#453 Metronome Lead In / Click In Options

[beatboxa]

Rosegarden should allow options for:
-Lead-in metronome on recording prior to the first measure
-Isolated Lead-In Metronome

Allowing a Lead-In metronome would allow users to get a feel for the tempo as well as the timing to begin recording. Today, when recording into the first measure, no metronome is played back. This means users must either watch their screens for the blinking transport light (which may not be practical when playing physical instruments), or begin recording on measure 2 (after hearing the metronome for measure 1). As an example, because of this, I end up having to record 1 measure late and then split-copy-paste to move the recording back a measure--which should be unnecessary steps. All sequencers I've worked with allow Lead-In metronome prior to the first measure.

An option for isolated Lead-In Metronome would be a good nice-to-have. This means "only play the metronome during lead in for recording" (as opposed to playing all tracks/instruments of the previous measure). Sometimes having only the metronome play allows clearer tempo context when recording--especially in complex pieces.
As a note: This isolated lead-in functionality can easily be accomplished today by toggling the "Mute all tracks" button, recording, and then unmuting all tracks--but having this option would save those steps, which can add up when recording many times in a single composition.

[Ted Felix]

Some additional notes for when we get around to fixing this...

Lead-in is controlled through the preferences. General > Behavior > Number of count-in measures when recording. Unfortunately, it is, as arslaan points out, silent.

There's another issue with the metronome that might be good to look at simultaneously with fixing this. The composition size will automatically expand when recording past the end. However, at the moment of expansion, a metronome click is dropped. Not a big deal, but might as well kill the two birds while we're in there. (Sorry birds.)

[D. Michael McIntyre]

I missed seeing this before. Some thoughts...

We used to have two measures of lead in by default, but Chris changed it, because he felt like instant recording was the more popular way to go. I got used to the former behavior, but I never remember to go change the default. The result is that every single thing I ever record starts at bar 2 or later, and I have to go diddle things afterwards. I've never liked that, but it's one of those minor annoyances that never become irritating enough to demand a solution.

I love the idea of two bars of lead in with the metronome, and then no metronome afterwards. That's like pretty much every Music Minus One recording ever. Depending on your setup, it can also be a pain in the ass to avoid recording the metronome by accident, so you have to turn it off, and then it's hard to jump in on time.

A related thought... The expanding composition is vastly better than the old countdown dialog. It used to be terrible trying to guess how long your improv was going to run, and then slamming into a groove shattering brick wall when you guessed wrong. The crazy thing is I found myself wishing the composition would NOT expand on the last project I did. I honestly don't remember exactly how I was doing what, but I had that thought as I had to grab for the stop button just in time. "It would be nice to have the countdown dialog back under just this circumstance," I thought.

Another almost random thought... I tried to use Rosegarden to record an audio segment spanning several iterations of a looping composition. I guess the idea was the composition would end up expanding to three times it size or whatever, and the audio segment would appear. In practice, the audio segment went away after the loop jump. I can't remember what happened to the data on disk, but it wasn't good. I ended up having to record that with an external application.

Anyway, just random thoughts...

[Ted Felix]

See also [feature-requests:#362].

[Ted Felix]

See [bugs:#941].

[Ted Felix]

There's another lead-in feature that is disabled in SequenceManager. See SequenceManager::m_countdownDialog and CountdownDialog. This should probably be cleaned up as part of this project. Leaving it in for now for reference.

[beatboxa]

Wow, it's been so long, but I remember this request. It's exciting you're still working on the project. I'd been unsuccessfully attempting to use Rosegarden since the mid 2000's (doing MIDI recording since the mid 90's).

I actually gave up on Rosegarden years ago largely due to this quirk along with keybinding--I know it sounds trivial, but it really messed up my rhythm & flow to the point where recording was painfully slow. This is particularly true for multitrack recording, where I record one track at a time, starting with measure 1.

So I've been using older Windows-based MIDI sequencers via wine since.

I still have Rosegarden installed though. Perhaps I'll give it another whirl.

