Instrument samples playing short

[newbie9999]

Hi, I am trying to play long notes, but it appears that while piano2 can easily hold 8 beats, violin can only hold for 4 beats max. After that it falls silent. I tried to fiddle with the sustain, decay, release settings, but it makes no difference whatsoever.

Ultimately, I want the drum and tuba to sound deeper and rounder, but the envelope settings just doesn't seem to work.

Also I converted some free samples from philharmonia.co.uk from mp3 to ogg. Is that all I need to do to add new samples? Those samples suffer even more from not being able to hold for long time. But they sound better than factory samples so I want to make them work.

I'm using LMMS 1.1.3 on Win 7 x64

[slipstick]

From what I know a sample by definition will last only for a fixed time (violin-fingered is just short of 2 seconds). There's not a lot you can do about it other than find a longer sample or do some serious messing about copying or looping parts of it to make a new longer sample. And if I wanted to do that I'd do it outside LMMS in something like Audacity where you have better control of things.

OTOH "sound deeper and rounder" suggests you just need to add some EQ (equalisation) using the FX tab.

Steve

[musikbear]

I can see this is your first post, so-
Welcome to the community!

slipstick's advice is great, but since you are new, it could be that you are not using the right container.
I kind of suspect you are using 'sample-track' ?
In your case the right one is AudioFileProcessor (AFP)
This one:
https://lmms.io/wiki/index.php?title=AudioFileProcessor
Also this is important:
https://lmms.io/wiki/index.php?title=Wo ... th_Samples
(infact the whole wiki is important :p
https://lmms.io/wiki/index.php?title=Manual

a Sample in afp will play completely -several minutes is possible, but there could be issues with your converted samples too -For that reason, try to play the sample in a program like audacity (free)
If you have Qs on how to use afp, then just ask again

[newbie9999]

@Steve I suspected that Audacity is needed, but changing every individual sample sounds very time consuming. And which FX do you recommend?

@musikbear Thanks! My first version of the post contained thanks for the developers, but it somehow got eaten by login timeout or something.

I did change settings in the AFP of the instrument sample (I don't know what the sample track does), but it is not giving the desired effects at all. By that I mean, changing the start/end of sample, make it loop, and the envelope settings.

I converted the mp3 samples using VLC, so there should be no issue with conversion at least.

Does it mean that Audacity is the only way to go? (or find longer samples)

[newbie9999]

After further testing, I realized that the samples also lose their realism when the note is played shorter than the original recording. Does it mean that I would also need more tracks of different length samples of same instrument?

Perhaps I should ask: Can LMMS create a traditional/natural-sounding instrument piece beside piano and percussion?

[Eino]

Here is an orchestral soundfont pack, the soundfonts work well with LMMS.
I have found it better than working with samples.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mcFl ... sp=sharing

You will need a sfpack archiver to open the sfpack, for use. Open the pack in your sample folder, then it's ready for use.

[slipstick]

If you're playing tunes with lots of varying note lengths then samples really aren't what you need. As Eino says soundfonts (used with the SF2 instrument) will work a lot better. About the only other practical way is to get some good instrument VST plugins (used with the Vestige instrument). The problem with these is that the good ones are rarely free and the free ones are rarely very good. It might be worth trying the DSK range of plugins. They're free and some are pretty good (though I haven't tried their orchestral instruments....not my thing). http://www.dskmusic.com/

Steve

[newbie9999]

@Eino Thanks! This soundfont stuff sure sounds better than samples. So I just need to add a whole bunch of SF tracks and change instruments in the AFP window right? Also, what are the source and the license of this soundfont pack?

@slipstick I saw VST mentioned a lot, haven't looked deeper in it yet, but will do.

[newbie9999]

Soundfont's violin sounds unreal, so I installed DSK's strings VST, which is within acceptable range. However, when I copy paste existing melodies to the VST track, it just remain silent for some odd reason. If I start a new project, the VST track sounds fine. What is happening?

[musikbear]

However, when I copy paste existing melodies to the VST track, it just remain silent for some odd reason. If I start a new project, the VST track sounds fine. What is happening?

Did you get the

"existing melodies"

from midi-files? maybe it is general-song-automation
Right-click the volume-dial, and choose 'remove-song-global-automation'
Did that fix it?