@chainpullz i think the following lines cover the thing i was referring to
Bonsai wrote:
A "traditional" metronome only makes one type of tick-sound which represents one beat, and doesn't really have anything to do with the time signature that you want to play in that tempo -
i gotta disagree with this, first of all why do "traditional" metronomes matter at this point? i mean we're in 2018 and i'm pretty sure electronic metronomes exist and are capable of representing compound or even complex time signatures.
Bonsai wrote:
When a metronome is set to 60 BPM it makes one tick per second, if you're playing 3/4 in that tempo you take three ticks and mentally sub-divide each tick into two, if you're playing 6/8 in that tempo you take two ticks and sub-divide each into three ticks - Both signatures have the same amount of eighth- or quater-notes, but those notes don't have the same length, only the beats, and that's all what a metronome cares about.
yes, but you gotta realize the reason why representing the subdivisions with the metronome on simple time signatures (such as 3/4 or 4/4) isn't necessary: the beat on those is always a quarter note, so the notes always get grouped the same way, whereas for x/8 signatures, the way of grouping may be completely different from one song to another, you can have beats that last a dotted quarter note, for other cases it may be 2 eighth notes, there even exist 3/8 which uses eighth notes as the main beat. hence why electronic metronomes do mark the subdivisions for those time signatures.
also regarding the thing you're saying about the metronome should be taking care about the beats only , i think it's incorrect as the metronome is supposed to help you maintain a constant pace aligned with the music so i'd say the metronome should mark the subdivisions too (although quieter than actual beats)
Bonsai wrote:
That's what the metronome in osu! does too, if you set the BPM to 60 you have one white tick per second and will hear one tick-sound per second in the timing-tab, only when you hold ctrl it will further divide that into two or three ticks depending on what the BeatSnapDivisor is set to.
this point was already explained, it just happen to be like that because osu uses simple time signatures only, which take quarter notes as the main beat, so i believe subdivisions doesn't have to be there to the metronome be aligned with the music
Bonsai wrote:
A single metronome can't properly indicate irregular time signatures, because irregular time signatures aren't limited to one tempo.
so uh i don't understand why you say that, i mean if it was like that why would we even bother to ask developers to add complex time signatures into the editor?
as far i know there already exist electronic metronomes that can actually represent these type of time signatures. they use loud sounds to represent beats and quieter ones for subdivisions which helps a lot when it comes to play music in my opinion.
i can also tell that i've already searched from a ton of different sources finding always the same results from youtube videos, google search others forums, even music making related software such as cubase or guitar pro deal with those time signatures in a similar way, so why would osu use something different?
Bonsai wrote:
So this should make clear why using multiple BPM-sections is theoretically the musically most accurate method of timing irregular signatures in osu!. But since that's a relatively high effort, we only enforce the "simplified" version of sticking to one of those tempi, which is then consistent even if the song changes signature.
this wouldn't be a problem if we were with the doubling equivalency method as there would be always a subdivision hitting the beats no matter what
Bonsai wrote:
Now one of the reasons for not deeming double-BPM valid is obviously that it completely incorrect musically, since it uses neither of the tempi that a song actually has, and messes up the meaning of both note-value and beat-value
actually doubling the bpm and making all the notes half of the duration is just an equivalency, it would be still readable if you were to read a music sheet (although it would be more complicated because there wouldn't be an indication as to where the notes should be emphasized or how they are grouped), but it's none of osu's business honestly, if it was for this, the equivalence for almost all 1/3 based songs would be also labeled as incorrect as you would be converting a compound time signature into a simple one mapped with tuplets.
Bonsai wrote:
1) it also loses any indication of gameplay, as it doesn't even say how fast the actual "tapping-speed" of the song would be
i'd say it's the complete opposite of what you're stating, as for example
this map's listing says it's only 72 to 108 bpm but the tapping speed required to play it is actually a lot higher than that
Bonsai wrote:
2) it would make songs that switch between signatures be timed even more inconsistently, as you'd have 100 BPM for one part, then 200 BPM for another and then again 100 BPM, which messes up the SV along the way too. On average, the effort for using doubled BPM would be lower (though it could be higher in some cases too), but at the cost of not only losing any musical significance, but also losing an< significance for osu!. It wouldn't represent tempo in a consistent way, and wouldn't give the player any indication of what they can expect from the song. Basically, BPM would be completely meaningless because it would have a different meaning for different songs (or even for the same song when a signature isn't clearly identifyable), so at that point it wouldn't make much sense to have any timing-regulations in the first place.
well that's something that can be addressed with some rulings too, i don't think it would that difficult to so, also the method you're mentioning of halving/doubling because of time signature changes had happened a lot of times, refer to maps like
this or
this where you could theoretically change the time signature instead of changing tempo.
to end with i'm just gonna say that after our talk yesterday,
i'm not against the current proposal for regular time signatures (anything that can divided into beats of the same duration) as it makes a lot of sense and align with the music anyways. for irregular ones though, (5/8 7/8... etc) it's unpractical and not really intuitive to follow when playing/listening to the metronome
the fact that adding multiple red lines shifts the note placement on the timeline should be considered too, at least in my opinion.