Mute's Pro Syncing Guide ~ UPDATED 11/02/11

[mute]

This is just my personal method that I've developed over the past few years. Hope this is helpful to people. Feel free to ask questions. Major props to Charles for contributing Step 3 of this guide back when I was resyncing the FRIV pack.

This is the standard to which TLOES1, iStep, and all six Mute Sims packs are synced.

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Step 1 - Set your StepMania's global offset to -0.012 seconds. This is to ensure that the "Current Second" reading in Edit Mode is an accurate representation of where the sync will be on an r21 or r23 cabinet. This has nothing to do with being able to FA the file on your personal computer setup.

Step 2 - Make sure this is occurring at all points in the chart:




Troubleshooting for Step 2:

• Is every beat in the chart not matching up with the music file? Adjust your file's offset gap.
• Is the first beat of the song at the correct position, but the other beats drift off? Adjust your song's bpm.*
• Are gimmicks preventing things from lining up perfectly? Adjust your bpm and/or stop values. (See below links for further help with this.)
• Have you absolutely positively done everything correctly and your file STILL drifts? This means that either your God has abandoned you or your song is just drifty by nature. You can still potentially sync your file to be fairly FA-able; you would do this by inserting very tiny bpm changes every couple of measures. (See my Battle 2 simfile in Mute Sims 7 for a good example of this practice in action.)

Step 3 - With your song properly lining up at all points as shown in Step 2, shift your offset 3 ms later (lessen the offset value by 0.003 seconds). Why? Because this accounts for the latency between when the beat is hitting in the game and when the PEAK of the sound wave reaches your ear.

Congratulations! Your file is synced well for play on an r21 or r23 ITG machine. Factors such as the player's personal rhythmic interpretation or a song's slower instrumental attack allow for a small window of acceptable offset values outside of what this guide dictates. Hence:

Offsets are slightly subjective, though bpm values and drift are NOT. The aim of this guide is to stress the usage of consistent waveform checking to eliminate sync DRIFT in simfiles.

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* SIDE NOTE ABOUT BPMS: Please please PLEASE do not trust the bpm values that you get from programs like Mixmeister BPM Analyzer. It is not 100% accurate, PERIOD. I cannot stress this enough. You can use a bpm analyzer to get an estimate of the bpm, but do not ever use the program's computed value verbatim; if Mixmeister gives you a value of 130.012, the song is most likely 130.000 bpm.

Be aware, however, that there are definitely lots of songs out there that do have non-whole number bpms. Plenty of my simfiles are good examples of this: Light Emitting Diode M is exactly 162.132 bpm, Love Fighter is exactly 124.999 bpm, etc.

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Additional Helpful Things:


• mudkyp's Tutorial: Stutter & Wave Gimmicks (and mudkyp's stop tutorial video)
• Gazebo's Syncing Tutorial (Goes a bit more in-depth on some of what my guide talks about.)

[Kyzentun]

I would just like to add that some versions of audacity don't have that handy message telling you the millisecond. So I have t zoom in until the ruler at the top has the milliseconds each marked on it.

Also, this explains one thing I've been unsure about. It looks like you sync to the point where the waveform starts to go down for the beat. I've been syncing to where the waveform peaks on the beat, so my files might be a few milliseconds off.

[mute]

I would just like to add that some versions of audacity don't have that handy message telling you the millisecond. So I have t zoom in until the ruler at the top has the milliseconds each marked on it.

Wow, really? That sucks. Which version are you using? I have 1.2.6.

Also, this explains one thing I've been unsure about. It looks like you sync to the point where the waveform starts to go down for the beat. I've been syncing to where the waveform peaks on the beat, so my files might be a few milliseconds off.

This is where the whole "personal preference" thing of syncing comes in. There are people in this world who like stuff just a smidge late, in which case your method would probably be perfect. Conversely, someone like Mandodo who likes his files early would do it just the opposite of how you do it.

