Hoster 5.00 Tempo Change - in 5.06 released Mar 15, 2011

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by WaltR

I've waited a long time for hoster 5.00 as well as many of you. The good news is that it was a free upgrade and I do like many of the changes. The bad news is that it still does not offer tempo change! I really expected to see it in this version. Disappointed!

Walt

I was counting on it being in this version too, but as most of the time Admin puts in what they want. I've been a member of this forum for a long time. Every once in a while I just have to put my 2 cents worth in. I'm still waiting for rotatation management. I do a variety show and use Hoster for the musical accompanyment. Most of these people can not do the songs at the normal tempo. I fought long and hard with these people to be able to use Hoster as I knew I could pre set key changes which they all need also. They tell me they can do it with their hardware players and they don't care about Hoster. They are just as happy to use the remote to change the tempo up or down 2 or the key up or down two. However, I as someone who is actually doing the work and running the sound board etc. I would rather pre program all of that. All I have to do then is have the playlist lined up properly and then click the mouse at the right time. As always, Hoster just seems to be a penny short of doing what I need it to do even though I still believe it to be the best software of this type out there. I get pretty much all of the upgrades and upgrades to the other MTU software I have. I was following the blog and knew they were having trouble with making the tempo work. I wish they would have stuck with fixing that instead of putting out some bug fixes and some cosmetic changes. I'm very disapointed. I will not buy any upgrades for any of my products until tempo change happens. I'm tired of all this bull.

gpayne

[ddouglass]

Believe me when I say that MTU did want to get Tempo into this version, but it wasn't as easy as you think. They have been working on it and we have tested on it, but it just isn't ready quite yet. I am just as disappointed as you, but you would not have wanted it if it doesn't work completely yet.
Just throwing a new feature into the existing program is not as easy as you think. The new feature has to work and play well with all the other functions that Hoster does which makes integrating it a much more difficult task.
Please be patient and it will be included soon.

[admin]

Originally Posted by WaltR

I have been hearing this for much to long. It is clear to me that this is not a priority to MTU. It is a priority to me. I won't be waiting much longer when I know that competitive products offer pitch control.

Originally Posted by OneEskalera

So, When is the tempo control coming out? It was promised on Hoster 4.o but did not make it. It was not on priority list but a lot of us want it. Now it was on 5.0 list again???

We are very sensitive that we have not yet delivered Tempo change. It IS a high priority, but we have had a number of road blocks that stalled us.

We spent several man-months of time on Tempo in 5.00 - making Tempo THE most expensive investment in Hoster 5.00 - so it WAS planned in October 2010. We could not anticipate that Remove Silence Mode and Live Sync Slider would interact so disasterously with the lyrics stayinng in sync while the tempo changed.

Here are the facts at this moment:

1. We now have quality Tempo Change SOURCE code to use, that will be compiled into Hoster, not linking to an "add on" product from a third party vendor you can't get help from.

2. The AUDIO Tempo change works extremely well. It is the speeding up or slowing down the lyrics to stay in sync is giving us grief.

3. We DID implement a LIVE, ON-THE-FLY ADJUSTABLE slider up until 5.00 Beta 18 or 19 just before releaase. Yo ucan see its "reserved" location on the Hoster screen to the left of the Vol: slider, and above the Key change 11 buttons.

Lonman, as a Beta Tester you should have pointed that out, not request it

4. When released, the Tempo Slider WILL work with Remove Silence Mode.

5. When released, the Tempo Slider will NOT work with the Live Sync Adjust slider. Both of these sliders can change the playing location of the lyrics. We simply don't want to tackle this dual-change in the Tempo code, which is very touchy anyway.

If you adjust Tempo first, you get tempo change, but the Live Sync Slider cannot adjust during that song.

If you adjust Live Sync Slider first, you get that, but the Tempo slider cannot adjust during that song.

I had to make the above tradeoffs to get us moving again. Now these decisions are made, once we finish the bug fixes in 5.01, 5.02... then we will add Tempo into Hoster 5.10. The new code will require at LEAST a month of Beta Testing. Thus, it is at least 2 months off.

[Kobesdad]

Well as usual I must be the odd man out.
What in the world is the purpose of the lyrics sync slider?
The offset worked fine for me.
I can only guess it has something to do with Vista or 7?
And with all do respect Tempo is something I've been waiting for Since 2008.

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by Kobesdad

Well as usual I must be the odd man out.
What in the world is the purpose of the lyrics sync slider?
The offset worked fine for me.
I can only guess it has something to do with Vista or 7?
And with all do respect Tempo is something I've been waiting for Since 2008.

It's for being able to adjust a songs lyrics on the fly rather than having to know which songs are out of sync.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by Kobesdad

Well as usual I must be the odd man out.
What in the world is the purpose of the lyrics sync slider?
The offset worked fine for me.
I can only guess it has something to do with Vista or 7?
And with all do respect Tempo is something I've been waiting for Since 2008.

