Practicing certain sections in practice mode
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I'm not sure if this has been requested or not, but I think adding a way to set a section where I would like to practice would help in learning the piece. Probably like, the [ key to set beginning, and the ] key to set the end, and it just keeps looping in side that selection until you hit P or something to clear the selection. What do you think?
Yeah, that's a good one, and a personal favorite I've been hoping to see climb the voting list. Check to see if the item called "Bookmark Repeat / Looping" is what you're looking for.
Right now it's down in the section you can't vote for yet because it depends on "Song Bookmarks". But, that one is getting near the top itself, so hopefully this will be done before too long.
Right now it's down in the section you can't vote for yet because it depends on "Song Bookmarks". But, that one is getting near the top itself, so hopefully this will be done before too long.
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vicentefer31
- Posts: 899
Why don´t you join "Bookmark Repeat / Looping" and "Song Bookmark" in only one feature?Nicholas wrote:Yeah, that's a good one, and a personal favorite I've been hoping to see climb the voting list. Check to see if the item called "Bookmark Repeat / Looping" is what you're looking for.
Right now it's down in the section you can't vote for yet because it depends on "Song Bookmarks". But, that one is getting near the top itself, so hopefully this will be done before too long.
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Brand new here. I just bought version 0.6.5 yesterday. First, let me say this is a fine piece of work you've created here. It's very intuitive, well thought out and has an extremely polished GUI. There's no doubt you've shunned countless hours with your family and friends to produce this. It's worth every penny.
One question, though... I read your roadmap and thought that the section looping would be included in the current release, but this post seems to indicate that it got tossed out of version 0.6.5. Is that true? Maybe I'm wrong, but I would have thought learning songs a small section at a time would have been on the top of almost everyones' lists.
Thanks for everything.
One question, though... I read your roadmap and thought that the section looping would be included in the current release, but this post seems to indicate that it got tossed out of version 0.6.5. Is that true? Maybe I'm wrong, but I would have thought learning songs a small section at a time would have been on the top of almost everyones' lists.
Thanks for everything.
Hmm, yeah, that old roadmap is still up, isn't it? That hasn't been updated in a very long time now. Like you, I expected those things would have the greatest demand at the time.
Still, when I put up the feature voting page, things have shaken out the way they've shaken out. I've had a few surprises: things much farther up or down the list than I expected.
In terms of throwing features out for a release, that usually happens as it comes down to the wire. (I'm about 15 days over-due for a release now, so I'm trying to cut things down to a bare minimum while still delivering the things I promised.) What I haven't been nearly as effective at this time around is shunning my family and friends!
I just had the first long (two week) vacation from my job in a handful of years and I was expecting to make up a bunch of lost time on this release. Instead, I found myself enjoying the time off a little too much. So, I end up with this strange feeling of guilt along with the relaxation. I owe you guys a little more than I gave. I'm back now, though.
Still, when I put up the feature voting page, things have shaken out the way they've shaken out. I've had a few surprises: things much farther up or down the list than I expected.
In terms of throwing features out for a release, that usually happens as it comes down to the wire. (I'm about 15 days over-due for a release now, so I'm trying to cut things down to a bare minimum while still delivering the things I promised.) What I haven't been nearly as effective at this time around is shunning my family and friends!
I just had the first long (two week) vacation from my job in a handful of years and I was expecting to make up a bunch of lost time on this release. Instead, I found myself enjoying the time off a little too much. So, I end up with this strange feeling of guilt along with the relaxation. I owe you guys a little more than I gave. I'm back now, though.
It sounds like for bookmarking, though, the main problem is the scoring associated with it. Why not make it practice mode only, and turn off scoring? I found practice mode scoring to be quite pointless anyway because you're hitting all the keys it tells you to while waiting for you to figure out the keys, resulting in a near-perfect score almost every time.
And welcome back
And welcome back
hhmmm, you make a good point. I hadn't even considered that scoring might be a problem, probably because I rarely even look at the score. I don't care about my score as long as I can play the song accurately. I agree that if scoring is a problem, just turn it off to add bookmarks. I can promise that having looping bookmarks is going to improve my playing MUCH faster than a score.Lamuness wrote:It sounds like for bookmarking, though, the main problem is the scoring associated with it. Why not make it practice mode only, and turn off scoring? I found practice mode scoring to be quite pointless anyway because you're hitting all the keys it tells you to while waiting for you to figure out the keys, resulting in a near-perfect score almost every time.
And welcome back
Max.
