Mcompare - really annoying sync issue

[wilx]

Can anyone help with this?

I frequently want to use Mcompare to sync the chorus of a reference track to my project. If I enable 'sync' in mcompare, it's pretty much impossible to dial in the correct value. Clicking & dragging on the 'start' window sometimes jumps by 0.2 seconds, other times by 3 or 4 seconds. If I get close, and want to enter the value manually to fine tune, I double-click on start and the value changes to 0:00:00!

All I want to do is to set the playhead in Logic, Zoom into the wav and mark a point on my reference which matches. That way, EVERY TIME I press play at this particular point, the reference and my track are perfectly synced. So far, it's taking a lot of time and trial & error to do what should be a very crucial and simple task.
Funnily enough, with sync turned off, I can quite easily sync accurately by zooming in on the waveform and dragging the green bar, but of course it doesn't reset to the beginning of that section with each stop/play cycle.

Have I missed something simple here that would allow me to quickly and accurately sync a chosen point in my reference track(s) to my project ?

[wilx]

Just to update, I'm now trying this manually, and it's impossible to sync.
I know from moving the start field around that the value I need is somewhere between -0:09.2 and -0:05.8.
Since the control for the 'start' field won't let me select any value between those numbers, I double-click on the start field (which resets the value to 0.00)
I then try to enter -0:07:00 into the 'start' field, to see how much closer that is to matching the downbeat of the chorus perfectly.
Pressing ok removes the minus sign and sets the value of 'start' to 0:07:00, leaving me even further out of sync than I was...

[alexis1]

Can anyone help with this?

I frequently want to use Mcompare to sync the chorus of a reference track to my project. If I enable 'sync' in mcompare, it's pretty much impossible to dial in the correct value. Clicking & dragging on the 'start' window sometimes jumps by 0.2 seconds, other times by 3 or 4 seconds. If I get close, and want to enter the value manually to fine tune, I double-click on start and the value changes to 0:00:00!

All I want to do is to set the playhead in Logic, Zoom into the wav and mark a point on my reference which matches. That way, EVERY TIME I press play at this particular point, the reference and my track are perfectly synced. So far, it's taking a lot of time and trial & error to do what should be a very crucial and simple task.
Funnily enough, with sync turned off, I can quite easily sync accurately by zooming in on the waveform and dragging the green bar, but of course it doesn't reset to the beginning of that section with each stop/play cycle.

Have I missed something simple here that would allow me to quickly and accurately sync a chosen point in my reference track(s) to my project ?

Hi -

Just a question, is the reference track a completely different song, or instead an earlier version of the same song, or something else?

Also - does your project start at Bar 1/Time 0.00, or some time later? Mine always start at bar 50, and I have to put my start time as something like "-1:43:84", which is the time the first bar of my song starts. It seems like "sync" needs a little bit of a helping hand to work well when the project doesn't start at Bar 1/Time 0.00.

Maybe none of this is relevant to your problem, sorry if that's the case. But maybe with a little more info, you'll get someone to give some helpful info, look forward to it!

(I love MCompare!).

[wilx]

Thanks! MCompare is great, but one simple change would make it perfect for this use.

I'm almost always using commercial reference tracks at the same tempo, but with different lengths and chorus placements. So if I can use MCompare to sync (sample-accurately, rather than being 3 seconds out!) my project to a reference with the same tempo, I can flick back and forth and really zero in on tiny production and mix differences.

And projects generally start between bar 1 and 5, but that isn't the issue. All MCompare needs is either:

1) An input field for the 'start' value that actually works and accepts minus values

OR

2) A finer degree of granularity on the start slider (holding down ctrl?) to allow a specific time selection rather than skipping forward 2 or more seconds

OR

3) The best option - just use the same mechanic that's already in the plugin for non-sync mode. Allow users to zoom into the wav and set the start point that way.

-Go to beat 1 of your project's chorus
- in MCompare, zoom into the wav, find the downbeat of the first chorus and place the start marker there
- done! Maybe with a couple of adjustments to get the start bang-on.

This would be by far the most intuitive and easiest way to do it.

[alexis1]

... All MCompare needs is either:

1) An input field for the 'start' value that actually works and accepts minus values

...

Hi - I'm almost positive I'm putting in negative numbers for every project by double clicking on the start field to open up the dialog. This was on V10, haven't tried in V11.

