 or less, and it really matters, the difference is huge to the keen listener. It may not be noticeable to some people by hearing the song, but it'll definitely bring more quality to the gameplay.

Edit: By the way, here is what computer music sounds like when it comes to classical music : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX2AbbEwTbs

You act like it's not possible to manipulate sounds on their own instead of just letting a dumb program run it through a sheet.

Anyway - I don't have problem with having the option to automatically adjust BPM for such changes if desired by the mapper. But this doesn't change the fact that "timing by the number of beats" is nonsense in the way you ask for it.
That is what you get when you put 2 different feature requests in one thread.

1) Thank you for your interest in my post,
2) there is only one request here,
3) You either didn't understand me (I have trouble making clear what I mean, so that could be the problem ), or you're wrong.

I feel like this discussion is getting more complicated than timing the beatmap itself

By the way Endaris you don't seem to be aware of that, but "beats per minute" basically means that you count the number of beat in one minute so... nonsense ?
It's basically what the autoBPM of osu does when you tap the beat, except that maybe it removes a few start and end beats if it makes the mean deviation too big (I'm not sure, idk how it's written but that's how I'd do it).
In any case, this is not appropriate in short time sections (like with maybe 16/24 beats or shorter) as it can't give you enough precision. However, if you spend a few minutes listening very carefully to the first and last beat of a section, you can precisely time it, and then be really procise on the BPM by counting the number of beats.

I agree _Meep_, and I deplore it. The reaquest is simple, but as apparently I'm not able to make myself clear enough in one post, I have to discuss with people "attacking" me to try and make myself understood. I still think that it'd be a great tool in timing for a lot of songs/musics.

Cheers

Edit: Endaris, if you could please not pollute the thread with your image, it's inappropriate.

hey who WOULD count BEATS for a whole MINUTE for the bpm? LOOOOOL
can you clear up once again what do you want

btw electronic music is different from like irl played music

Sorry for the obvious misunderstanding. I was just talking about "BPM" to point out that the primary method is counting the beats (which osu does for you in automatic mode) so that's not nonsense. Because a long as you're timing a short section (for example 5 ou 10 seconds), you can't rely on the precision of the auto BPM, which is of course pretty poor in this situation. Thus, you would indeed have to count yourself the beats.

Clarifying what I ask for :

In the timing panel, for each section, there are "offset" and "BPM" boxes. The idea is to replace the lonely "BPM" box with 2 boxes + 2 checkboxes. There would still be one "BPM" box, with its check box next to it. And the new box would be the number of beats before mext secion (if there is one, otherwise left blank), with its checkbox. The effect of the checkbox is that if the offset is changed, the checked box won't change value, but the other one will adjust automatically.
Example no. 1 : BPM box checked : If you change the offset, the bpm doesn't change, but then mechanically, the number of beats before the next section will change (increase if offset decreases and other way around in the other case).
Example no. 2 : Number of beats checked : If the offset is changed then the BPM will automatically ajust to keep the same number of beats before next section (which makes sense because usually if you barely change the offset, it's not to add more beats, but to adjust the beep sound to the beats). Then for example if the offset is increased, the BPM will decrease, and the other way around in the opposite case.

Is it clearer now ? Maybe I should have presented this like this earlier, instead of trying to motivate it.

Motivation : The point of this is that on a map hard to time, with a lot of short time sections when you can't rely on autoBPM, you will have to do trial and error by adjusting the offset often. With this new way, you won't have to recompute by hand the BPM every time.

Thanks for your interest.

I take a general but not in depth look of the whole thread, your concept and idea of making a new timing panel is really innovative, but it is unnecessary to do so:

Ordinary music, which accounts for the majority of the music genres, have constant and stable BPM, so as offset. One single red timing point (uninherited timing point) is already fine in timing the song.

While, there are indeed some scenarios that the music contains multi-bpm with different offsets. They can be well fixed by a really careful ear and mind, with the consideration of musical theory which involves in bars counting (not beats conunting). Bars counting is already achieved in timing panel, in F2. X:Y is located at the top right corner. X represents the no. of bars, starting from 0; Y represents the beats of a bar.

