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Forum: Wishes and new features

Topic: Using beat curves to show vinyl beats

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alholioHome userMember since 2001
A fantastic idea to aid those learning vinyl would be to use the line-in on your soundcard to put beat curves in the window (Left mono channel for left turntable and right mono channel for right turntable)

The beat curve window as it is now show the few seconds that are about to be played, with the 'currently playing' point on the left.

The next version of Atomix would have the 'currrently playing' point in the middle of the beat curve window. This would allow DJs in training to see the beats that they're mixing to the left of this point

NOW... if you're using vinyl *and* MP3s it would help you do smooth mixes between the two formats!!! A HUGE bonus for those that have Atomix skills but no vinyl skills.
 

Posted Mon 13 May 02 @ 7:24 am
HomeboyPRO InfinitySupport ManagerMember since 2003
Good idea but wouldn't this be difficult to accomplish. I really have no idea how they would do it. Then again thats why I am not the author of the program ; ) It would be a nice touch though !

DJ Homeboy
 

Posted Mon 13 May 02 @ 7:39 am
I Don't think it would be too difficult, basicly its just a line in like the mic, and hooking it in through the display.
 

Posted Mon 13 May 02 @ 12:30 pm
hackeHome userMember since 2002
I think it isnt realizable, because the signal, wich comes from the turntable is not a digital signal. Its an analog signal. The Soundcard couldnt handle it. Thats why an external mixer has line inputs and phono inputs. Line is for everything but turntables, phono is only for turntables. As long as I know, the atomix prgrammers cant solut this Problem.

But tell me if Im wrong! Im not sure...

greeting

hacke
 

Posted Mon 13 May 02 @ 1:50 pm
Try mumaster ...
don't know the link but it's on www.hitsquad.com/smm ...
It does exactly what you ask! ;-)

greetz,
T-Bone
 

Posted Mon 13 May 02 @ 5:38 pm
alholioHome userMember since 2001
Ta T-Bone...

Tried MuMixer v1.01, kinda did the job... doesn't look nearly as sexy as Atomix beat curve and was more like a trace oscilloscope not a scrolling window!!!!

Does anyone here have the software skills to make a program with just a beat curve window using split line-in??

Please?!
 

Posted Tue 14 May 02 @ 11:51 pm
wel yeah, i know it is'nt sexy at all ... but tis an attempt eh ...
And i think atomix programmers could perfectly create a beat visulizer from a line-in ... because it's a digital sound after the sound card has processed the analog line in signal ...
 

Posted Wed 15 May 02 @ 12:39 pm
well ....... those source for the rhthym curves comes from digital music. If it were coming from an analog source .... the curves would not be as sharp.
 

Posted Wed 15 May 02 @ 5:04 pm
alholioHome userMember since 2001
@ hacke - you're right about the phono input not being the same as a line-in. Although the main difference for this application is the gain (there is also frequency compensation, but that doesn't matter too much here). It is a simple matter for the samples to be scaled to make a large beat curve... Atomix does this already on quiet sections of a track it hasn't analysed yet!

@ T-Bone - you're right about the sound being digital after passing through the sound card (a simple ADC process), so effectively the same as a wav file in Atomix.

@ Trip - How much do you know about the inner workings of the Atomix software and electronics in general? There seems to be a lot of uneducated guessing going on in these forums. Not biting your head off... and I'm not saying that this idea is possible or impossible, just and idea!
 

Posted Wed 15 May 02 @ 11:51 pm
I've been programming Unix systems for about 12 years and I can't see any reason why this wouldn't been a simple thing to add to AtomixMP3.

Brad
 

Posted Thu 16 May 02 @ 12:18 am
I personally think adding this to Atomixmp3 would not be a good idea because this is not a main function of atomixmp3 ...
Atomixmp3 is for mixing ... not visualizing beats from a line in signal
I think it would be better to create a small seperate program and sell it for, i don't know, 15$ or so ...
my opinion ...
regards,
Dj T-Bone
 

Posted Thu 16 May 02 @ 2:55 pm
but y couldnt this be used for mixing, for instance, 2 turntables, 2 soundcards and use atomix as the to beatmix and crossfade/eq fade ect....
 

