NWPC - Tools

Shows often have more "punch" when the progression of images is timed to the music.

When you are doing this kind of synchronization, a good place to start is to align the start of a transition to the accent beat in your music. The slidetime for an image (or "slide") is then the remaining beats in the measure.

For a more relaxed pace that still keeps time with the music, try allowing 2 or 4 measures per slide (depending on the tempo), but still just one beat for the transition.

This calculator gives you a head start in knowing how long your transition and slide times should be. Tap out the rhythm of your music using the Beat Calculator, then use that average BPM and the metre of your music and a transition style to generate the timings. You don't have to tap out the entire song! just enough to get a good feel for the average beats per minute.

Once you align the starting transition of the first slide to the beats, most of the rest of the slides should line up. No music is perfect, so you will still have to tweak the odd slide or two, but that is still a lot faster than hand tweaking every slide!

If you already know your BPM (e.g. your stock music site often gives you this information), you can just enter it directly. If your music changes tempo several times, then obviously you will need timings for each passage in your music.