Working with Hooks - How To?

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Adger
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Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Adger »

I'm trying to figure out how to work with PFOA "Hook"-feature and I sort of feel lost.

Could anybody give me a quick rundown how to properly use them? I basically want to create collections of three or four tracks and make PFOA play the hooks. I guess I understood how to define the Hook-section in a track (open PFL Player, toggle "Hook", set cue-points) but after that I am lost.
Farbo
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Farbo »

Adger, there are few ways of working with hooks. Please give more details what exactly do you want to do with hook points. Bernd will surely advice you best way of doing what you need.
Peter
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radio42
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by radio42 »

OKi,

A HOOK (as defined in ProppFrexx ONAIR) is a short passage, that is used to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener". So you basically use the hook cue-points to define the hook passage.

However, Hook Cue-Points are actually just a 2nd set of cue-points.
So when toggling the HOOK (via the Hook button in the player) you are effectively toggling between these 2 sets of cue-points (regular and hook).
So when a track is loaded to a DJPlayer you might toggle between these 2 sets of cue-points at any time.

The HOOK button toggles/switches the track into the hook mode.
When in hook mode you are allowed to define/change the hook cue points.

As such once you leave e.g. the TAG editor but don't want to use the track in hook mode by default, make sure you toggle/switch back the HOOK button beforehand!

In the general settings (section 'Mixing/Fading'; see 'Hook Mixing Settings' button) you can define additional options regarding HOOKs.
E.g. a Hook-Opener-, Hook-Seperator- and Hook-Closer-Track; plus the mixing settings.

How to use them within a playlist (assuming you have defined propper Hook-CuePoints for those/all tracks):
The typical scenario is, that you select a few forthcomming tracks within your playlist and then want to 'convert' them into an 'Embedded Hook-Container'.
This would be a single new track, which contains all the selected tracks (plus the optional Hook-Seperators, as explained above).
Those tracks would then be 'packaged' inside the new embedded container as one new track.
E.g. use the "Container from Selection" ribbon button to do so.
The tracks inside this embedded container would then use the defined Hook-CuePoints.

As a result you have a single playlist entry, which plays as one item, but effectively plays all the selected tracks with their hook sequence in a row as one item (plus the Hook-Seperators around it, if defined).

So this could sound like this:
- "After the break you will hear..." (Hook-Opener)
- "...Track1 between the Hook-CuePoints is played..."
- "...NOISE..." (Hook-Seperator)
- "...Track2 between the Hook-CuePoints is played..."
- "...NOISE..." (Hook-Seperator)
- "...so stay tuned!" (Hook-Closer)
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Adger
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Adger »

Thank you very much for the complete rundown. Especially the container-hook seperator-thingy is what I'm after. I'll experiment with this how to and come back once I'm stuck! ;)
Farbo
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Farbo »

Bernd, could you set to show in hook embedded container time of HOOK part not the whole track play time? Besides that fade-in and fade-out times defined in hook mixing settings are for transitions between hook parts of tracks? But do I have to define all cue points or is it just enough to define IN and OUT cue hook points? So far the transition if not smooth enough. I use default fade-in and fade-out settings for hook points.
Peter
Farbo
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Farbo »

I see, that was the problem, I did not define next cue point. :-(
Peter
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radio42
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by radio42 »

Yes, that is indeed a bug (duration display) - I'll fix that with the next release!
I am also going to add an extra Hook-MixTime parameter for better automatic mixing transition (if no Next cue-point was set so far).
Today it uses any existing Next Cue-Points for that.
Farbo
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by Farbo »

Thank you Bernd. By sub-sequent hook tracks do you mean only just hook tracks or even separator track?
Peter
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radio42
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by radio42 »

Both.
The Hook-Mixing Settings (FadeIn, FadeOut and MixTime) are applied to all entries in the embedded hook container (Hook-Opener, Hook-Seperator, Hook-Closer as well as to all the actual Hook-Tracks itself).
But note, that they are only used, if no respective Hook-Cue-Points have been set so far:
- "HookFadeIn" is used to set the FullLevel cue-point (if not already present) : FullLevel = CueIn + HookFadeIn.
- "HookFadeOut" is used to set the FadeOut cue-point (if not already present) : FadeOut = CueOut - HookFadeOut.
- "HookMixTime" is used to set the Next cue-point (if not already present) : Next = = CueOut - HookMixTime.

The only exception is, that the "HookFadeIn" is never used on the first entry (no matter if that is a Hook-Opener or if no Hook-Opener is defined the first Hook-Track).

As such, if you only define CueIn and CueOut for your HOOK CuePoints, the above Hook mixing settings will be used.
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radio42
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Re: Working with Hooks - How To?

Post by radio42 »

A new "Hook-MixTime" option was added to v3.0.11.3!
This allows you to define a 'default' mixing time of two sub-sequent hook tracks, in case no Next-CuePoint was set so far.
Also the duration of embedded hook containers is now fixed.

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