Problem due to "Reset Offset to Zero"

[Azrael]

Hi everyone,

 

I recently noticed in a lot of customs that the measures of the music are not in sync with the measures of the chart. This means that the first beat of a music-measure is not the same as the first beat of the chart-measure, but instead the 2nd, 3rd or 4th (in 4/4 time signatures).

In most songs, chord changes happen mostly at the beginning of measures. It "feels" irritating in Rocksmith, when those chord changes are not accompanied by the thicker beat lines that mark the measures.

It becomes even more irritating when converting a song with the RocksmithToTab converter. If the measures are not in sync, it will e.g. insert a pause at the beginning of the first measure with notes - so in most cases this is an indication that something is not right.

 

I think this problem exists because of the prompt "Reset Offset to Zero" when you save your file in EOF. When you first import your GP tabs, in most cases the measures should be in sync. But when you fill the leading silence with beats, in most cases the measures shift a couple of beats.

 

I see two possible sollutions for this:

 

First: Automatically fill the leading silence with a whole number of measures.

For this the time signature would need to be taken into account. In a 4/4 time signature, you would then need to insert only n*4 beats, so 4, 8, 12, 16...

 

Second: Do not prompt the message "Reset Offset to Zero".

To be honest, in my own customs I always ignore this warning, and it hasn't caused any trouble so far. The reasons are the following:

1. I want to keep the first beat at the very first note, so that I can always re-import my GP-tabs when I edit them

2. I want the yellow measure numbers shown to be the same numbers as shown in TuxGuitar

3. Measures do not stay in sync

 

 

This results in a couple of questions:

1. Do you see my problem? Of course, it is only an esthetic problem... but one that could simply be avoided.

2. Are either of my presented sollutions useful / easy to implement?

3. Am I running into problems with my method of ignoring the prompt?

 

Bonus question:

Would it be possible to introduce a new kind of anchor that can only exist one time, an anchor where the counting of the measure numbers starts and where the import from GP starts from? (This would eliminate my personal reasons #1 and #2)

 

Regards,

Azrael

[Alex360]

About zero offset I can doubt, RS use things like this and we handle all offsets things(maybe someone can catch floating point rounding issue but idk for sure).

The most common issue with tech like that is there is no room for COUNT phrase, that needed by rocksmith(RS counts like metronome using events). If no COUNT phrase it will use first phrase for that and you'll lose first phrase section in RR and DD bar.

I usually add 4 markers before(using push offset back) and ignore warning, but you can add empty measure in GP and EOF so you no longer need to keep first marker at first note.

[raynebc]

I think the prompt was mostly for the benefit of RS1 customs, although I don't know if it was really needed. Would there be a consensus here that the prompt in question should just be removed?

[Azrael]

I usually add 4 markers before(using push offset back) and ignore warning, but you can add empty measure in GP and EOF so you no longer need to keep first marker at first note.

Adding one empty measure in GP and pushing the offset back is a great idea!

 

And if you think the prompt can be savely removed, then I think you should do it.

The COUNT issue has it's own prompt, which I now don't have to ignore anymore :-)

[raynebc]

Any other folks want to weigh in on whether to keep the prompt?

[MadMaxx]

Any other folks want to weigh in on whether to keep the prompt?

 

The question is, is it correct to ignore it. I usually ignore the prompt and select NO but that does not mean that its correct :lol:

  <offset>-10</offset>
  <centOffset>0</centOffset>
  <startBeat>10</startBeat>

This is how its in most cases in official DLC. Can you explain me what those numbers mean please?  What does the offset value of -10 in that case mean? startbeat of 10 means that the measure 1 starts at 10 seconds.

 

What i dont understand is that EOF does throw the prompt and asks if you want to reset the offset to 0 but if i select NO in the xml the offset is still set to 0, should it not have the negative number of the time of measure 1.

 

Here is an example of my latest save xml from EOF. I selected NO to the prompt but the xml does still have it set to 0. I added 6 seconds of silence and have the first 4/4 empty thats why measure 1 is at 4.916.

  <offset>0.000</offset>
  <centOffset>0</centOffset>
  <startBeat>4.916</startBeat>

Edit:

Edited September 28, 2014 by MadMaxx

[raynebc]

It depends on whether the chart is authored to start before the audio does. EOF just takes the easy way out and specifies the audio starts at 0 seconds with the chart, and that the first beat of the chart is at the specified time.

