Insert Measure from time selection (new time signature) got worse in v6.0

[JasperO]

My workflow relies on inserting hundreds of tempo markers to tempo-map recordings. In versions from I think 3 up to 5.99 you can select multiple measures. Then if you select "Insert Measure from time selection (new time signature)" it detects the tempo <and> the number of measures according to <current> tempo.

Example: Tempo is 140 bpm, you select just short of 4 bars it would say 4 bars of say 142.4 bpm. Makes sense right?

I just installed version 6 and the new functionality makes absolutely no sense at all. Instead of calculating the number of measures it just defaults to 1 bar with a bpm, in this case, of 35.6.

What I usually do is slice up a recording every 2 or 4 bards and double click each slice and press hotkey O and enter. So double click, press O, press Enter, repeated 50 times which is very fast. As the tempo in live recordings only differs a couple of percent each bar this makes a lot of sense.

Now I have to specify the number as bars as well which means Reaper now gives me less information to work with than before.

I even wanted to explain this procedure in a youtube video but this part of my workflow just got a lot slower... I would really appreciate it's possible to get the v5 functionality back!

Regards, Jasper

[o_e]

Originally Posted by JasperO

My workflow relies on inserting hundreds of tempo markers to tempo-map recordings. In versions from I think 3 up to 5.99 you can select multiple measures. Then if you select "Insert Measure from time selection (new time signature)" it detects the tempo <and> the number of measures according to <current> tempo.

Example: Tempo is 140 bpm, you select just short of 4 bars it would say 4 bars of say 142.4 bpm. Makes sense right?

I just installed version 6 and the new functionality makes absolutely no sense at all. Instead of calculating the number of measures it just defaults to 1 bar with a bpm, in this case, of 35.6.

What I usually do is slice up a recording every 2 or 4 bards and double click each slice and press hotkey O and enter. So double click, press O, press Enter, repeated 50 times which is very fast. As the tempo in live recordings only differs a couple of percent each bar this makes a lot of sense.

Now I have to specify the number as bars as well which means Reaper now gives me less information to work with than before.

I even wanted to explain this procedure in a youtube video but this part of my workflow just got a lot slower... I would really appreciate it's possible to get the v5 functionality back!

Regards, Jasper

Is it possible that you confuse
'Measure frome time selection (detect tempo)'
with
'Measure from time selection (new time signature)'?

If you choose the latter, a dialog box pops up, asking you how many bars you want..

hth

[JasperO]

Originally Posted by o_e

Is it possible that you confuse
'Measure frome time selection (detect tempo)'
with
'Measure from time selection (new time signature)'?

If you choose the latter, a dialog box pops up, asking you how many bars you want..

hth

Absolutely not, I've been using this function for about 8 years in over 500 projects and use a custom key command to speed up my work flow :-D.

The difference in functionality is that now the dialog box Reaper no longer <calculates> the number of bars as it used to do in version 5.99 and below. It just says 1 bar even if the selection is one minute.

Unfortunately this change makes my work flow much slower as I now have to manually select the number of bars each time I use this function instead of just hitting enter. Sometimes a hundred times in a project.

Or I would have to make a slice every bar which is more work as well...

[juliansader]

The "Create measure" actions did indeed go through some changes.

"Create measure from time selection (detect tempo)" should now try to insert a single measure, as long as the tempo will fit into the project / global tempo display range.

If REAPER tries to guess the number of measures, it gets very frustrating when it insists on creating two measures of 120.24682468bpm instead of one measure of 60.12341234bpm, for example, and users have to use scripts to correct the tempo.

As o_e noted, the alternative "(new time signature)" action can be used to create multiple measures.

I suggest that the easiest way to slightly change tempos without altering the number of measures, is to use REAPER's new mouse modifiers for the ruler -- or the similar, older SWS actions -- to drag or snap the nearest tempo marker, grid line or bar line to the cursor, with a single click.

[JasperO]

Originally Posted by juliansader

The "Create measure" actions did indeed go through some changes.

As o_e noted, the alternative "(new time signature)" action can be used to create multiple measures.

That's the function I meant. I think I'm not clear enough about what I mean exactly. So this is the old behavior:


And this is the new behavior:


I just don't understand why the functionality was changed to default to 1 measure instead of suggesting the nearest match which worked fine for almost 10 years... :-(

Originally Posted by juliansader

I suggest that the easiest way to slightly change tempos without altering the number of measures, is to use REAPER's new mouse modifiers for the ruler -- or the similar, older SWS actions -- to drag or snap the nearest tempo marker, grid line or bar line to the cursor, with a single click.

Could you elaborate on that?

[juliansader]

Originally Posted by JasperO

That's the function I meant. I think I'm not clear enough about what I mean exactly. So this is the old behavior:

And this is the new behavior:

Oh, you mean the default suggested number of measures. I didn't even notice that it changed! I was referring to another change/bug that occurred somewhere after v5.9, which caused REAPER to refuse to create single measures if the tempo was unusually slow or fast, and that was fixed a few version later.

Strange, I can confirm that on v6.00, REAPER still suggested the (approximate) selected number of measures, but on v6.03, it suggests 1.

Originally Posted by JasperO

Could you elaborate on that?

The mouse modifier context that I was thinking of, is actually "Project tempo/time signature marker", which was only added a few versions back.

