Slicer Transient Detection

I have looked a few times now for a dedicated thread or prominent mention of the increasingly mythical 'Transient Detection' that was / (is?) in the beta which even slipped into a pre-release video at one point. I believe this feature was removed due to being too buggy.

Typically I am slicing sound files of a couple minutes in length with around 80 or so slices at a time. Of course this would be a really nice first pass to rough out slices and speed up the process.

Anyway, has there been any word on if/when it may hit the official release?

Comments

  • The word was it was removed because it wasnt up to release standard, thats all so far.

    Sorry not much help to you :(

  • I think additional 'helper tools' for slicing could be in order as well.
    (I suggested a few different methods during beta).

    One could be 'lazy chop'. ie. tap a key to add 'chop markers' or select the next pad while recording the sample.
    This could also be applied when playing back a sample to do rough cuts. (Ie. start the playback of the sample and tap a 'button' to create a slice-marker).

    Another method would be to use the audio-level in db's as a 'thresholds' for creating a new chop-marks.

    Stereo samples also present a challenge for any transient detection as one marker has to work for both channels.

    None of the transient detectors I've bumped into over the years have been 100% accurate at all times and have always required some tweaking.

    I think one of the reasons it was not 'ready' was that for some samples it could not find even a single slice regardless of sensitivity setting that was used.

    I do hope both key/pitch-detection and transient-detection will come at some point.

  • edited October 2017

    @samu said:

    None of the transient detectors I've bumped into over the years have been 100% accurate at all times and have always required some tweaking.

    Egoist and Samplitude (the two I have used) work great. I am certainly not expecting 100%. As I said just a nice first pass to rough out slices and speed up the process. Maybe take a 30min task down to 10min.

  • @5pinlink said:
    The word was it was removed because it wasnt up to release standard, thats all so far.

    Sorry not much help to you :(

    No worries, thanks for the reply.

  • I concur that it need not work perfectly every time. Even just getting in the ballpark most of the time would save time...
  • edited October 2017

    @lukesleepwalker said:
    I concur that it need not work perfectly every time. Even just getting in the ballpark most of the time would save time...

    Yeah I agree. People have been asking for that feature to be restored for 3 months. Even if it isn't perfect we should have the opportunity to use it at our discretion while it is being worked on by the developers.

  • You obviously havent ever released any software.
    "Lets release it like that partially working, the users will understand" which is what you are suggesting, actually turns in to never ending support nightmare.
  • @5pinlink said:
    You obviously havent ever released any software.
    "Lets release it like that partially working, the users will understand" which is what you are suggesting, actually turns in to never ending support nightmare.

    While I have not released any commercial IOS music software I have programmed for many years and fully appreciate the time and effort software engineers take to release quality products. My only frustration is that this particular featured was touted just prior to the release of BM3 and a feature I really looked forward to. It is a feature that will make BM3 even more of an "MPC-killer', lol. When it was not included in the release I (and many others) although disappointed, were under the impression that it was fairly well developed just not quite ready for release.

  • The developers said it wasnt released because it wasnt release ready, there was no other impression at all given by the developers.
  • It was developed enough for them to put it in their marketing copy... that leaves an impression whether you choose to accept it or not. The rest of us got the same impression.
  • The transient detection that was in the beta(s) was more a 'miss' than a 'hit'. I never got any 'good' results with it.
    I mean you could export a 'perfect' loop from BM3 and when you did a 'detect' on it it found ZERO slices.

    Other examples where that the 'transient' was detected half-way into a snare sound not 'before' it.
    And when it somehow managed to put one slice in correct place all the others had to be manually adjusted.
    So in terms of 'flow' it became a lot faster to add the slice points manually...

    I do wish BM3 would have a 'lazy chop' feature, ie. start 'preview' of the sample and hit the 'pads' to add slice-points. (This would also be 'perfect' during sampling).

    Those ideas have been suggested to the developers, but I feel they are postponed until more severe bugs are fixed.

  • @lukesleepwalker said:
    It was developed enough for them to put it in their marketing copy... that leaves an impression whether you choose to accept it or not. The rest of us got the same impression.

    I dont disbelieve you, but what marketing copy ?
    I only heard it mentioned by some beta testers.
    Again, i am not disbelieving you, i just didnt see it in the marketimg and would like to see where, so i could understand why people are so uptight about this feature.

  • edited October 2017

    I think he is referring to the pre-release info. It isn’t available now since it was link to main intua website but if we dig into news blogs we can find it.

    http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2017/01/31/intua-announces-beatmaker-3-a-major-update-to-its-ipad-daw/

    Slice mode for live chopping of samples, with transient detection, split, divide, different play modes, slice fading in & out

    Maybe this? I understood from somewhere this was somekind of warp markers too but it could be a missconception due to betatesters and all the hype. Anyways I was reading this topic and wondering what the OP needs more than a feature in workflow terms since as we saw in the timestretching topic maybe there is a workaround even if those features didn’t appear never.
    At the end the thing is Can I do what I need? and What missing features will come finally in the future?

    Edit: trying autoslice I find it very useful to chop loops so why it’s the need for transient detection aside warp markers which with proper work could be accomplished similar result?
    Thanks a lot because I’m learning more and more and finding BM3 more powerfull than I believed.

  • It seems in some moment autosliced pattern ala recycle but it could be also a disonance perception drove by hype again (and lust) since there is any claim on that video. I’m checking others in yt to try to find any additional clue. :sunglasses:
    Meanwhile let’s try to keep us constructive. I found lazy chop a nice feature that in junction with flexible grids will be maybe better (almost from cpu consuming) than full Ableton-like warp markers along a full song. But it’s just my opinion, not an argument to get mad :wink:

  • I didn't realise they had announced it via a press release, hopefully they can get it working quicker for you guys.

  • This tutorial teaches the fundamentals and show how easy is (and how dumb I’m for asking some questions :lol:) so I hope it helps others like it helped me (aside the invaluable @5pinlink help). I’m going to post it to the stretching post too for obvious reasons.

  • I do love the current manual slicing features and find them very flexible and quick. Transient detection in daws for me is almost typicaly used more as a happy accident generator, like it is with Egoist. I like to drop in some Borderlands output or random TC11 noises, chop it up, snap it to grid and see what I get. For things like drum loops, easy enough to just manualy chop.

  • Agree, @Audiogus. This is why I'd be fine with the "rough" version--I expect some misses and welcome them. I manually chop beats so I don't need perfect detection.
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