Newbie's experiences part II

[simple_impulse]

(This is reply to Newbie experiences... thread, but I have tried to reply that about 20 times and there's something wrong with it. I thought maybe creating nes topic would help...)

@diiz: This was not the article, but this contains some of the ideas (original article was not in the history of my browser and it was found through Google, so...)

http://productionadvice.co.uk/high-samp ... und-worse/

@musibear: I tried: I saved a .fxp with Crystal, saved LMMS file, closed Crystal and LMMS, opened LMMS, loaded LMMS, opened Crystal and loaded my test .fxp. Crystal didn't save the used preset for some reason, so it seems that there is a bug somewheres... But not fatal. (Render your tracks to wav:s to be sure! And make notes...)

Btw, my Massive, FM8, Dimension Pro and Diversion are not freeware, they're full commercial versions. I have bought them. I just wanted to tell that they work with LMMS.

Also, I guess improvement could be due to Wine development also; they fixed something in last dev release which concerned VSTs.

(This is zillionth try to post this, sorry for possible duplicates!)

[simple_impulse]

...also, for reference, I couldn't get Sylenth1 VST demo to work.

[diiz]

Damn forum software ate my post. I wrote a longer reply originally, but basically, that article is about recording (particularly, the poor frequency response on some cheaper hardware which mitigates the benefit gained from higher sample rates), and digitally produced sound is an entirely different issue. With digitally produced sound (especially in LMMS, where you can render sound directly into a sound file), there's no analog stages and thus you can only benefit from a higher sample rate. Even if you later resample the track to a lower rate, it's good to render it in a higher sample rate, as it helps prevent aliasing.

[simple_impulse]

That sounds sensible. What export values you recommend?

[diiz]

That depends.

A few constants though: I always export in WAV and 32-bit. 32-bit is infinitely superior to 16-bit, not just because it has twice the bits, but because it's a floating-point format which means the signal has literally tons of headroom even beyond nominal 0dB. In integer signals such as 16 and 24 bit, the dynamic range stops at 0dB. This extra headroom in 32-bit allows you to do (some) lossless operations - meaning you can modify the sound without losing quality. So the choice here is clear, especially if you plan on doing any post-processing (and you probably should, because you can't always predict how things export based on how they sound live, and you may need to fix some small things).

For interpolation I use either Sinc Medium or Sinc Best. I haven't noticed much difference between them, but at least for shorter things where the rendering won't take an insanely long time either way, I tend to use Best because why not.

For sample rate, 96khz is what I usually like to use. Any more is probably overkill for any non-proaudio stuff. Then of course, some things don't render properly in 96k, so for those I usually export those tracks separately, then export everything else in 96k. If you do this, don't use the "export tracks" function, as it doesn't work very well, just solo the track you need (plus any related automation tracks) and export that way.

I sometimes experiment with the oversampling feature, but from what I can tell, the way it's implemented is just that if you select, for example, 44.1k at x2, LMMS just renders at 88.2 and automatically resamples it to 44.1. So IMO it's better to just render directly to 96k with 1x oversampling, then do any post-processing you need (if any), and save the resampling for last.

Enabling "sample-exact controllers" and "anti-alias oscillators" seems like a good idea too. The first probably only affects LFO/Peak controllers, and for the second I'm not sure how it exactly works - probably it improves the output of the built-in instruments when using the built-in waveforms, but I'd have to take a look at the actual code to be sure.

[simple_impulse]

Wow. Very useful stuff when doing final versions and post.

Thank you!

[diiz]

You're welcome, hope it helps!

[musikbear]

oki - crystal dont work for you either. I hoped you had a ninja-trick :p.
And Massive is what i thought it was -commersial
No Sylenth wont work. nor will Sytrus. Infact Image-line propeitary generators dont like lmms (or vis a vi..)
And yes, the forrum software can indeed be a hungry monster. I use to take a buffer copy of me post, and wait for the board to show the succesfull posting message

@ diiz Good render to wave info, but dam.. BIG files!

[diiz]

@ diiz Good render to wave info, but dam.. BIG files!

Somewhat yes, but 1TB external hard drives are pretty cheap these days, and also:

You only need that file temporarily. Once you've done whatever post-processing you need on the track (I recommend Audacity, mostly because you can use the same LADSPA effects you can use in LMMS, and thus you can preview how they affect things live before rendering, also Audacity's own EQ is pretty badass), you can save your file in a more economical format, such as FLAC or even OGG/MP3, although I recommend keeping a 24-bit FLAC around because if you need to change the format/bitrate/etc. of the lossy file, it's best to do a new compression from a lossless file, rather than compound the loss.

The advantage of the 32-bit vs. 24-bit is only really relevant for editing. For listening, there isn't really any noticeable difference in quality - the human ear can distinguish sounds up to 120dB, and 24bit contains 144dB range so it's more than enough for any ear.

The same pretty much applies to sample rate, after you've done editing/post-processing, you can pretty safely downsample to 48k or 44.1k.

[simple_impulse]

Hm. Drum synth VSTs seem to fail. Is there a problem, if a VST has several stereo outputs? Or, is it just me being dumband not noticing something?

(DSK DrumZ MachineZ and Microtonic for example fail; I tries several.)

...and yes, Beat and Bassline Editor works and is very usable, but I want to *play* with strange drumsets....

(And yes, I am aware that Hydrogen exists. )