[nasents]

I just started charting like a week ago so the problems I have are probably self inflicted, but I don't even understand that warning.  Most of the songs I've charted don't start on the first beat and there's some silence or other noise before the music starts (nobody home for instance with chatting for 18 seconds).

 

I've been adding 3 seconds of silence and then moving the start of the track to the first beat of actual music.  My problem is this... half the time I pick YES and add beats.   Sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't.  And what I mean by that is, sometimes when I say YES the music starts x seconds before the notes come down the highway and sometime it works perfectly (not accounting for OP's original problem of whether or not the 1st beat is at the start of the measure.

 

I've tried every combination of adding silence to the MP3 and GP4 files an it's always inconsistent.

[raynebc]

Usually that kind of problem is caused by having EOF change the chart audio, but using an old WAV file with Wwise or an old WEM file with the toolkit or something like that. Delete the WAV file and EOF will recreate it the next time it saves the project. Then delete the WEM file and recreate it in Wwise with the new WAV file, and use that new file the next time you build the custom song package.

[Azrael]

I would like to raise this topic again and ask to remove the "reset offset to zero" promt.

 

While this has been a rather "cosmetic" problem before, with the new metronome feature it becomes a real problem that charters unsync their bars by accepting this promt - resulting in the metronome to not work properly!

As far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like anyone saw a problem with the removal of the prompt. :)

 

Regards,

Azrael

[raynebc]

Does anybody think the prompt should be given if Rocksmith 1 export is enabled, or does Rocksmith 1 even care?

[Rockfirstlast]

People were ignoring the prompt back in the RS1 days and the package would still play.

[SmellyOrc]

Indeed. I believe there is only a problem if the chart starts more than ~5 seconds after the music starts. RS2014 starts a few seconds before the first beat starts (the first beat in eof). I don't know if this is because the way EoF exports the xml files and if that can be fixed?

[raynebc]

Maybe it has to do with the value in the XML file? Checking a couple RS1 official XMLs, the offset value was given as -10.000 and the first phrase iteration was at 10.000, so maybe the start of the song is chosen based on the first phrase iteration and is altered by the offset value? If anybody can play around with that and figure out how it works I could try to change EOF's export logic. Right now, it always exports an offset value of 0.000.

 

Edit: For now, I'll just take the prompt out.

[Azrael]

Unrelated to the problem... but I just realized that if you remove that prompt and give us an option to always "write pitchless lyrics as playable freestyle", it would become possible to save without beeing shown any prompts. That would be a huge plus in comfort!

I know this is kinda stupid, but I'm only human... so I'm always thinking: "Do I want to save now? Naaa, I'll save later, I don't want to click away those prompts..."

Next thing I know: Alt-tabbed away from and back to EOF one time to often and then it's crashed again... *D'oh!*

[raynebc]

The "quick save" function already suppresses all prompts. If you can reproduce an ALT+Tab crash, let me know. The last time I ever experienced a reproducible ALT+Tab crash was only if time-stretched playback was playing when EOF leaves focus, but that was fixed over half a year ago. Even if it did crash, it should have offered to recover your project from the last undo state when you opened EOF again.

[PC Plum]

I actually quite like the prompts.  It's a safeguard against pressing Ctrl+S instead of Shift+S when making sections.  Not that it stops the save, it just lets you know it happened.

 

I like to go through a process when I save (nowadays I usually resnap all arrangements for example) and there are so many potential problems that when I hit save in EoF I know that I am happy with the project and that I "meant" to save.

 

Sometimes it's also very handy to load up a project, mess about (experiment) then come out without saving.  I know that if I have seen no prompts then I have not saved accidentally.

 

I also use the prompts to in a constructive manner to add phrases once I've added sections (I know I can do this manually but it's just the way I've gotten used to is to let EoF tell me I need to add phrases and add them then) and also to indicate default tones in arrangements with tone changes.

 

I know this is all personal to me and I am quite happy to go with the majority.  I just didn't want to say "I like the prompts" then offer no argument as to why :D

[Alex360]

Even in Official songs you can start from any second you want, just ensure that you have "Counting" phrase and all will be fine :)

i.e you need one phrase before thr first real section\phrase in song, I usually just left one empty measure before real first section and I've got no issues with loosing first section in RR.

[raynebc]

OK, so the game will just start it around the first phrase in the song?