Help for a Beginner

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Good evening everyone,

I'm about as new to LMMS as you can be (as in I started today). However I have a background in music and with a few LMMS tutorials I was started. I made a very short and honestly not very good loop (it lasts 6 seconds) and I have come across a few issues that I don't think I will be able to solve easily by simply continuing to watch tutorial videos.

You can download my LMMS project as well as the exported .wav file using this WeTransfer link:
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/a1edc8 ... 924/4caf54

My issues are :

1) The organ_blues instrument has some kind of "pop" sound (as in a bubble popping) every time I change chords (less noticeable but still there with single notes). I find this sound quite annoying and would like to remove it. I have tried quite a few things, but I can't seem to find a good solution. Is it perhaps just this instrument that for some reason has that "feature"?

2) Minor issue I guess, but there is a delay between what is between played on my screen and what I hear. This delay happens when I use my headphones instead of the built-in speakers of my PC. As I said, minor annoyance but if you have an easy fix I would be grateful.

3) I have 4 tracks I use : TripleOscillator, Beat/Bassline 0, organ_blues and one of my two SBass. If I play only one or 2 tracks at the same time, no problem But if I start playing 3 or 4 tracks I'm starting to hear some parasite noises. The organ_blues in particular seems to make the problem worse, but I have had times where I had parasite sounds even without it, although much less pronounced. I have no parasite noises if I use my computer's built-in stereo system. This leads me to conclude that there is something wrong with the configuration of my headphones or their quality, although they should be good headphones. The easy solution is quite simple : Stop using headphones. But I don't live alone though.

Here are some info:

I use a Headphones (Bose QuietComfort 35 Stereo) output as shown in this picture : https://i.imgur.com/XOxSpk5.png and I have a buffer of 6400 as shown here : https://i.imgur.com/6IVcwt6.png
First thing that comes to my mind.

Is the 'Pop' at the end of the note or arrangement?

If you can open the waveform in Audacity and zoom right in to where you hear the Pop, you may see the waveform is distorted there.

What i have found can cause this,

Depending on the the length of a certain note or arrangement, the waveform can end at an unexpected place and cause the Pop sound, if you lengthen or shorten the particular note slightly, it moves the end point to a Quiet section of the waveform and removes the Pop.

I hope i have explained this clearly as it has worked for me a few time to remove unwanted Pop's
Thanks for your help. I looked at the waveform in Audacity and this is the result :
Image

From what I understood of your reply, I can make the note end before it's time, but the issue I have with that is that I will have an "empty" spot that is also an issue. Looking at other possibilities and using my limited knowledge of sound waves, I think there should be a way to solve this using those parameters:

Image
Image
Image


Can anyone tell me what I should do exactly? My best guess would be to make the attack and hold shorter because I'm guessing I'm only reaching like the first half of my envelope. My issue with that is that the attack and hold values don't have units. For example I have a "hold" value of 1 when it comes to the volume. The minimum value is 0 and the maximum is 2. But what are the units of those numbers? Seconds? Bananas? How am I supposed to guess which value is the one I need? Can I only randomly put in numbers until it works?

EDIT : Perhaps "1" stands for the total time that the note is scheduled to play and then the sum of all my parameters should be equal to 1?
Where is the Pop sound?

You can zoom right into any part of a waveform in audacity, highlight the problem area (Which can be as short as you wish) and manipulate that problem area.

I had a piece of voice audio where one section spiked strangely way up on verbalisation of an 'S', i zoned right in on this part only, possibly 0.25 of a second and changed the audio completely using EQ, that removed the offensive sound and the whole audio piece was then good for me.
The sound happens at exactly the moment when I have a transition and an abrupt change in wave amplitude (0.90s for example) :

Image
Image

So I'm pretty sure the problem I have comes from the big change in amplitude of my wave. I concluded from that that I should change the envelope of my wave, but I'm wondering how exactly (see my previous reply).

I would still like to have the volume going up, but I'm guessing I will need to add a decay.

