A quick search didn't turn up anything, so here goes... Currently if I want to do 1.5 min rounds, I have to manually cut the songs' length on my Mac, then add the songs to a playlist on iTunes in the correct order and with the silence tracks in between, then sync the playlist to my iPhone. It all works very well and is not too tedious of a process, but I would like to have more variety to more closely simulate the comp experience, where you don't know which song is coming up next and it may not be one of your favorites. Also, if I want to build up stamina by gradually increasing song length, I would have to re-cut my rounds all over again. Ideally I'd like an app that randomly picks a song from 5 different genres or playlists, arranges them in correct order, cuts the songs to a specified length and inserts breaks of a specified length in between. The search of something similar in the app store only turned up a DJ-type app where you have to choose the songs yourself, but it does the rest. Problem is, it freezes half the time and there is no surprise as to which songs will play. So, before I set off to build my own app (or get discouraged and forever give up on the idea) - does anyone know of something like this that is already available? How do you make your rounds? Any tips for making this process faster/easier?
Look for a YouTube video and record the music. Maybe not the best quality, but should be good enough.
itunes actually has a built in feature... if you go into the song info you can tell it to stop at 1.5 minutes, i usually make a second copy of the song and then do that to make it cut at a minute and a half and sometimes make it start later if it has a long intro. also then when you sync it with an ipad or ipod it will remember that time cut as well.... considering i own neither an ipad or ipod touch i don't know if you can do it directly on those, but i know for sure you can do it on the song directly on the computer
Agreed. I make a copy of the song and adjust "stop" time to 1:40, then change group setting to "rounds"...
I was thinking about your app this weekend cause we need to start practicing rounds as well... and one issue i have is that my remote control for my stereo isn't always reliable so it's hard to control the rests between the songs to simulate doing a few dances in a row. Plus when I'm the one controlling the buttons I know when it will start so it doesn't feel the same mentally as standing out there on the floor with a mysterious amount of rest time. I think a really cool feature (if you are going to develop an app ;-p) is to have a feature where you can set it to have a 20 second break between tracks. OR, taking it one step further, having it randomized anywhere between 10 seconds and 60 seconds (or whatever range you choose).
I really would love to develop something to do this and give it out here...but I'm just not in that state of mind right now...
I think that's what i'll do for now ^^^. Make silent songs. LOL that reminds me of when we were a bunch of 20 year old hot heads in university (faculty of music) we decided to perform a piece called 4'33" by John Cage. This piece is actually completely silent (made it easy to score it for our own made-up ensemble of random instruments *w*). It's actually in three movements. I remember the audience being all "wtf?!" Anyway.... i'm still voting that someone makes an app My partner is still in the earlier stages of training his ear and he gets really good at dancing to the songs we often use to practice, but struggles on "new" music. I can make (am making) "sets" of three dances but i still can't figure out a way to get them to play randomly (shuffle feature won't work if i want them to play in a specific order with breaks, like cha cha, then rumba, then jive). So we're practicing to the same songs all the time (which isn't the end of the world of course LOL but since we're discussing it....). Ideally (IMO) the app could basically pull songs from your database (or iTunes i guess) from pre-described lists categorized into the specific dances, and only play them for a set length (customizable in case you want to do 1min30 sec or 2 min or whatever). Then have random space, then go pull from the next list of songs to basically totally simulate doing multi-dances at a comp. Round 1 : (choose from a drop-down list/click wheel of song genres, for example, samba, cha cha, jive, etc.) rest 1: (set length of rest, or randomized rest) Round 2: (choose song genre, or choose "none" if you don't want to do multi-dances) Rest 2: (choose length of rest).... etc. So in the end, you could do the full set of dances (or not LOL, or only 2 or 3 or 4). The app would pull your songs from the according playlists you'd have to set up in your itunes library (so put all the jives you can imagine into "jive" playlist and the app would pull it from there and play it for only the set length of time). The drop down menu of dances would include all International and American dances so the app could be used by all Hope that made sense! I don't know anything about how to build an app though... otherwise i'd consider doing it myself.
LOL. Actually i do love using ballroom beats but as far as i know, they aren't usable on an ipad or iphone yet... and unfortunately where we go to practice, there is no wifi connection to stream it from (i've tried with my laptop ). And they don't have rests between songs. I should google how to make an app. I'm guessing it's complicated and requires money to develop though. I was hoping to take the lazy route LOL
I can try to write a little something...I'll add that to projects I'll try my hands on...for now you'll just have to do the John Cage thing... I just looked this up on Wikipedia. I. Can't. Stop. Laughing.
Why not email ballroom beats and tell them of your need? Maybe they can add a channel that does what you need... Is worth a shot
Great idea on randomized breaks, I haven't thought of that! That would definitely increase the competition feel. Ballroom Beats sounds neat and I'll give it a try, but for actual practice I have the same situation, I don't have internet access, so wouldn't work there.
Incidentally, a couple of weeks ago, I created an iPhone app that seems to be very much along the lines you talk about in this thread. It enables you to arrange your dances in the specific order you like, and associate a playlist to each dance, so that the songs are picked randomly for each dance - e.g. a random Waltz followed by a random Quickstep followed by a random Tango. Furthermore you can specify song lengths, fade lengths and pause lengths, so that you have the desired breaks between dances. As icing on the cake, you can add e.g. audience applauses to be played back during pauses, if you are practicing for a competition (I use it personally in that respect, and it has really helped me and my partner in our practice sessions). The app is called "Ballroom Competition Trainer" and can be downloaded from the App Store. If any of you should decide to use it, please don't hesitate to suggest further improvements.