I have also assigned these SWS actions to left-click mouse modifiers in the Ruler context (i.e. open space next to tempo markers):
SWS/BR: Move closest grid line to mouse cursor (perform until shortcut released)
SWS/BR: Move closest measure grid line to mouse cursor (perform until shortcut released)

(There are equivalent actions for moving to the edit cursor.)

These actions change only the preceding tempo, without changing later tempos, so they are perfect for tempo mapping and also for making slight adjustments to measures -- without even having to make a time selection first.

[JasperO]

Originally Posted by juliansader

Oh, you mean the default suggested number of measures. I didn't even notice that it changed! I was referring to another change/bug that occurred somewhere after v5.9, which caused REAPER to refuse to create single measures if the tempo was unusually slow or fast, and that was fixed a few version later.

Strange, I can confirm that on v6.00, REAPER still suggested the (approximate) selected number of measures, but on v6.03, it suggests 1.

Nice! I was afraid this was done on purpose for a reason I didn't get. Hope this change gets reverted. :-)

I must say working with tempo markers has become a LOT better over the years. I can still remember how messy it was in v4. Moving one marker around and the whole project right of the marker was out of sync, rounding errors making the interface look messy, disappearing markers... All that's been removed in v5.

The mouse modifier context that I was thinking of, is actually "Project tempo/time signature marker", which was only added a few versions back.

I have also assigned these SWS actions to left-click mouse modifiers in the Ruler context (i.e. open space next to tempo markers):
SWS/BR: Move closest grid line to mouse cursor (perform until shortcut released)
SWS/BR: Move closest measure grid line to mouse cursor (perform until shortcut released)

(There are equivalent actions for moving to the edit cursor.)

These actions change only the preceding tempo, without changing later tempos, so they are perfect for tempo mapping and also for making slight adjustments to measures -- without even having to make a time selection first.

Dude, you just made my jaw drop... The "Project tempo/time signature marker" modifiers are truly awesome and exactly what the doctor said I needed! Especially the Ctrl-Alt modifier is super useful for adjusting tempo mapping :-D.

I just noticed the new feature in "Media Items Property" where in "Item timebase" you can select "Beats (auto-stretch at tempo changes)" and it creates tempo markers everywhere. Then if you set it to "Beats (position, length, rate)" you can move the item around while it keeps locked to the grid. The old way was just slicing the item into many small items you no longer need to do!

I also noticed when the "Media Items Property" modal/window is active, pressing Esc closes it instead of removing the time selection for no reason. That really drove me nuts so thanks for all the good work!

[JasperO]

I just installed the latest Reaper version and this bug still isn't fixed :-(

Has this post made it's way to any of the developers?

[ivansc]

Probably would if you re-posted it it in either bug report section or feature request section, depending on what you feel it is.

It certainly looks like something that needs some attention.

[JasperO]

I reposted this in bug reports

https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=239740

[schwa]

This changed in v6.02, and this is the relevant changelog line:

+ Tempo map: further improve behavior of insert measure from loop selection actions [p=2215874]

The forum post the changelog line refers to is this:

Originally Posted by juliansader

Unfortunately, the problem has not been fixed: "Create measure from time selection (detect tempo)" still creates multiple measures, even when the tempo of a single, slow measure would fall well within the global and project tempo envelope ranges.

Prior to 6.02, the behavior was as JasperO describes: the number of measures would be estimated based on the existing tempo.

So you guys fight it out and let us know who wins.

[juliansader]

These are actually two different issues, so we do not need to fight:

The issue that I reported, and which was fixed, was that:
* "Insert Measure from time selection (detect tempo)" inserted multiple measures, even if a single measure would fall within the global and project tempo envelope ranges.
* "Insert Measure from time selection (new time signature)" refused to insert measures with very slow or very fast tempos.

The issue that JasperO reported in this thread, is that the *default* number of measures suggested by "Insert Measure from time selection (new time signature)" has changed.

Since the "(new time signature)" variant is the appropriate Action with which to insert multiple measures, I don't mind if the default suggested number of measures is more than one.

[schwa]

Originally Posted by juliansader

* "Insert Measure from time selection (detect tempo)" inserted multiple measures, even if a single measure would fall within the global and project tempo envelope ranges.

I'm not quite following. The previous behavior was just as JasperO showed: the time selection was rounded to the nearest number of measures using the current tempo. Could you give an example of this action's behavior that was not correct in v5.99?

[androo]

Originally Posted by schwa

This changed in v6.02, and this is the relevant changelog line:

+ Tempo map: further improve behavior of insert measure from loop selection actions [p=2215874]

The forum post the changelog line refers to is this:



Prior to 6.02, the behavior was as JasperO describes: the number of measures would be estimated based on the existing tempo.

So you guys fight it out and let us know who wins.

How about a compromise solution? Allow the default behavior to be an option.

[juliansader]

As I have replied above, there is no need to fight or to compromise since there is no disagreement. (And there is no need for an extra setting.)

The posts of mine that Schwa linked to and quoted were about another bug report that is actually unrelated to this thread, and that was fixed long ago. I only mentioned that bug in my earlier posts in this thread since I didn't quite understood JasperO's issue until he posted the screenshots.

JasperO's issue is not about setting a new, fixed default number, but about letting the suggested number of measures be derived from the (rounded) number of measures selected.