Advanced Guide to DDReam Studio 1.05+

Topics:

Beat Nudging vs. Beat Growing
How to sync music with noisy waveforms (e.g., heavy metal)
How to use the wave filter
How to make the beat color solid/white/turquoise?
How to force write a single BPM.
Do I really have to sync/beat marker every little thing?
How to use an automatic BPM calculator along with ddream.
How to work with sub-beats - COMING SOON
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Beat Nudging vs. Beat Growing

Beat Nudging
Beat Growing
Before:
Before: The markers are more or less correctly spaced but are globally shifted offsync by the same amount. This is more commonly known as an “offset, “gap,” or a phase problem.
Before: The markers are initially on-sync, but slowly drift offsync. This is more commonly known as a BPM problem.
After:
Beat Nudge fixes the above problem.
Beat Growing fixes the above problem.
How to do it: 1. Enable Sync Mode (Level Manager, click “Sync Mode” button)
2. Click on the song before the first “bad” marker, then Shift + MWHEEL to nudge all beats from the “bad” marker to the end of the song up/down a few pixels at a time.
1. Enable Sync Mode (Level Manager, click “Sync Mode” button).
2. Click on the song before the first “bad” marker, then Ctrl + MWHEEL to grow a few tenths of a BPM at a time (one click of the wheel may barely make any difference).
More Advanced Options: *Zoom in to achieve a more precise nudge.
*Select any one beat marker to start nudging from that point onwards.
*Select any beat marker to grow all beats from that marker to the end of the song.
* Select multiple beat markers to grow all beats between the selected markers
* Press G to specify an exact average Grow BPM.
You can mix/match nudge and grow as you see fit until you fix your problem.
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How to sync music with noisy waveforms (e.g., heavy metal)


Tips:
1. Open the song, and go to the Filter (press I, then OK). Most of the time the filter will give you pretty good looking beats. Work with those, in addition to the original yellow waveform.
2. Always use the beat assist, and zoom, slow down to 30% or so, and playback your song carefully until the music lines up with the tick.
3. Learn the Speed Edit controls from the Pocket Guide so you can get more
done in less time.
4. Most rock and heavy metal music have a traditional drumline, follow that with your
ears and the Filtered waveform and put in beats accordingly.
5. Most rock/heavy metal is also pretty steady. For the steady parts,
you may want to use the "how to insert many beats at once" tutorial
from the Pocket Guide.
6. Sync the song in sections, and skip the parts you can't get,
come back to it later. This is the power of ddream.
7. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE! (Ctrl+S)
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How to use the wave filter.


Press "I" to open the Filter options.
"Enable Wave Filter" = Enable or disable. Self Explanatory.
"Filter Type - high-pass" = Display treble sounds (high hats, cymbals, some snares, other high pitched sounds)
"Filter Type - low pass" = Display bass sounds (bass drums, maybe some snares)
"Impulse Response - Infinite" = Gives you better peaks, usually
"Impulse Response - Finite" = Use it if the Infinite option fails (rarely).
"Filter Strength" = self explanatory. Adjust so you can see the peaks more clearly.
"Show filtered/original together" = Self explanatory. Disable this if your FPS is too low with both waves enabled.
"Rescale" = Maximize wave peaks after processing (if you disable, you may get a teeny filtered wave you can't see).

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How to make the beat color solid/white/turquoise?

This feature is useful if you want to distinguish your beats from one another.
Just an example, you might want a white beat at every measure,
and a solid beat to remind you of where you left off.
Choose the color scheme that works for you.

You need to be in Sync Mode. To change the beat(s), highlight it (them) with your mouse, and
press Ctrl+1 for white, Ctrl+2 for turquoise, and Ctrl+3 for solid.
For solid white, press Ctrl+1, then Ctrl+3.
The solid color will also lock the beat and prevent accidental editing.
Beat colors are not saved if you save to SM 3.9 format,
because the SM file has no tag for beat color.
That's why you should work in DS format until you are ready to finalize.
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How to force write a single BPM.

Ddream treats every song as a continuously variable BPM song.
Fortunately, this is not a problem when you actually play the song in SM.

But....if you want to FORCE the BPM to ONE VALUE:
1. Go to Autofill (A) and read off the Average BPM. !!!MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR FILE.!!! Then, go into Notepad, erase all the #BPMS values, and replace with the average value.
2. Remember to test your WHOLE SONG *IN SM* carefully to make sure that your song actually works with a single BPM. If not, restore back to the previous copy.

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Do I really have to sync/beat marker every little thing?

It's really up to you.
Syncing every little thing will take a lot longer, and
the sync may be better, but probably not THAT much better than
syncing using the "How to insert many beats at once" method
from the pocket guide.

However, in the rare event that the song speeds/up slows down noticeably,
you may want to sync every beat in that area of the song.
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How to use an automatic BPM calculator along with ddream.

Answer: There are many auto-BPM calculators available on the Internet.
The good news is that you can use those calculators to help you in DDReam.
1. Run the calculator, and let it tell you the BPM.
Tip from soulscream: I would also like to recommend using WínBPM.... I think MixMeister is useless for getting accurate BPMs for more advanced songs....
2. Place the first beat in ddream to get the Offset.
3. Auto-fill that BPM using ddream.
4. Listen (F3), look, and zoom, edit (or grow/nudge/re-autofill with a slightly different BPM) any beats that are wrong (most of the time, it's perfect already, but for the times it's not perfect, ddream is helpful). If the auto BPM value is really wrong, you may consider starting from scratch, but you don't have to. SAMPLE IMAGES BELOW ONLY FOR ILLUSTRATION.

In this example, a simple grow, or just re-autofilling with a value a little bit lower than the given BPM, will fix the problem:

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