In time signature 4/4, 4 beats= 1 bar. In time signature 3/4, 3 beats= 1 bar. In the expression of music, usually 3/4 songs have different bars cutting edges which make the common '4 bars conunting method' not working. For example, https://osu.ppy.sh/b/1242057&m=1

Shifting of offsets (+- 15ms, a general acceptable range for offset) does not interfere the bars distribution and BPM at all. It is not really a big worry while timing a multi- BPM music.

Timing does not really require any musical theories, common senses should work well in common cases. The main concept of an accurate timing is that: the timing is beneficial for a mapper to put their notes as accurate as possible meanwhile the gameplay and mapping effect (you will know it later if you are involved in slider placement across multi-BPM red timing points) would not be on expense.

Hey thanks for your interest, sorry It took me so long to answer, I've been busy.

Ordinary music, which accounts for the majority of the music genres, have constant and stable BPM, so as offset. One single red timing point (uninherited timing point) is already fine in timing the song

Hmm, not a good argument imo, what abour Aall the other maps ? There are a lot of them. And it's essential to the osu! game.

While, there are indeed some scenarios that the music contains multi-bpm with different offsets. They can be well fixed by a really careful ear and mind, with the consideration of musical theory which involves in bars counting (not beats conunting).

Hmm, bar counting is essentially the same as beats counting, since it's easy to go from one to another, it just depends on your signature.
But I don't know what you are refering to. Carefully listening is noting the exact start and end points of a section, I guess. And then ? You can't count bars since you don't have the bpm yet. The only way to proceed when you have the start and end point is to count the number of beats, and compute the bpm using BPM=(number of beats)*60/(duration of section). And applying this formula over and over and over when you just move your starting point by 5ms to adjust is painful man. Really. I have finished my map, it now contains approximately 120 timing sections, and a lot of trial and error went there, to adjust to the + or -5ms. With an automatically computed BPM based on the constant number of beats, I'd have saved A LOT of time.

15ms is way too much for imprecision imo. If I shit all my map by 15ms, it becomes unplayable.

Timing does not really require any musical theories, common senses should work well in common cases.

Again, what about other cases ? And why should someone with theoretical knowledge not be able to enjoy it by fixing the number of beat if it's useful, and then find the accurate start and end points of each section to the 5ms or less ?

Thanks again.

so you’re getting the bpm by counting all the beats in the song?
can you demonstate how you time a map, by recording a video or some sort?
i have no fucking idea how its done

nobody uses the tapping-to-the-beat for bpm function.

I will definitely try to do that today, and I'll edit this message to add the link. Good idea.

Edit: I'm back! Before going through this long process of recording myself etc etc... I browsed a little bit on youtube, and found the perfect video to explain myself and show how useful my feature would be.
Look at this video on expert timing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyat7XWe2kg
At 1:40 for example, you see he needs to adjust the bpm (or the offset in this case) so that the sections work well together. Doing this once is no big deal. But then, imagine he offsets a little bit the start of his section to line it up with the music. Now he'd have to AGAIN adjust the bpm of the section, and also the bpm of the section before ! So each offset change induces 2 BPM adjustments.
If the number of beats was kept constant, the BPM would auto adjust, and the would be just nothing else to do than fine tune the offset, with as many tries as you want in a very short period of time

Am I being clear enough? What do you think? I really think it could be a game changer for expertly timing some maps

This is too complicated. I can already see the flaw in my point of understanding.

Not to discourage your point of view or something, but mapping a music with various BPM change is painful, especially classical music. From what I try to understand, you're trying to remove the accurate way of adjusting BPMs that vary, by adjusting the offset/BPM without repeating. This is mindblowing, but this method isn't accurate.

Dear O2MasterFX,

I don't think you completly understood, because what I propose makes it easier to be very accurate.