Posted Thu 16 May 02 @ 4:53 pm
alholioHome userMember since 2001
@ T-Bone - I think that visual mixing is the MAJOR drawcard to Atomix. For many people doing things visually is more intuitive. If you can visually mix multiple sources (2 MP3s, 2 turntables and 2 DJ CDs!) you're a better DJ for it!

At most parties I play at there are usually turntables, CDs and Atomix (and of course a mixer). Mixing to and from the various formats would be much easier with visual mixing... especially at the beginning of a set when I'm settling into the crowd reactions.

I agree with you on making and selling the concept as a separate proggie. It would be a great training tool for DJs that don't want Atomix.

I also stick to my guns and say that it would be a huge feature increase for Atomix to accomodate multiple sources!!
 

Posted Fri 17 May 02 @ 12:11 am
Had they added something like that to Atomix Pro I would gladly shell out the dough for it!
 

Posted Mon 20 May 02 @ 5:57 pm
Part of the problem I think is that it being a live source, you would never be able to "read ahead" - see the approaching waveform BEFORE it plays like Atomix does with .WAV and .MP3 files. Best you could do (I think) would be a live "ociloscope" showing the peaks and curves in real time.
 

Posted Mon 27 May 02 @ 7:51 pm
@ the anon': The read-ahead is a problem if you were to visualize audio input from some other source YES.. but that's why people are talking about moving the "currently playing"-point of the graph to the middle so that you can see past beats as well as what's to come..

That would sadly give you a shorter scope of what's to come but to the left of that border you can see if the audio from Atomix is in sync with the audio from the other source..

..however... seeing that won't be that much of a help as you would have heard the de-sync before you actually notice it on the graph..
I see a slight possibility that this might be good for those just LEARNING how to beatmatch across platforms (PC(/CD)/vinyl/MD/...).
When you get good at it seeing those few already past beats would probably just be annoying/confusing..

If this is incorporated into Atomix at all I sure hope they make it an option so that you can still have the original beatgraph available without input visualization and with the "currently playing"-point in the left end of the graph.
 

Posted Tue 28 May 02 @ 12:02 pm
wouldnt it be much simpler just to hook up atomix on 2 sound cards each with their own channel assigned and then straight into line inputs of a real mixer?? i tried that with this old program VTT (virtual turntables) and it was ok, but not too great for live because mp3s tend to skip on a sh*tty laptop...

just my 2 cents...

-djunify
 

Posted Tue 28 May 02 @ 4:45 pm
alholioHome userMember since 2001
Good points Tommy!

With vinyl you don't get to hear the desync before it happens :)

I definitely agree that it should be an option for those that want the 'currently playing' point to be shifted.
 

Posted Thu 30 May 02 @ 1:24 am
I am a DSP programmer and I can tell you that this thing just CAN'T BE DONE. Why?
Very simple, because of the steps that are performed:
1 - the sound is taken analogic from the input, then converted to digitally. (this takes at least 25 ms latency in DirectSound)

2 - After this, the digital sound is stored in a buffer until is at least a few seconds long.

3 - The sound is finally processed (filtered, rectified&smooth, convolved) and the BPM detection is made - this takes a lot of processing power, and let's not forget that meanwhile the sound is still playing.
__________________
TOTAL: at least 4-5 seconds latency.

What this means: It means that _IF_ this is implemented in the program you will start the vinyl and after about 5 seconds you will see what was already played.

So, I ask you of what good is this anyway.

Oh, and one more thing.
I know of a program (another mixing software - MORE powerfull than Atomix - but has no skins - the only minus) that can detect BPM far more better (it detects even Hip-Hop, etc ... BPM). But hey, I don't advertise here.
Mail me at vim@infoiasi.ro if have any questions.
 

Posted Thu 13 Jun 02 @ 1:59 am


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