I'll double check this weekend.

[alexis1]

... All MCompare needs is ...:

1) An input field for the 'start' value that actually works and accepts minus values

...

Hi - I'm almost positive I'm putting in negative numbers for every project by double clicking on the start field to open up the dialog. This was on V10, haven't tried in V11.

I'll double check this weekend.

Yup, I'm putting in negative #s in the start field to successfully sync an older version of my song with the current version. For example, my songs usually start at bar #50, around 1 min 37.5 seconds after bar 1 starts in this case, so I enter "-1:37.5" into the start field of the older version of the song, which *almost* lines it up exactly, then I hit "Sync* to finish the job.

I guess you're saying something similar doesn't work for you?

[MeldaProduction]

MCompare should include "Restart on switch" option in the advanced panel. I think it does what you want - whenever you switch, it will restart the playback from the beginning of the loop point. I must say, I have no idea what it would be for for me , but a customer recently suggested it, so I assume there's some use for it.

[wilx]

MCompare should include "Restart on switch" option in the advanced panel. I think it does what you want - whenever you switch, it will restart the playback from the beginning of the loop point. I must say, I have no idea what it would be for for me , but a customer recently suggested it, so I assume there's some use for it.

That's closer, but I'm looking for a perfect sync rather than retriggering the start of the selection every time I switch.

Often, I need to effectively copy the production and mix of a reference as close as possible before I deconstruct and change it, but with a similar production sound. The only way to do this is to play my project and the reference along with each other and constantly switch back and forth comparing different aspects, like the width of the bass, the type and amount of midrange saturation etc. Often I'm switching back and forth multiple times per second, so I can hear how close my snare and clap on a particular beat matches the reference. I therefore need to be switching back and forth in a perfectly aligned set of tracks, rather than just getting a general sense of what the chorus sounds like.

Would it be possible to use the waveform selection option to select the start point ? That would be the best method for me and would make a good plugin invaluable.

[MeldaProduction]

I quite don't understand, what you are describing now is "the" sync that is there (Sync button). Is the setting the delay the problem, or what am I missing?

[wilx]

Yes! It's very close. The problem is that setting the delay is very trial & error at the moment. Instead of lining up the start using the waveform, I have to enter values into the start field. I'll try again with negative values, but even if they work it will take many attempts to sync the reference exactly - to the millisecond.
I might enter -0.4.45, then -0.5.34, etc etc until I find the value where my chorus matches *exactly* with the chorus of my reference. It would be far quicker to line up the start position visually in the waveform view, which is exactly what you can do when sync is not activated.

In short, setting the 'start' value by entering values is a less than ideal solution when you want a very precise sync quickly.

Besides that, mcompare is great. And the mid-side toggle I only discovered recently is a really useful feature.

[MeldaProduction]

Thank you!

I get it, so you are basically syncing your song to another song and you want to compare a specific spot with sync. Now that's rather specific, I'll check what could be done. Perhaps the delay could be manipulated from the graph.

[wilx]

That's it, yes. Thanks for looking into it! The option to set the start point visually using the waveform is already present in mcompare, so if this could be used to set the 'start' value when sync is activated, that would be a perfect solution to my issue. It would take seconds, even with a zoom/fine tuning step.

Or maybe when clicking and dragging the value in the 'start' field, a ctrl-click could change to finer increments for a more specific value selection. This would take more time than selecting the start visually, but would take less time than:

Double click start
Enter '-16.43'
Press play : reference chorus starts a little late

Double click start (which erases the previously entered value, meaning you have to remember what your first guess was)
Enter '-14.87'
Press play : reference chorus now starts a little early

Etc - repeating until the reference chorus and project chorus start at exactly the same time.

[MeldaProduction]

Actually it needs to work differently as there is only the delay. But anyways there probably could be a vertical line showing the start in the waveform display. We'll see .

[wilx]

I'll cross my fingers! It would hugely speed up my workflow...

[MeldaProduction]

Well I have bad news - got into it and it won't be that simple and to be honest I don't think it will happen. The problem: You cannot set this up in the waveform editor, because it depends on the position in the host! So there is no fixed delay or anything, the position is changing with the host... No idea how to solve this really. The only solution I see is probably to display the line graph only when the playback stops and somehow translate between the playback position in the host and the delay parameter, but it actually seems overly complicated...