You know how people are used to adjust the BPM with the little arrows in order that the last white tick of a section it exactly on the start of the next section ? Well, first of all, this is pretty accurate, but not 100%. Indeed, to get even more precise, you can compute the bpm by using the formula I described earlier. But that's not an obligation.
Secondly (and most importantly), the main point is that if after having this done, you listen to your timing and think "oh damn, this section starts a little bit too early, I have to add 10ms to the offset", then when you do it, you again have to adjust the bpm with the arrows so that the last white tick of previous section lines up with the new start of this section. And the same applies to the end of the new section with the start of the next one.
Whereas, if you had said previously to osu! that "there are exactly 8 ticks in this section", then adjusting the offset would automatically change the BPM so that the white ticks perfectly work together. This is in order to get more precision with fewer manipulations to do.

And I add, that the way I propose it to be changes nothing to the user who doesn't want to use that "advanced" feature. And for those who would like to use it, it's just a box to chekc, and a number of ticks to write.

I invite those who are curious to see what my timing/mapping gives, to try the ap I just finished
You can find it here https://osu.ppy.sh/s/687770
If you have a comment on the map, I'd appreciate you notifying me on the appropriate thread of the map. And of course, if you like it, don't hesitate to let people know, and even "kudosu" it, it would mean a lot <3
***End of self-promotion***

elie520 wrote:

I will definitely try to do that today, and I'll edit this message to add the link. Good idea.

Edit: I'm back! Before going through this long process of recording myself etc etc... I browsed a little bit on youtube, and found the perfect video to explain myself and show how useful my feature would be.
Look at this video on expert timing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyat7XWe2kg
At 1:40 for example, you see he needs to adjust the bpm (or the offset in this case) so that the sections work well together. Doing this once is no big deal. But then, imagine he offsets a little bit the start of his section to line it up with the music. Now he'd have to AGAIN adjust the bpm of the section, and also the bpm of the section before ! So each offset change induces 2 BPM adjustments.
If the number of beats was kept constant, the BPM would auto adjust, and the would be just nothing else to do than fine tune the offset, with as many tries as you want in a very short period of time

Am I being clear enough? What do you think? I really think it could be a game changer for expertly timing some maps

my understanding is you’re wrong about something
changing the offset doesn’t change the BPM. the BPM is always constant. the reason to change offset in the first place is to adjust the accuracy of the beat landing on the actual beat of the song, and it doesn’t HAVE to line up with the next section.

I now understand what you don't get from my perspective.
Imagine you have a timing section starting at 1:00.000 that is PERFECT, you won't ever touch that, ok?
Now imagine your first time section starts at 0:02.500, and you have a certain BPM. You're supposed to have the last white tick of your first section equal to the first of the 1:00.000 section for one simple reason: they both represent the same beat. Do yo agree with me until now? (I hope so )

Now, let's say you figure out that you're first section starts a little late, because the first beat is actually at 0:02.450. Now you have to change the offset of your first section, and sadly, the last tick of this section will be at 0:59.950, NOT 1:00.000, and it will not match the music. What's the solution then? Adjusting the BPM to this small change, that is recompute the BPM, either basing yourself on the number of beats, or by using the arrows (which is almost precise but quite as much), or by multiplying your previous BPM by (old duration of the section)/(new duration of the section) (this is equivalent to counting the number of beats in a way. It's just doing a ratio of the forumula involving the number of beats, but since the number of beat doesn't change it simplifies out, so do the '60').

In either cases, you have to change the BPM, and do it manually is OK, BUT it could EASILY be done automatically.

Actually, if the "counting the number of beats" is disturbing you, I think another way to implement this would be solely basing the computation on the previous duration of the section and the new duration. This would also work.

Thanks for continuing answering, so that the potential miscommunication can be overcome

By the way, you indicated on my map's thread that it should be single BPM, I totally don't agree, and if you're sure, I would like to see the BPM/offset you propose for your single section, so people (including me) could try and see what it gives. Thanks.