The lyrics sync slider can be used if you have a song that is individually out of sync, as in when the producer didn't get it right. The offset is for when your computer is lagging or too fast on showing the lyrics on all songs.

[billyo]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

The lyrics sync slider can be used if you have a song that is individually out of sync, as in when the producer didn't get it right. The offset is for when your computer is lagging or too fast on showing the lyrics on all songs.

just wondering, how it will work,are you gonna use the slider while someone is singing the out of sync song ? that would basically get the singer go out of tune, since you might be adjusting the slider too much ahead or too little..what if the song playing goes out of sync in the middle of the song..just trying to picture this feature in my mind..a little bit comical and also once the song was corrected will it stay in sync , or have to keep playing with the slider everytime you play the said song..

[admin]

Originally Posted by billyo

just wondering, how it will work,are you gonna use the slider while someone is singing the out of sync song ? that would basically get the singer go out of tune, since you might be adjusting the slider too much ahead or too little..what if the song playing goes out of sync in the middle of the song..just trying to picture this feature in my mind..a little bit comical and also once the song was corrected will it stay in sync , or have to keep playing with the slider everytime you play the said song..

If a song varys the sync, you need to re-engineer it with KHPro.

The control does NOT vary the key/pitch or termpo, only the lyrics sync. Once adjusted, the lyrics should remain in sync for the song.

[ddouglass]

Originally Posted by billyo

just wondering, how it will work,are you gonna use the slider while someone is singing the out of sync song ? that would basically get the singer go out of tune, since you might be adjusting the slider too much ahead or too little..what if the song playing goes out of sync in the middle of the song..just trying to picture this feature in my mind..a little bit comical and also once the song was corrected will it stay in sync , or have to keep playing with the slider everytime you play the said song..

It does not make a permanent change to the sync. Nor is it something you would use on every song. For that you still have the offset control. It is for a single song that the mfg did not get set correctly. It is not a drastic change when you use it. It will make small shifts to get it closer to correct sync.

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by billyo

just wondering, how it will work,are you gonna use the slider while someone is singing the out of sync song ? that would basically get the singer go out of tune, since you might be adjusting the slider too much ahead or too little..what if the song playing goes out of sync in the middle of the song..just trying to picture this feature in my mind..a little bit comical and also once the song was corrected will it stay in sync , or have to keep playing with the slider everytime you play the said song..

I saw it demonstrated via another program my buddy uses last year before Hoster got it, it works well especially on the newer Chartbuster songs that seem to lag trying to get the new page of lyrics up - bump the slider a couple notches & people can actually sing the songs without missing the first couple words of each page. Definitely a nice new feature here!
I don't know if i'd edit every song that needed it (via KHPro), but I do edit the song title (in between brackets <>)to remind me to set it for that song and by how much - Hoster doesn't show anything on the singers screen in between the brackets but will on the host screen which is really nice in itself.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Lonman

I do edit the song title (in between brackets <>)to remind me to set it for that song and by how much - Hoster doesn't show anything on the singers screen in between the brackets but will on the host screen which is really nice in itself.

That's a handy little tip, I must remember that one. Thanks for posting that.

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by Roy Dennis

That's a handy little tip, I must remember that one. Thanks for posting that.

Yeah it was quite by accident actually that I noticed it. I have all songs with any swearing marked with PA in between the <> and somebody talked me into singing one late at night & I noticed it didn't display the bracketed info on the singer monitor - like an HTML code. Very handy!

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by billyo

just wondering, how it will work,are you gonna use the slider while someone is singing the out of sync song ? that would basically get the singer go out of tune, since you might be adjusting the slider too much ahead or too little..what if the song playing goes out of sync in the middle of the song..just trying to picture this feature in my mind..a little bit comical and also once the song was corrected will it stay in sync , or have to keep playing with the slider everytime you play the said song..

It doesn't get them out of tune at all. It gets them back on track! It's confusing to sing a song you know and ignore the wipes that are out of sync and its frustrating to try and sing a fast paced song that paints the lyrics at the exact same time you need to be singing it. So far I've used it with much succes for myself on the SC version of Billy Joels "we didnt start the fire". Many of the lyrics show up right when they need to be sung, not giving your brain a chance to read them. a quarter second speed up of graphics was perfect. I also used it the other night for a song that was left out of sync after an audio drop. Slowing down the graphics by a half second got it back in sync.
As admin noted the slider does not effect a permanent change. For that you'll want to use khpro or use songverter to convert the song to an mp3g and an audio program to add or subtract a little silence from the begining of the file name as is appropriate and then reimport it.

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by Lonman

Yeah it was quite by accident actually that I noticed it. I have all songs with any swearing marked with PA in between the <> and somebody talked me into singing one late at night & I noticed it didn't display the bracketed info on the singer monitor - like an HTML code. Very handy!

Just experimenting with this and found another use, you can use the < > after the singers name and enter some letters to denote the venue, handy for same name singers at different venues. again shows on playlist but not on singers display.

