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Can someone explain the Advanced Timing tutorial?

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Topic Starter
MwarriorHiei
The one that is linked to in the guide for first time beatmappers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKqv0K1nisM

I was extremely confused by the video not because the material is hard, but because it is just poorly explained. Here's what I mean:

"So here's the big trick. The idea is to take the information from this one, the 249280, and put it into the same one. So now all you have to do is line up the timing sections to work with each other."
What is this trying to say? So I get the offset, which is 249280, and do...something? How do I "line up the timing sections" and how do I get them to "work with each other"?

"I just set it to 184."
Why did he change the BPM to 184?

"You'll have something maybe like this, maybe. If you get the general idea, having two timing sections will allow you to fine tune it to the perfect decimal point."
How?

This is the biggest part that I am having trouble understanding but it is not the only part. The next section is also poorly explained. And I'm not trying to come off as a jerk; Charles445 didn't have to make these tutorials but did it anyone and I appreciate that. But if the tutorials are gonna be used in the First Time Beatmapper Guide (When you first start mapping, your first challenge is timing your map. To learn how to time a map, check t/121202 .), the instructions should be clear and easy to understand for first time beatmappers.
blissfulyoshi
Thanks for reading the guides, but I understand that not everything is easy to understand. I am a bit sleepy right now, but will try to explain as best as I can.

Charles is trying to find the timing of a song, by timing the map twice, once at the start and once at the end, to get the offsets and relative BPMs. From that point, he moves the the offset he got from the end to the map containing the timing section the first timing you made. Now since these are two offsets (the one from the beginning and the one from the end), under a single BPM scenario, they should both fall upon the white ticks on the timeline (in Charles's case there is the timeline on top of the screen, and the bouncing ball in the middle of the screen). To do this, you slowly adjust the BPM of the map so that the second offset falls exactly where you want it on the timeline. Then you test the map to make sure your BPM is correct.

So onto your questions.
1. Should be answered by what I said above

2. When he was timing the first section, he said 181 felt off, and mostly only used the first section to find the offset. When he switched away from the first section he knew his BPM was wrong, and he knew he needed a closer guess to the actual number before actually trying to find the BPM. So probably since he timed the song before he recorded teh tutorial, he switched to a better guessing value that he knew would work. For yourself, this just means that you need to a good starting guess value for BPM.

3. As said up above, Charles adjusted the BPM so that at the seconds offset the rubber ball landed on the left most side of the slider

I hope that helped. If you have any more questions/confusion, I'll answer them after I sleep
Topic Starter
MwarriorHiei

blissfulyoshi wrote:

Charles is trying to find the timing of a song, by timing the map twice, once at the start and once at the end, to get the offsets and relative BPMs. From that point, he moves the the offset he got from the end to the map containing the timing section the first timing you made.
What do you mean by moving the offset from the end of the song to the first timing section? How do you do this? Do you make a marker on the first map where the second offset was and then adjust the BPM until it moves to a tick? And I still don't understand why he needed the 249280.

And sorry again if I'm sounding too pushy. I just want to understand this enough so I don't go annoying people to time my songs if I ever do decide to submit any beatmaps.
blissfulyoshi
Exactly as you said, you just need a marker of the second offset. It doesn't even need to be a physical one, a mental one would do. If you want to add a timing section in game, go to Timing tab on the top -> click the box that says Timing Setup Panel --> Click the green plus button on the bottom right --> Check the offset on the top left to make sure it is what you want it to be --> press okay. The point of the second offset is that you have something you can align with at another part of the song because a further distance away in general will allow you to account for any error in the BPM you might get if you use a closer point. So here is a quick summary.

How the maps should look after Charles finishes getting the 2nd timing section (1 and 2 stand for offsets)
Map 1: 1 2
Map 2: 2

Assuming offset 1 and offset 2 are set correctly (set on a downbeat), the offset 2 in Map 1, should also fall on a downbeat. If it doesn't please adjust the BPM until it does. Then test the BPM to make sure it is correct. If it isn't correct, then adjust the BPM to make it sound correct, and then adjust the BPM some more so that offset 2 is on a downbeat. (Charles sort of skipped this by instead of going to 182.XX, he went straight to 184). So you just have to keep adjusting the BPM until both your goals are met: A. It sounds right, B. offset 2 is on a downbeat.
Topic Starter
MwarriorHiei
So why does he bring up the 249280 and mention that the time is 283? Did he do that to show that the second offset didn't match up when he put the marker into the first difficulty?
Charles445
Oh the advanced tutorials are in the beginner thread? BLISSFUL PLZ

Sorry for being bad on explaining, I have a tendency to do that
a lot
all the time

But uh it looks like you're referencing the Advanced Single BPM Tutorial, so I'm going to summarize the steps in text to avoid confusion.

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.

I hope that made sense? if it didn't let me know.
blissfulyoshi
@Charles: Where do you want me to put it? No one else wrote any timing guides and people need to learn how to time somehow. I wrote the guide to link all the other guides together for beginners.
Topic Starter
MwarriorHiei
Thanks for the explanation guys!

And about the tutorial being in the beginner guide; I think it's fine to have it there. Sure it's an advanced timing technique, but it's not difficult to do. The problem was just how vague the instructions are. If Charles could add the explanation he gave here to his guide/video description it would clear up most, if not all, of the confusion newer players could have.
Charles445

blissfulyoshi wrote:

@Charles: Where do you want me to put it? No one else wrote any timing guides and people need to learn how to time somehow. I wrote the guide to link all the other guides together for beginners.
Don't worry about it, I was just unaware that it was on that thread. With this new explanation it should be alright to keep.

MwarriorHiei wrote:

Thanks for the explanation guys!

And about the tutorial being in the beginner guide; I think it's fine to have it there. Sure it's an advanced timing technique, but it's not difficult to do. The problem was just how vague the instructions are. If Charles could add the explanation he gave here to his guide/video description it would clear up most, if not all, of the confusion newer players could have.
I put it on the main thread, thanks for bringing this up!
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