Not sure if this is the right section, but I am working on a bit of CDLC as a personal project and I ran into a bit of an issue: the last chorus of my song on the bass turned into one (very long) sustain due to (I'm guessing) an error in the Guitar Pro import and is incorrect. I don't understand the controls very well on this - all I want to do is copy notes from one section of the song to another. I can't seem to figure this out and the controls are a little messy to me in the manual.

 

Unrelated, but is it me or are the Guitar Pro imports a bit fiddly with the BPM? I have to adjust them on a beat-by-beat basis most of the time in order for them to get anything correct. It's like they're all 10BPM too fast except in certain parts where they're 5BPM too slow.

is there a chord after that chord? IF so, mark that following chord as crazy to remove the sustain from the previous chord.

 

Guitar pro imports take whatever the first bpm in eof is set to.

 

For example, if you had a gp5 file that's set at 100 bpm, and eof is at 80, all your beats will be off. You need to set them both to the same, ASSUMING the gp5 file is actually the right bpm. At which case you want to make the eof bpm the correct bpm.

The squashed notes at the end of your chart are because you have been changing BPM (using the menu in EoF) multiple times.  I don't know exactly how to reproduce the "bug" but using "Change BPM" a few times causes it.

 

The easist solution is to re-import the GP file once you lay down the beat map (see below).  But, if you don't have the first notes lined up in the song at the correct position then the notes won't go where they are supposed to.

 

A solution to this is to make a new EoF project (you can use a new folder and a copy of the guitar.ogg for simplicity), import the tabs into that, then copy/paste them into the correct starting position of the original project.  Make sure to copy over the tech notes too.

 

 

Beat map - the vast majority of songs do not have a completely steady beat all the way through.  Sometimes drummers speed up/slow down, and there can be tempo swings for musical effect too.  The BPM in the GP file is only a rough guide (and sometimes 5 or 10 bpm out, yes).

 

The process of "beat mapping" is actually moving the anchor points about to make the notes line up with the actual music.  99% of customs require this.

 

 

 

To reiterate in case I have confused you...  try to reimport the GP file to see if it fixes the "bass chord" issue.

How do I mark it as crazy? Here's what it looks like right now:

http://i.imgur.com/1soaKi6.png

and here's how it should look:

http://i.imgur.com/hD5s3xQ.png

If you have a previous instance of what should happen it might be easiest to just copy and paste it into the right place if re-importing doesn't work (sometimes it does, sometimes it takes a few tries, sometimes it doesn't, at least for me). So if measures 210-212 (or perhaps beyond) should look the same as 202-204, you can select all of those notes by clicking on the first note in 202 and Shift+clicking the last note in 203, copying (ctrl+C), then selecting the stuff in 210-212 (click first, shift+click last, etc), deleting it, and then pasting (ctrl+V).

 

As for the tempo stuff, as PC Plum said, the guitar pro files usually aren't perfect, and sometimes they aren't particularly close. Often times drum beats stand out as spikes on the waveform graph and land on beats so they're easiest to sync. Many of my customs have required a syncing every few measures or so (which can get a bit difficult fast songs where so much is happening that it's hard to identify the drum beats. It can also be a bit annoying in songs where there are many time signature changes).

Going on the screenshots you have a lot to learn, and the beat marks are nowhere near on time.

 

@@raynebc, why (in the screenie) does it say 2+0 in the working pane but 2+11 in the play pane?

 

 

@@eezstreet, watch this

 

The squashed notes at the end of your chart are because you have been changing BPM (using the menu in EoF) multiple times. I don't know exactly how to reproduce the "bug" but using "Change BPM" a few times causes it.

If anybody finds a way to reproduce this reliably, please send me steps and a test file and I'll look into it.

I tried a couple of files there and it happens when you reduce BPM (with adujust notes) and the chart needs to go beyond the end of the audio.  Everything beyond the red line (end of audio) gets squashed together.

