"Play At Current Beat" off by over a measure

[shenjoku]

I'm trying to edit a chart for a song and every time I try to use "Play At Current Beat" to test a small section the music is always off by over a measure EXCEPT for if you start at the very beginning of the file. Does anyone know what might be causing this or how to make it work correctly? It's making it pretty much impossible to work with =/

Here's a link to the WIP: Click Me

I've barely started it.

[DossarLX ODI]

Are you talking about preview music? It has to do with the bitrate of the music. I had a song that was shown as 623 kbps or some weird number and that happened -- the preview music started a measure off.

[qqwref]

Are you talking about how Stepmania starts previewing it a measure or so before the actual start? I think it does that on purpose to give you time to get ready for the part you selected.

[Nick Skyline]

Originally Posted by qqwref

I think it does that on purpose to give you time to get ready for the part you selected.

That's exactly why it's a measure off; Play Selection and Play Whole Song do damn near the same thing.

[bmah]

I think shenjoku is referring to some sort of bug that I used to experience a lot, but not anymore for some reason. It still happens to me extremely sporadically.

Basically what happens is that suddenly the file becomes wildly offsync when you decide to Play At Current Beat. Can happen anytime.

All I do is save if needed, then just exit the editor and re-enter it. Sync should return to normal. This might only occur in 3.9 or other earlier versions of SM.

[shenjoku]

Originally Posted by bmah

I think shenjoku is referring to some sort of bug that I used to experience a lot, but not anymore for some reason. It still happens to me on extremely sporadically.

Basically what happens is that suddenly the file becomes wildly offsync when you decide to Play At Current Beat. Can happen anytime.

All I do is save if needed, then just exit the editor and re-enter it. Sync should return to normal. This might only occur in 3.9 or other earlier versions of SM.

Seems like you know most about what I'm talking about. That didn't seem to work, but in a stroke of luck I got a friend to convert the song to OGG for me and it fixed it. Seems there was something messed up in the MP3 that was making SM get confused if you start playing from anywhere other than the beginning.

[Charlo]

If a song is VBR (Variable Bit Rate), the Stepmania editor will not be able to deal with it. I re-encode all of my files at 160kbps or 192kbps to both save on file size and to make sure that the editor can handle them okay. If you right-click a song in iTunes and select "create mp3 version", it will re-encode the song in whatever setting you have it set to for ripping albums off CD (preferences->general->import settings)

[d4u7211]

If youre using SM4 (ive played with its editor a few times) there's like...no way to avoid it, it seems. I've personally never had a problem with earlier versions.

I personally think DDReamStudio is the best editor there is, though, it's so much faster than in-game editors, and it's more powerful.

[shenjoku]

Originally Posted by Charlo

If a song is VBR (Variable Bit Rate), the Stepmania editor will not be able to deal with it. I re-encode all of my files at 160kbps or 192kbps to both save on file size and to make sure that the editor can handle them okay. If you right-click a song in iTunes and select "create mp3 version", it will re-encode the song in whatever setting you have it set to for ripping albums off CD (preferences->general->import settings)

Ohh is that what it is? I guess that makes sense.