If I'm correct, my envelope right now should like this :
Image

And to solve my issue, my best guess is that it should look like this :

Image
AnthonyB wrote:
Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:33 pm
Good evening everyone,I'm about as new to LMMS as you can be (as in I started today).
First off, Welcome to the Forum AnthonyB !
Here are all important links:
http://lmms.io/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4740
-A few rules and useful forum instructions
1) The organ_blues instrument has some kind of "pop" sound (as in a bubble popping) every time I change chords (less
Isit perhaps just this instrument that for some reason has that "feature"?


No, and it is considered as a bug, that is being looked at atm! Instruments/ presets, should not have this problem, for samples -however, it is something the user need to take care of!
The reason is this:
Image
A waveform should always start and end at a blue-spot. If it does, it will not pop

That also explain how setting an Envelope, as Incorruptable says, with a tiny attack, decay and for end-pop: Release can help a lot, but there is a bug!
there is a delay between what is between played on my screen and what I hear. This delay happens when I use my headphones instead of the built-in speakers of my PC.
That is Odd!
I cant see this as a LMMS issue, it must be a 'thing' with your soundcard, and the headphone you use. The sc Latency woulod be the same for both speakers and headphone. I would ask a friend if he would lend me his earphones, and then test the response -Could also be the connector-out ...
-If you pc has several, then try a different one
If I play only one or 2 tracks at the same time, no problem But if I start playing 3 or 4 tracks I'm starting to hear some parasite noises.
That one is easier :p Artefacts when adding elements to the mix, is almost always caused by exceeded loudness
  • Give every preset its own Mixer-channel (Bus)
  • Make sure no preset clip in the red-spectrum in Mixer!
Alright thanks, I think I understood most of it.

So I changed my envelope and added attack, decay and a lot of release and it's indeed much better. If you listen only to that track then you can still notice it a bit, but once the other tracks have been added it's much harder.

Just so that I understand the logic behind, this is a picture of my sound wave :
Image

So the problem I have here is that there is a change from a sin-wave to a flat-wave at around 0,8998 s and this should happen in theory when the sin-wave has a value of 0, but in this case it still has a small negative value, hence the small pop from the switch. To remove that last pop I'll probably need to watch some tutorials on envelopes, but for now it's ok.


With regards to the artefacts, you lost me at "Mixer-channel (Bus)", "preset clip" and "red-spectrum" haha. This calls for watching more tutorial videos I guess. In the meantime I lowered the volume of my computer and the artefacts disappeared, so you're completely correct that it's just too loud. So what I gather from that is that my sound waves from the different channels are currently additive and if I can put them their own "BUS" then they will become separate and superposed instead? Like if wave 1 has an amplitude of 1 at some point and wave 2 has an amplitude of 2 at the same point, currently my speakers play a single sound wave with an amplitude of 3.


EDIT : Is this what you meant ?
Image
AnthonyB wrote:
Fri Aug 23, 2019 5:15 pm
So I changed my envelope and added attack, decay and a lot of release and it's indeed much better.
Good, but carefull with lot of release. If it exceeded, then you will have dis harmonic-clash of adjacent notes!
So the problem I have here is that there is a change from a sin-wave to a flat-wave at around 0,8998 s and this should happen in theory when the sin-wave has a value of 0
Ideally, yes, but that where there is an issue in lmms, that is being looked at atm.
With regards to the artefacts, you lost me at "Mixer-channel (Bus)", "preset clip" and "red-spectrum" haha.
Mixer-channel (Bus): Exactly what you shows in your last picture Its a 'leftover' that it says FX",
(a) preset clip : Happens if one preset / 'instrument' ao generator produces a sound that results in red diodes in Mixer: Image Non of these has problems!
red-spectrum : The small spectroscope in the top of LMMS : Image
So what I gather from that is that my sound waves from the different channels are currently additive and if I can put them their own "BUS" then they will become separate and superposed instead?
Well overall output is a single mashed wave, that cant be separated in their orr. parts, but you can controll the individual parts inside the Mixer and on each single UI of the preset

EDIT : Is this what you meant ?
Image
[/quote]

Exactly! Each preset should have its own Mixer-channel (Bus) so 'connect-to-new' is exactly what you should do, but remember that you can make advanced assignments in groups aso, like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA55hC4 ... 5nzetBqgjA
Great, thanks for all your help!
As far as I'm concerned, all my issues have been resolved :)