Guest
home
beatmaps
rankings
community
store
help
forum
  1. Forums
  2. Beatmaps
  3. Mapping Discussion

I'm having problems with timing the circles.

posted
Total Posts
11
LaserGreen
122 posts
Joined November 2020
Topic Starter
LaserGreen
Since i started mapping, i had a huge amount of trouble in timing the circles to the right time. i tried to find some friends or other people to collab to help me, but they aren't experienced either. Does anyone like a trick to time circles perfectly or want to collab bc im honestly going to give up :(
MyAngelInazuma
197 posts
Joined October 2013
MyAngelInazuma
what do you mean by timing? do you mean as in measuring the bpm and offset or figuring out rhythm choices?
for the former, people can probably help you, given that you don't post every other day for help, and for the latter, idk
LaserGreen
122 posts
Joined November 2020
Topic Starter
LaserGreen
k i obviously didn't describe that well.

What i mean is that im sometimes unsure at when to put the circles into the correct time that they should be clicked. Sometimes when i mess up the timings i just get horrible acc or sometimes it won't even let me click it.

That's my point. Idk if i can fix that, if there is a way to make the timings easily and if there are people willing to collab in my 7m map... yea... halp
MyAngelInazuma
197 posts
Joined October 2013
MyAngelInazuma
for most songs, you won't go wrong by just placing notes to red and white ticks.
if clicking at those ticks go wrong, you probably have wrong offset/bpm.
LaserGreen
122 posts
Joined November 2020
Topic Starter
LaserGreen

MyAngelInazuma wrote:

for most songs, you won't go wrong by just placing notes to red and white ticks.
if clicking at those ticks go wrong, you probably have wrong offset/bpm.
rn im remaking Galaxy Collapse, and thats a pretty hard song.. and thx a lot! this could help a lot in the future
Arccanist
106 posts
Joined December 2018
Arccanist
there is a panel shown always before placing circles in a field of the map, that is timing, then try to use some online/offline converter of the song's bpm and it will show what bpm you need to put, use playback rate to 25 percent then follow the beat of the song, for more specific, follow the instrumental at the sharpest point, once you hear a drum or anything instrumental, aside vocals, then everything will be time correctly.
Evyl
65 posts
Joined October 2017
Evyl
hey,im not that much of an experienced mapper but i have spent quite some time in the editor,for months probably,i dont rlly have friends who are experienced in mapping too,soo...we should be mutuals? :")) ill add u and see if i can help you in timing! or other stuffs too lol
Last edited by Evyl , edited 1 time in total.
whatanabeme
4 posts
Joined August 2019
whatanabeme
im not that experienced, but rhythm and timing isn't much of a problem to me. what i do is to know which certain sound i want to put a beat on, then slow down the playback to pinpoint where i exactly put the circle.

also, the best beat snap divisor is 1/8. you get it very accurate, but the object can be converted easily across devices
Zelzatter Zero
3,962 posts
Joined October 2016
Zelzatter Zero

whatanabeme wrote:

im not that experienced, but rhythm and timing isn't much of a problem to me. what i do is to know which certain sound i want to put a beat on, then slow down the playback to pinpoint where i exactly put the circle.

also, the best beat snap divisor is 1/8. you get it very accurate, but the object can be converted easily across devices
the most common divisor is 1/4...

If you know how to time correctly, then the whole "know which certain sound i want to put a beat on, then slow down the playback to pinpoint where i exactly put the circle" is completely useless, as you can learn that most of the time strong beats lands on white tick, less stronger beats goes on red tick, the rest go to blue.

normally I just let this going but seeing how much of misinformation it has I have to join in.

Please, try to at least time stuff properly first before doing anything else.
Last edited by Zelzatter Zero , edited 3 times in total.
atlasAi
84 posts
Joined November 2020
atlasAi
not an entirely experienced mapper, but here's my take:

timing correctly
in the timing window, skip to the chorus (or most intense) part of the song. use "t" to tap to the beat of the song.

how do i "tap" to the beat of the song?
follow the instrument that is the most prominent and repeats consistently. if there is a drum that is played at every section of the song at the same tempo, it's a good idea to assume that's the bpm.

go back to the beginning of the song in the timing section to find the first downbeat to place your offset in the timing window or with the adjuster under the bpm. (ctrl for small ms movements, shift for larger ones)

what is the "downbeat"?
the downbeat of a song is normally the most important sound of a song. some are played in time signatures of 1/4 and 1/3, so that's why those options exist in the timing window. the first "important sound" is not the first sound played. it is the sound (usually instrument) that has starts the metronome. you dont want to be placing the offset at the very beginning of an important sound-- usually at the impact where it's at it's greatest.

