Beats and Tempo Detection - reviews and suggestions for improvement

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 5:06 AM

Today I tried both functions and I bring you my impressions.

What is probably wrong:
1. Imagine a situation where you are in the middle of editing a project and you use Beat Detection. From now on, all UNDOs will be blocked. You can no longer undo previous changes.

2. If you once apply Beat Detection to an audio track, beat makers will still appear in it when you open it in a new project. Even if I delete the .sfk file, the macros are still displayed.
It is necessary? I find deleting macros quite complicated.

3. The Beat detection window with the slider will block everything below it. You cannot zoom the Trimer or the Timeline.

4. If you set Tempo detection and look at the upper bar with numbers, everything is terribly unclear when zooming. All numbers are white. I don't know where the first period ends and the second begins. See the comparison with Cockos Reaper. His solution is great and clear. The numbers between one and two are gray.

5. Makers in Beat tempo seem confusing to me. They are also there where there is no classic tempo. Maybe it would be great if Beat Detection first detected BMP tracks and then gave me a choice whether I want to display macros regularly only on the main drum.

Script, or how to make your work easier
6. It would be great if Vegas could do the following:
1. Apply Tempo Detection to the audio. This will set the project exactly according to the BMP track.
2. select (using a script) in the Timeline all the events for which you want to change the length according to the time. You will have 2, 4, 8, 16 to choose from.

In this way, you can shorten, for example, 20 events exactly and at once to 4 times.
I hope I write it clearly.

Comments

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 7:47 AM

I am confused by this:
The test audio has a different BPM detection than it should.

VP22 - 126.69 BPM
MixMeister BPM Analyzer - 140 BPM
Correct speed - 95 BPM

file to test:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i6t_0kNupAjtneCnQZstKMEp817hGi_1/view?usp=drive_link

vegasdimitar wrote on 8/1/2024, 7:49 AM

Hi and thanks for your feedback! Thank you for the suggestions - some of these ideas we already had and discussed in our team.

I just quickly want to provide you with answer for your points 1. and 2.

1. For technical reasons all the media marker editing is happening in the trimmer window. Initially we even had the Beat Detection only accessible from there, but to make it easier we also provided the shortcut on the main timeline. You get the issue you see there because you close the trimmer window. While it stays open you should have no issues with undo/redo of all media marker actions (incl beatdetection). That undo does not work when the window is closed is a bug and we will make sure to fix it with the next update

2. Whether the markers are saved within the media or not heavily depends on your settings (again in the trimmer).See the options for saving of markers and regions

I hope that helps and thanks again for your feedback. We will look into these comments and try to improve the functionality of the features

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 8:01 AM

Another file that is poorly detected in VP22. 120BPM is correct. Not 121BPM.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pA7Yt6RTjYnNQ82JyCgtnrwBsam_VjX2/view?usp=drive_link

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 8:11 AM

Despite the inaccurate BPM detections, I really liked the Tempo detection.

Tips to visually improve your editing:
1. If you turn on "Snap to Grid" you will see vertical lines in the Timeline even through the video event.

2. If you select "Quarter Notes", the vertical lines in the Timeline will change to a regular rhythm according to the drum.

Thanks to this, you can cut quickly and efficiently.
I no longer need to keep track of the numbers at the top of the Timeline.

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 8:30 AM

Another bad BPM detection:

VP22 - 132BPM
That's right - 128BPM

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_vxCzoPqOA5pIfjZFdGZnHPs56S-ymft/view?usp=drive_link

pierre-k wrote on 8/1/2024, 9:07 AM

Another bad one for testing:

VP22 - 133.29 BPM
MixMeister BPM Analyzer - 99.97 BPM
That's right - 100 BPM

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hD-iNam7JI3IwJjMaM9RLG55a7NYLciz/view?usp=drive_link

zzzzzz9125 wrote on 8/1/2024, 9:08 AM

Another example:

VP22: 128BPM
Correct: 192BPM, same result as any other BPM detector

I can only say that VEGAS Pro still needs to improve on this feature.

Marty74 wrote on 8/1/2024, 6:26 PM

Does Vegas Pro will support variable tempo at some point ? (like importing a midifile or a tempo track).
I use variable tempo in my tunes (Cubase), but Vegas still only support fixed tempo, so it's pretty useless in most of the cases.
I hope at some points, it will change ! waiting for this since years.

Marty74 wrote on 8/1/2024, 6:28 PM

Another example:

VP22: 128BPM
Correct: 192BPM, same result as any other BPM detector

I can only say that VEGAS Pro still needs to improve on this feature.

It would have been better i think to have provided a tap tempo feature with it. even if it's not perfect, it would be a nice alternative to when a tempo is badly detected.

Former user wrote on 8/1/2024, 7:23 PM

At 2:25 when narrator talks about the most powerful feature of beatedit, cutting on the '1' to shorten music can that also be done in Beats Detector, how do you know what beat is the '1' ?

Reyfox wrote on 8/7/2024, 10:09 AM

@sonicvision start your own thread.

davewire35 wrote on 11/1/2024, 10:58 AM

I didn't see that post so I did mine https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/your-opinion-on-beat-detection--147663/

zzzzzz9125 wrote on 11/1/2024, 11:16 AM

Does Vegas Pro will support variable tempo at some point ? (like importing a midifile or a tempo track).
I use variable tempo in my tunes (Cubase), but Vegas still only support fixed tempo, so it's pretty useless in most of the cases.
I hope at some points, it will change ! waiting for this since years.

@Marty74 I just wrote an extension to do this, you can try it out: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/free-tempo-markers-extension-for-vegas-pro-audio-users-variablebpm--147604/

Marty74 wrote on 11/2/2024, 5:05 AM

Does Vegas Pro will support variable tempo at some point ? (like importing a midifile or a tempo track).
I use variable tempo in my tunes (Cubase), but Vegas still only support fixed tempo, so it's pretty useless in most of the cases.
I hope at some points, it will change ! waiting for this since years.

@Marty74 I just wrote an extension to do this, you can try it out: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/free-tempo-markers-extension-for-vegas-pro-audio-users-variablebpm--147604/

Wow Cool ! i'll test that, thanks !!

Marty74 wrote on 11/2/2024, 5:09 AM

By the way, i noticed an issue since a long time, don't know yet "who is at fault", but it's easy to check.
in Cubase version 13, since 12 , it's possible again to export a video, and with a timecode inserted on the picture.

While running it in vegas pro with timecode feature, it's not in sync.. it's close but note the exact timecode. making it impossible to use it to do proper sync between work i do in the music app,and vegas using this technic. anybody aware of that or experimented this issue himself ? doing a check with other video generator app with timecode to see if everything is perfectly in sync ?

the issue is of few frames and get worst with time during the play of the video. I can do an export to show the issue and the time difference (and this using a fixed tempo in vegas and cubase).