Yeah, practice mode was already supposed to be score-less, but then you guys bugged me to put a score in there.
Still, I don't think there is any getting away from it with bookmark/section looping. But, I wonder if other statistics could be more useful. Instead of some concrete number, it might show your % improvement as compared to your previous loops, or something like that. I can't think of a good way to store those stats between plays, but if you're already playing through several times in one sitting, maybe it'd be useful enough by itself.
Still, I don't think there is any getting away from it with bookmark/section looping. But, I wonder if other statistics could be more useful. Instead of some concrete number, it might show your % improvement as compared to your previous loops, or something like that. I can't think of a good way to store those stats between plays, but if you're already playing through several times in one sitting, maybe it'd be useful enough by itself.
I can understand how some sort of feedback may be useful to someone who is playing an instrument for the first time. It's good to have some idea of where you are. For me, though, it wouldn't be at all useful. I'm an experienced enough musician that I know when I'm getting it and when I'm not. I play several instruments, and have learned many songs using a looping method. Since I play strictly be ear, I will often hear a song I like, then import that song into an audio program I have that allows for bookmarks, then slow it down and loop a section and learn it. Then I learn the next section, then put those 2 sections together. It's THE most effective way I've found for me to learn a complete song, which is why I'm so keen on getting it in Synthesia.
Max.
Max.
/agreed and /signed minus the experienced musician part XD.
Take your time with it. I'd like for you to be happy with what you made instead of us telling you what to put in Nicholas.
I really can't think of any way to put scoring into something that is essentially, practice mode in a game. If you look at like Rockband, or I think it was Guitar Hero 3, there is a practice mode that lets you speed up / slow down songs, and play a section. I don't think there is scoring there. If the game waits for you to hit the right key, I feel that it's kind of pointless to have scoring.
HOWEVER! If you wanted to put a bookmarking in rhythm mode where the game doesn't wait for your keys, you could make it like a percentage of what is selected. Like if a bookmarked passage had 10 notes to play, and you hit all 10 notes, that would be 100%, hitting 5 notes would be 50%, etc. And every time you change the bookmark selection, the game recalculates how many notes, and bases a percentage off of that. You could still have the points work the same way, just have it reset after every time you change bookmarks. It isn't supposed to be a test of all skills in bookmarking mode anyway, because you are essentially skipping parts and stuff. Just make a separate scoring mechanic for the bookmarked section.
Actually one more idea I just had while typing this out is: In rhythm mode, right now, the game saves your score if you pause and rewind, right? Why not have it save your score when you start the bookmark process, saving all the multipliers and score and stuff in the section of the loop? Then when you are done, or are satisfied with the score, have it just continue from there.
For example, I'm playing through a song and I accumulate a 1.5x multiplier, and 5000 points by the time I hit the section I want to bookmark.
I pause it, set the beginning, go forward, set the end, and set it to loop.
So then I play through it and I do terrible so my multiplier goes back to 1, and points are now 6000.
When I get to the end and decide I want to loop and practice that section again, I would press R or maybe just let it play through the section, and when I start back at the beginning of the bookmark I have my 1.5x multiplier and 5000 points.
Then I play through it and I have a 2x multiplier and 8000 points.
It's similar to the way the score goes back down as you rewind right now.
Just a few ideas I think would work. What do you think?
Take your time with it. I'd like for you to be happy with what you made instead of us telling you what to put in Nicholas.
I really can't think of any way to put scoring into something that is essentially, practice mode in a game. If you look at like Rockband, or I think it was Guitar Hero 3, there is a practice mode that lets you speed up / slow down songs, and play a section. I don't think there is scoring there. If the game waits for you to hit the right key, I feel that it's kind of pointless to have scoring.
HOWEVER! If you wanted to put a bookmarking in rhythm mode where the game doesn't wait for your keys, you could make it like a percentage of what is selected. Like if a bookmarked passage had 10 notes to play, and you hit all 10 notes, that would be 100%, hitting 5 notes would be 50%, etc. And every time you change the bookmark selection, the game recalculates how many notes, and bases a percentage off of that. You could still have the points work the same way, just have it reset after every time you change bookmarks. It isn't supposed to be a test of all skills in bookmarking mode anyway, because you are essentially skipping parts and stuff. Just make a separate scoring mechanic for the bookmarked section.
Actually one more idea I just had while typing this out is: In rhythm mode, right now, the game saves your score if you pause and rewind, right? Why not have it save your score when you start the bookmark process, saving all the multipliers and score and stuff in the section of the loop? Then when you are done, or are satisfied with the score, have it just continue from there.