[mindonstrike]

Originally Posted by Lonman

Yeah it was quite by accident actually that I noticed it. I have all songs with any swearing marked with PA in between the <> and somebody talked me into singing one late at night & I noticed it didn't display the bracketed info on the singer monitor - like an HTML code. Very handy!

Very handy. I use it to put notes on songs but Ive found if the first character after the < is a number it will still display, so to note a 45 second intro I have to type it as sec45 intro

[Roy Dennis]

Originally Posted by mindonstrike

Very handy. I use it to put notes on songs but Ive found if the first character after the < is a number it will still display, so to note a 45 second intro I have to type it as sec45 intro

Hey what's the new picture, do you have to sing on an exercise bike ?

[WaltR]

Originally Posted by admin

We are very sensitive that we have not yet delivered Tempo change. It IS a high priority, but we have had a number of road blocks that stalled us.

We spent several man-months of time on Tempo in 5.00 - making Tempo THE most expensive investment in Hoster 5.00 - so it WAS planned in October 2010. We could not anticipate that Remove Silence Mode and Live Sync Slider would interact so disasterously with the lyrics stayinng in sync while the tempo changed.

Here are the facts at this moment:

1. We now have quality Tempo Change SOURCE code to use, that will be compiled into Hoster, not linking to an "add on" product from a third party vendor you can't get help from.

2. The AUDIO Tempo change works extremely well. It is the speeding up or slowing down the lyrics to stay in sync is giving us grief.

3. We DID implement a LIVE, ON-THE-FLY ADJUSTABLE slider up until 5.00 Beta 18 or 19 just before releaase. Yo ucan see its "reserved" location on the Hoster screen to the left of the Vol: slider, and above the Key change 11 buttons.

Lonman, as a Beta Tester you should have pointed that out, not request it

4. When released, the Tempo Slider WILL work with Remove Silence Mode.

5. When released, the Tempo Slider will NOT work with the Live Sync Adjust slider. Both of these sliders can change the playing location of the lyrics. We simply don't want to tackle this dual-change in the Tempo code, which is very touchy anyway.

If you adjust Tempo first, you get tempo change, but the Live Sync Slider cannot adjust during that song.

If you adjust Live Sync Slider first, you get that, but the Tempo slider cannot adjust during that song.

I had to make the above tradeoffs to get us moving again. Now these decisions are made, once we finish the bug fixes in 5.01, 5.02... then we will add Tempo into Hoster 5.10. The new code will require at LEAST a month of Beta Testing. Thus, it is at least 2 months off.

Amin posted in the beginning of last May. Any progress on this? Is this still a priority or has it been placed on the back burner?

Walt

[OneEskalera]

I don't think this is in priority list. I upgraded to hoster 4.0 hoping this will be included in 4.0 series but did not happen. It was always on promise list since 2003. And now it was promised again on 5.10. I really did not need all other features on hoster except the instant button, i still used 3,21 and happy with it. no issues at all. Don't get me wrong, hoster is a good karaoke program. I could play all my karaoke files with no issues at all. I could also paly my dance music with it non stop because I could open 4 instances of different playist with without any problem,. I could also non stop karaoke action with different set of playlist on 3.21. i haven't tried in on 4.32 but I know I could with just a few second delay by disable the new feature of 4.32 and have to behave like 3,21. Will not upgrade to latest hoster till they got the tempo in it.

[WaltR]

Originally Posted by OneEskalera

I don't think this is in priority list. I upgraded to hoster 4.0 hoping this will be included in 4.0 series but did not happen. It was always on promise list since 2003. And now it was promised again on 5.10. I really did not need all other features on hoster except the instant button, i still used 3,21 and happy with it. no issues at all. Don't get me wrong, hoster is a good karaoke program. I could play all my karaoke files with no issues at all. I could also paly my dance music with it non stop because I could open 4 instances of different playist with without any problem,. I could also non stop karaoke action with different set of playlist on 3.21. i haven't tried in on 4.32 but I know I could with just a few second delay by disable the new feature of 4.32 and have to behave like 3,21. Will not upgrade to latest hoster till they got the tempo in it.

I understand your frustration. I posted this and copied Admins last post to find out if it is still on the hot list or has been set aside. I have used Hoster from the beginning and never had a problem until 4.0. Admin has explained all problems as they related to Vista and Microsoft. I stuck with them as well as many others did. The only changes to Hoster through all of this as far as the user end for me, is the "remove silence" and "singers list (database)". All the video stuff is useless to me. I doubt I will purchase another upgrade either until "Tempo" is available. As I have stated before, it is available from other products but I beleive the remove silence is not available with these products (not sure).

Walt

[ddouglass]

Tempo is still slated for 5.10 and as Admin has said this will take a long beta test to make sure it is working correctly and not causing problems with other features.
Version 5.01 - 5.04 have been released mainly to fix some bugs with the new layout/operation in version 5.00. MTU will only be releasing more 5.0x versions if any more bugs show up that need to be corrected before getting to work on 5.10. So be patient a little longer.