 

 

Problem 1 is that you don't know it happened if you are syncing left to right through the song until you get to the end.  Then it's like head scratching time, because the chances are that during the sync all the gems have been dragged back onto the audio.

 

A lot of songs require the gems to be "off the end" until the full sync is completed - songs can have varying tempos and most songs generally speed up at some point, so between the import and the sync there are likely to be gems off the end.

 

 

We did talk about this before and you looked at it and, admittedly, I could not reproduce it at the time.  But I just tried 2 files there and it was donig it consistently.

 

I can give you the files but I reckon you can reproduce it with any GP file and audio of the correct length (no point trying it with a 3 min GP file over 7 mins of audio).

 

Also, for reference I did use extreme BPM drops i.e. from the default 120 to 80.

@@PC Plum

Are you still able to reproduce that issue on the current hotfix?

I gotta admit I haven't tried the new hotfix :(

 

I've got some more customs in the pipeline, I'll give a run out soon.

I haven't tried the new hotfix either, but I ran into this issue again. Fortunately there wasn't anything at the end of the song that couldn't be copy/pasted from other sections.

My workflow now centres on being able to re-import the GP file at will.  This means that you need to line up the beginning of played notes between the audio and where the GP file wants to put them.

 

Since most songs have leading silence added, you need to add 4 seconds or so of "silence" to the GP file.

 

In GP, on the first beat hit Ctrl+Insert.  It will add a block of "silence".  You can repeat this until you get the notes further into the EoF chart, adding more blocks of silence as required.

 

If you go too far, in GP (on the first block you want rid of) go to File and Cut.  Tell GP how many blocks need cut.

 

You need to save the GP file every time you make a change (just overwrite it using Save As or Save), so that EoF imports the new version.

 

After GP Import in EoF, if its not where you want hit Undo, alter the GP file and them import again.

 

Obviously, some movement of the timing bars in EoF will still be required, and you won't get the correct "song tempo" up to the first gems (some squashing will be required to get the notes in the right place).

 

 

The point of all of this is so you can re-import the GP file anytime you like...  like when you get a skewed chart.  Once you are happy that GP Import makes the notes land where you want them, you can go ahead and sync the rest of the chart left to right.  If at any time you want to re-import the GP file it will all line up nice over your r=created beat map - and the end of the chart will be there again.

 

 

It took me 200 customs to work this out, but its one of the most powerful charting tips there is.  There are millions of reasons to re-import the chart again, not just skewed charts.  It's saved me hundreds of hours of fixing my own errors, just being able to whip in a clean copy of the tabs at will.

 

And if its a nice GP tab, if you sync up one instrument then the others will just fall into place.  Like if you sync with the bass, you can import in the crazy hard lead break and its all nice and lined up for you.  Then mess up said crazy lead break with some ideas, then re-import it in seconds to start again...

 

 

You need to remember to grid snap the notes after this kind of import though.  Its importing over a beat map with many different tempos (most songs have some human drummer feel to them), and the notes need snapped on grid.  Use CTRL+A to select all notes them CTRL+Shift+R to re-snap.

Well, if anybody can ever reliably reproduce a problem with the same steps and files on the current hotfix, I'll always be interested in fixing it. Usually I need a Guitar Pro file and sometimes the EOF project file (some issues only occur in very specific conditions, potentially requiring certain beat timings to cause a math rounding error or something).

I can't make it happen, and I don't think there is anything wrong with EoF as such.  It's a pretty long and complex set of steps to work out reliably how to reproduce it, and not worth the hassle since its so easily fixed with a re-import.  Even before I worked that out you can always import onto a blank EoF file then copy/paste the notes over to your beat map.

 

I don't think its worth fixing really, eezstreet must have been going deep into BPM changes without using the undo button.

 

The last time it happened to me was syncing Anything For Love, which at 12 mins and mega tempo sweeps I was kind of expecting.