Step 7: Test Your BPM Value
Now, though it may seem boring, this is the key moment of the test. Using Test Mode, play your DWI and hit the left arrow key exactly on the beat, repeatedly. Be sure to follow the beat you HEAR in the music; do NOT conform to what you see on the screen.
Make careful note of how close the arrow is to hitting its mark each time you hit the left key on the beat. Whether it comes up as a "Perfect" or a "Great" or a "Miss," you should be getting the same result each time. If they are all Misses, though, and it's bothering you, adjust the gap a bit and start over.
However, it's not very important that the Gap be on-the-dot right now; the only thing that is important is that the rating DWI gives to each arrows be consistent throughout the song. Remember, assessment of the tempo is your priority right now, so again, if you change the Gap, start the song over again before you resume testing of the Tempo.
Now, doing this, you will discover one of several things, depending on what song you are doing and how well you calculated the Tempo. Here are a list of possible outcomes:
1. The arrows drift further and further in one direction as the song goes on.
Well, it looks like your tempo is either a little bit too fast or a little bit too slow. If you can play through a large portion of the song before they start to drift off noticably, then you are probably fairly close to the tempo. Tweak it until it becomes satisfactory. Be sure not to use increments that are too big. Somewhere between 0.1 BPM and 0.5 BPM at a time is a good amount of adjustment to use when you experiment with a new tempo.
If the tempo is completely off, you may have made a math error. Go back and check your work. However, it might also have to do with the next problem...
2. The arrows fluctuate unpredictably between being too late and too early.
Either your song has some tempo changes you didn't notice when you originally chose it for your DWI, or the tempo is being run by human percussion. Human percussion is much less accurate than you might think, as no human is quite capable of timing the beat down to a millisecond, much less for an entire 2-5 minute song.
Unfortunately, that means that songs with human drummers are almost impossible to make DWIs for properly. If your song uses human percussion, you'll either have to hunt down a more electronic mix of the song (if it exists), or do some very major remixing yourself. I wouldn't recommend trying to synch the step-timing to a song with an inconsistent beat, though. It would be very difficult and probably not worth your time.
If it turns out that the discrepancy is, instead, an electronically-initiated tempo change that you simply hadn't noticed before, you may have to go back, listen again carefully, seek out where the changes are, and start over from Step 1. As you might have figured out by now, songs with numerous tempo changes are very difficult, even if the percussion is computerized. If it becomes too difficult, you might want to set aside your project for a later date and find something easier this time.
3. The arrows consistently hit their mark at the same time throughout the song.
Well, it looks you've got the tempo down-pat. Congratulations! Now all you have to do is get the Gap right, which merely takes a little bit of fiddling. Also, make sure you use an even number of zeros at the start of the DWI file; this will ensure that the onbeats (1/4 notes) are gold and the off-beats (1/8th notes) are blue, while playing it in the game. (This, of course, only applies if the very first step of the song is on the beat)
Once you are certain everything is synched well enough to play through without any major problems, you can replace all the left arrows in the DWI with your own rhythms and step patterns. It may have taken some time to do all this, but your creativity will be left to wander that much more freely as you write your own set of steps. As you move on, you may feel like making very minor adjustments to the Gap and Tempo to perfect them. Feel free to change it until it feels completely natural.
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