you can now fine tune your bpm! your timing using the "t" command probably wasn't very accurate, so now lets change that. this will be easy, assuming your offset is correct. skip to the end of the song (or preferably the start of a chorus) and see how it does. a few beats off? good! that means your song is most likely a single-bpm song. change the bpm by a bit until you get it to line up perfectly. is it *very* far off? well.. your song might have variable timing.

what's variable timing?
variable timing is where the song changes in tempo (bpm) more than once. it could be 160, then 80, then 90, and so on. in osu!, this will require more red lines, and more of repeating this process. if you are mapping a song with variable timing, find where your correct bpm sounds out of place. that will act as the offset for your new red line, where you can configure the bpm for that section.

go to a chorus of the song. see the large white line? that's a downbeat, configurable with the 1/4 and 1/3 time signatures as i mentioned before. does it always land on important sounds? good! no need to change the time signature. does it not always land on important sounds? well that means you may need a metronome reset. does it never land on important sounds? try changing the time signature to 1/3 and see what happens. (you can configure your own time signature, but it probably will be wrong due to it's obscurity.)

metronome reset???
it's actually really simple. if your song happens to not follow the structure of the downbeats a few times, place a red line on the white tick where the downbeat actually is, and listen from there. done! if your song follows the downbeats now, that's all you needed to do.

prioritizing sounds in the music
now you can create your beatmap. stick to 1/4, since its the most common beat snap divisor. some songs also use 1/3 (1/6) or 1/8, but you shouldn't touch it unless you hear sounds following those divisors. place circles and sliders, and see how it feels. personally, before doing this, i like to set the hitsound volume a tad lower and adjust my sv to fit with the song to accurately depict whether or not the map's content follows the song.

how do i navigate the most common beat snap divisors?
1/4 commonly prioritizes white > red > blue, however some songs prioritize white > blue > red too. stick to prioritizing and white ticks for now though, and leave blue/red ticks for passive objects, such as slider tails.

in essence:
white comes first
red can have equal or lesser impact then white
blue has least impact

for navigating 1/8, this is practically 1/4 * 2. 1/8th is usually used for streams on lower bpm songs, so you wont need to worry about this.

1/3rd (1/6), songs using a swing beat, are ones i don't know much about yet. for an example of a song using a swing beat though, listen to cobalt memories by harumaki gohan.

you will almost never need to encounter other divisors (possibly 1/9th and 1/5) other than the ones i mentioned. generally, dont touch the beat snap divisor setting.

most maps follow a simple 1/4th structure.

circles are active, meaning they are clicked, so they should be on red or white ticks.
sliders are active AND passive, meaning they should start on red/white ticks and end on blues. (or an important sound ending a song's section)

spinners... are weird. long held notes or the end of a musical section is where they come into play most. people like finishing their maps off with them, others like marking the end of a musical section with them by adding a pause later.

in 1/8th, yellow ticks can be of equal or lesser importance. they are mainly used for streams.

and 1/3rd, i really can't comment on. they are swing rhythms, which i dont mainly map/know about.

making sure that you're map is timed right
now that you're mapping, how does it sound? on time? good! you can continue mapping from this point. not? well, you might want to spend some more time in the timing panel. if you still have issues, there are places in the mapping forums where you can ask for timing help. read over the suggestions and see what fits. examine these examples too, so you'll know how timing works better.

hopefully this helps!
Last edited by atlasAi , edited 3 times in total.
lewski
1,253 posts
Joined September 2014
lewski

atlasAi wrote:

circles are active, meaning they are clicked, so they should be on red or white ticks.
sliders are active AND passive, meaning they should start on red/white ticks and end on blues.
this is just misinformation. no active 1/4? no 1/1 or 1/2 sliders, when those are easily the most common lengths? this makes it sound like sliderends can't represent anything, although the part in parentheses sort of redeems that part


For really basic rhythm, pick the instrument that you think is the coolest in the part you're mapping, and make the player click on a circle or the start of a slider when that instrument plays a sound. If another instrument does something cooler than the instrument you picked first, switch your focus to that one. Sliderends can go on other sounds, or even on nothing in particular if you want to fill gaps in order to keep the player moving.

Now, if you're having trouble actually getting your circles on the sounds like OP might have had, it's certainly true that white and red ticks will usually be where the sounds are. Bursts/streams are super common, though, so it's just wrong to say that it's rare to have circles on blue ticks. Instead, you can apply that logic to the starts and ends of bursts, since having them on blue ticks is a lot rarer.

There are also other exceptions, some of which are even fairly common, so "focus on white and red ticks" should never be treated as anything but than a simple reminder of where sounds are likely to be. You don't need it at all if you can hear which ticks sounds land on. Always trust your ears over any rule of thumb.
Please sign in to reply.

New reply

0
1 / 11