To reiterate my personal use case (which may or may not resonate with others):

• Start at the beginning (1st measure)
• Hit record. I have 1 measure metronome of lead-in (usually: 1, 2, 3, 4)
• Record a second track, also beginning at 1st measure.
• Also have a 1 measure lead in.

And my ideal solution would be configurable options for:

• Lead in Dialog, which includes
  • Number of lead-in measures (perhaps 0 - 4? default 1?)
  • Silent Toggle (visual blinking light) on/off
  • Lead-in channel / note

And in the main UI:

• Check-box for "Lead-in on/off"

Thanks in advance even if you choose not to implement this. I really like what you've done with Rosegarden--just the minor quirks that get me.

[Philip Leishman]

The missing metronome in the lead-in is truly very annoying. I have looked into it. It appears that the MetronomeMapper only gets it's start time as the default from the Composition. It creates the events several bars before the start. Here is a simple patch that sets the start time. It seems to provide the metronome for the lead in. I don't think this should break anything :-|
There is nothing here for setting of options but I think the main problem is fixed here.

[Ted Felix]

Thanks for the patch. Two things I noticed. If you start at bar 1, it creates a segment that starts one bar prior to that. Strange, but not a big deal.

If you start at bar 2, it plays bar 1 during the click-in. I think what was originally wanted was a click-in by itself, not playback of the previous bar.

Regardless, I think it's better than before. Would love to get feedback from those who might actually use this. I might just apply this and see what everyone thinks.

[beatboxa]

(I am the original poster above).

And that's right about my intent. The intent is a 1-bar click-in by itself, not a playback of the previous bar. (If I want playback of the previous bar, I can always start at the previous bar...)

Overall, I'd like to see separate behaviors for recording and playback, without having an extra step to toggle between them. As far as expected behavior:

On recording:
There is a 1-bar (configurable), metronome-only lead in. Not the previous bar...this is for metronome only.
Metronome continues throughout recording
* When recording is complete, the cursor should return to the "beginning" (position where recording started)

Once recording is complete, on playback:
Lead-in is automatically turned off. There is no need for lead-in on playback.
Metronome is automatically turned off. This can be a separate setting, but most of the time, playback metronome will be off.
* By default (or at least configurable), I'd like to see the cursor return to the beginning of playback when done. If I hit <space>, what I really want is "stop & return", not pause.</space>

This is fairly common behavior.

The associated settings that can be toggled can be along the lines of:
1. Metronome on recording?
2. Metronome on playback?
3. Metronome Lead-in on recording?
4. Number of bars for metronome lead-in?

(And potentially also):
5. Return cursor on recording?
6. Return cursor on playback?

I searched around and here are good illustrations of some of this type of behavior:
https://youtu.be/sIQ5NmO6FFw?t=269
https://youtu.be/4auPj7yQ3uY?t=61
https://youtu.be/QnhIFwgQIqA?t=199

I haven't applied these patches yet, but I can try and see how it works.

As much as I like Rosegarden, I'd still been using other software over the past few years (really, decades) because I couldn't get past these little nuances that disrupt my workflow. However, I am excited to see progress and am happy to at least contribute feedback, and hopefully get it to the point where I am comfortable using it.

[Philip Leishman]

I looked at the issue about the dropped metronome beat on auto expansion. I moved the auto expansion to a quarter bar before the end. That seems to fix the problem. Here is a patch.

[Ted Felix]

Thanks. This is working great. Will push in a day or two.

[Ted Felix]

Just pushed this in [r15621]. Also tweaked it a little in [r15622]. Please review and test.

[Philip Leishman]

Here is a patch for configuring metronome (just coun-in, just recording or both). Note this also contains the original patch from 2. August for the count-in before bar 1. The metronome count in before bar 1 is important in my view - really a bug !

[Ted Felix]

Thanks. Seems to work fine for me. I'm going to try to get this in for the 19.12 release.

[Ted Felix]

Just pushed this as [r15649]. Some cleanup in [r15650]. Please review and test.