For example, I'm playing through a song and I accumulate a 1.5x multiplier, and 5000 points by the time I hit the section I want to bookmark.
I pause it, set the beginning, go forward, set the end, and set it to loop.
So then I play through it and I do terrible so my multiplier goes back to 1, and points are now 6000.
When I get to the end and decide I want to loop and practice that section again, I would press R or maybe just let it play through the section, and when I start back at the beginning of the bookmark I have my 1.5x multiplier and 5000 points.
Then I play through it and I have a 2x multiplier and 8000 points.
It's similar to the way the score goes back down as you rewind right now.
Just a few ideas I think would work. What do you think?
Yeah, I think this is exactly how the Guitar Hero 2 practice mode worked. At the end of whatever range you selected, you'd get a percentage of notes hit. All I was considering was (assuming you'd done the loop more than once at this point) showing your average percent from all the past loops, too. It seemed simple enough.Lamuness wrote:HOWEVER! If you wanted to put a bookmarking in rhythm mode where the game doesn't wait for your keys, you could make it like a percentage of what is selected.
I had to re-read this a couple of times until I realized your idea of the bookmark/looping entry/exit process was a little stronger than mine. I was thinking, again, of the Guitar Hero 2 practice mode where you begin by selecting a start location, end location, and speed. Synthesia already has the variable-speed-on-the-fly stuff built in, but I was still expecting the loop range to be set up-front.Lamuness wrote:Why not have it save your score when you start the bookmark process, saving all the multipliers and score and stuff in the section of the loop? Then when you are done, or are satisfied with the score, have it just continue from there.
From your description, it sounds like you wanted a much more fluid experience where you can choose to enter the section-repeating mode any time you'd like. Certainly that's more user friendly, but I'll have to think about it some more. I do like how organic it could be: just dragging a range on the song progress-bar(/navigator, once I make it a navigator) and it starts the looping from your first click. I'd probably make the start/end selections snap to the nearest bookmarks, because it will be hard to click exactly on the point in the song you intended, especially with longer pieces.
The only reason I'm even hesitant is because it does have a lot of implications for score handling in both rhythm and practice modes. When choosing to exit looping mode, do I keep your best scores from each loop, overwrite them with the most recent score, or average them?
I do like your idea where it remembers how you entered the starting point. That would hint at the "overwrite with the most recent score" solution above. Of course that means you're getting "free retries". You could just replay tiny sections over and over until you do perfectly on all of them... then, when you reach the end of the song you'll be guaranteed an A+++.
What do you think?
I did not read everything above (yet), but I think the scoring in practice mode is still good for all players who are not very good piano players but just beginners, for them it can be a motivating factor to just play again and to improve their last score at least. I also know that for very good piano players the score gets kind of non-sense or at least freedom-limiting of your own playing as you have to play kind of "in a robotic way", but these players really also do not need Synthesia for improving. I am talking of players who play the piano for 25 years or more. 
After reading all posts I can add maybe some more ideas here. For a beginner like me if the practice mode would not have a score, this would mean Synthesia has no scores for me as I am playing it so far only in practice mode.
After reading all posts I can add maybe some more ideas here. For a beginner like me if the practice mode would not have a score, this would mean Synthesia has no scores for me as I am playing it so far only in practice mode.
I would overwrite them with the most recent score, plus a negative score for each looping or jumping back so someone who played perfectly without looping should have a higher score. The negative scores value could depend on the number of notes in the whole song.Nicholas wrote:When choosing to exit looping mode, do I keep your best scores from each loop, overwrite them with the most recent score, or average them?
That's actually similar to how rewind works right now. I didn't mention it before, but rewinding doesn't return you to the exact same score. There is a small penalty for every rewound note. (Granted, the score never drops below zero, so it's sort of subtle.)TonE wrote:I would overwrite them with the most recent score, plus a negative score for each looping...
Overall, I do like "most recent with penalty" though.
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vicentefer31
- Posts: 899
Well for me Practice Mode + Score = essential. I´m a beginner like TonE, too. I always played a lot since Synthesia has the Practice Mode, but when Nicholas added the Score in Practice Mode I enjoy even more playing, because now I can know how much I´m improving. And when my score is 8157, I try to get 8200, and then 8300, and then... and that make me play more times until I get it.
So thanks a lot of for the Practice Mode + Score.
So thanks a lot of for the Practice Mode + Score.
Picasso: I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.