Another thing to keep in mind here is the attack value of certain musical instruments. 99.99% of the time, I'm syncing my charts to bass kicks or snare hits. Those points of the waveform are so much more definite than, say, a piano or guitar or other melodic element. So since I step mostly electronic music, this isn't really a problem for me. But if you're into stepping metal or rock or anything else with a less clear waveform...well, good luck.

[Chaoz]

Nice guide, although some people's global offset won't be -0.012. For example, mine has to be -0.005.

[mute]

Nice guide, although some people's global offset won't be -0.012. For example, mine has to be -0.005.

The idea of setting your global offset to -0.012 is to replicate the way the file will play on an ITG cabinet with r21 or r23. If you want to FA/MA stuff on your own personal computer setup, that's a different set of hardware that will of course require different offsets.

[Chaoz]

This post didn't happen.

[VirtuallyEmotionless]

Nice guide, although some people's global offset won't be -0.012. For example, mine has to be -0.005.

The idea of setting your global offset to -0.012 is to replicate the way the file will play on an ITG cabinet with r21 or r23. If you want to FA/MA stuff on your own personal computer setup, that's a different set of hardware that will of course require different offsets.

How does setting the global to -0.012 replicate how it will play on a machine? If I were to synch a simfile to that global it would be way off. Being way out of synch would not replicate how it would play on R21\23. If your computer synchs up properly at -0.012 then that's just by chance. It has NOTHING to do with that being the correct machine offset.

[mute]

Nice guide, although some people's global offset won't be -0.012. For example, mine has to be -0.005.

The idea of setting your global offset to -0.012 is to replicate the way the file will play on an ITG cabinet with r21 or r23. If you want to FA/MA stuff on your own personal computer setup, that's a different set of hardware that will of course require different offsets.

How does setting the global to -0.012 replicate how it will play on a machine? If I were to synch a simfile to that global it would be way off. Being way out of synch would not replicate how it would play on R21\23. If your computer synchs up properly at -0.012 then that's just by chance. It has NOTHING to do with that being the correct machine offset.

People seem to think I'm judging sync by ear or by how well I can FA/MA a file on my computer. This is NOT the case. I am only reading position markers in edit mode and comparing them to the actual song waveform to judge a file's sync.

[Monst3rjoe]

Step 1 can be misleading because there's often different globals for different computers, I understand what you were saying, but this is what I mean.

ex:
my lap top set at -0.038 global
my pc set at -0.012 global.

songs have the same feel of sync on both.

xynn's global is set at -0.023. Jkz, that was a guess maybe I doubt.

However, step 1 is generally true. -0.012 is like the standard. But I'm just saying be aware, it's not always the case lol.

[Kyzentun]

I'm going to repeat this monsterjoe, because it bears repeating since people can't seem to understand or remember it.

People seem to think I'm judging sync by ear or by how well I can FA/MA a file on my computer. This is NOT the case. I am only reading position markers in edit mode and comparing them to the actual song waveform to judge a file's sync.

Thus, how a file feels when played at the offset used for syncing is completely irrelevant to mute's method of judging sync.

[ddrballer123]

Just Use DDREAM

[133T]

Just Use DDREAM

Is that what you use? Because your files are horribly off sync. Not flaming, but if that's the results, then it's just counter productive.

[ddrballer123]

Just Use DDREAM

Is that what you use? Because your files are horribly off sync. Not flaming, but if that's the results, then it's just counter productive.

No i don't use that and plus name one of my files that is off sync

[133T]

Just Use DDREAM

Is that what you use? Because your files are horribly off sync. Not flaming, but if that's the results, then it's just counter productive.

No i don't use that and plus name one of my files that is off sync

The Final countdown.

[ddrballer123]

Just Use DDREAM

Is that what you use? Because your files are horribly off sync. Not flaming, but if that's the results, then it's just counter productive.

No i don't use that and plus name one of my files that is off sync

The Final countdown.

really now