15.2 Player music

[Emere]

It would seem silly that the problem would be "3 lutes = problems." It is more likely that lute parts generally have more tones attributed, so if you have three, it would work more towards perhaps a lowered note cap compared to live.
.

I don't think it is 2-3 lutes = problem, it acts more like a note cap problem. I did some tests and had a friend record it for me today. I hope to have a link for that later tonight or early tomorrow. I do not know if the video will show it but while playing another song, which only had one lute but did have two theorbos, I was getting loss of clarinet notes on my end. I will post again when the video gets uploaded providing it turned out well enough to use as an example.

Okay, got the links in. The first one is three songs done on Landroval and the second link is the same three songs done on Bullroarer on the evening of Jan 24th.
The songs are John Henry, Rolling in the Deep, and a lute solo of Gansta Paradise.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsjEAcxScW8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZy8M8uEcXY

[Katiepie]

I have had a listen to Fincin's videos. I hope some more work goes into fixing those tones that are out of kilter. The cutting is a problem if three lutes can drown out other instruments. We need a bigger palette to play good quality music. I look forward to the next build. The lutejo and Clarysynthtrumpet are not instruments I want to see live.

[Emere]

I have had a listen to Fincin's videos. I hope some more work goes into fixing those tones that are out of kilter. The cutting is a problem if three lutes can drown out other instruments. We need a bigger palette to play good quality music. I look forward to the next build. The lutejo and Clarysynthtrumpet are not instruments I want to see live.

*giggles* I was arguing with myself over what to call the lute on BR.. Lutejo or Balute...great minds Lili ~bunnyhugs~

[Thurallor]

And this is the result of me de-amplifying 3 of the samples to align them by their peak volume to the clarinet - the differences the script found ranged were around 3db (which is the difference of +f+ to +fff+!!)

Are you sure about that? I don't know what the .ABC format specifies, but I know in real-life music, the difference between f and fff is a lot more than 3 dB. Here's a random internet site that puts the difference at 20 dB. 3 dB is a barely-audible difference.

That one flute tone sounds still too loud (it was reduced by 3dB compared to the clarinet tone). If you open the 2 wav's in an audio-editor you will also see quite clearly that the amplitudes are more similar than before.

Just curious, what audio editor do you use? Audacity doesn't seem to have a very good way to visualize or analyze signal power. The amplitudes, of course, don't necessarily tell the whole story.

The big question now is:

Would it help if we made a huge list of all the 11*37 tones and their relative volume differences? Because it would mean that 11*37-1 tones would have to be readjusted in volume - that's something I wouldn't wish anyone to do manually!

I wouldn't want to engage in any such time-consuming activity until/unless there was some indication from Turbine that it would be helpful. So far we pretty much have radio silence from whatever technical people are working on this.

[Katiepie]

Also please the note on the flute which sounds like air being blown across a milk bottle has to be fixed. I know I am totally clueless about how these things are programed but my ears know what sounds good and what sounds not so good.

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

Are you sure about that? I don't know what the .ABC format specifies, but I know in real-life music, the difference between f and fff is a lot more than 3 dB. Here's a random internet site that puts the difference at 20 dB. 3 dB is a barely-audible difference.

Just curious, what audio editor do you use? Audacity doesn't seem to have a very good way to visualize or analyze signal power. The amplitudes, of course, don't necessarily tell the whole story.

I wouldn't want to engage in any such time-consuming activity until/unless there was some indication from Turbine that it would be helpful. So far we pretty much have radio silence from whatever technical people are working on this.

When I wrote my converter-engine I did measurements on the volume levels in lotro to match the volume dynamics of midis to the dynamics that you would afterwards in the game. So the difference between one level was roughly around 2 dB - the full range was something around 16dB (if you want I can dig out the plots). And yes I use Audacity, but in this case only for amplifying.

I really wished that Turbine would have done some automatic volume alignment in the first place and then let us judge on raising or lowering one instrument with respect to the others - that'd have been much more usefull for all the ear-based testing :/

[Lolorndinfey]

well. ear is one thing, but that's the 10% as I mentioned before. Back it up with data. speaking of which;

Jan 25: 16:53 server time

Just completed a test of the current volume levels for today. For your consideration;

(OTM = on the money, NC = no change) where OTM has a tolerance of +/- 3-5%, close enough to previous levels.

figured out why I was getting different results with the same build testing different songs. Still can't explain the lute discrepency.

Recommended volume adjustments compared to LIVE levels in volume.

-45% Lute (-3 .abc volume settings)
NC Harp
-50% Theorbo (-3)
-10% Flute (-1)
OTM Clarinet
OTM Horn *
OTM Bagpipe **
OTM Pibgorn ***
OTM Drum
+20% Cowbell (+1) ****

* shift towards upper frequency bands, actually -1, but sounds the same due to louder upper octaves
** +1 needed, but centered around 10-12KHz, it's a much needed improvement to pibgorn. Recommending current levels maintained.
*** upper frequency reduced. mid range increased. reducing shrill factor of bagpipes. Recommending current levels maintained.
**** the upper frequency bands have been tightened, no more upper frequency reverb and shrill. hence the 20%, or +1

Just to be clear, the -3 and -1 values are what the player needs to do to their .abc song volume settings to match LIVE when playing on BR near this time stamp.

[Vyvyanne]

Thank you everyone for the continued feedback.

We will have one more pass at this build which will go up on Bullroarer at the end of the week. This will have longer bagpipe notes to correct the cutoff bug and a couple more volume tweaks.

That is all we will be able to get in for this patch and I hope that all in all it is much better than the Live version currently is. However we will be looking into correcting the remaining odd notes for update 16, so rest assured we are not done yet and keep those bugs coming in so we dont miss them on our next pass.

[Emere]

Thank you everyone for the continued feedback.

We will have one more pass at this build which will go up on Bullroarer at the end of the week. This will have longer bagpipe notes to correct the cutoff bug and a couple more volume tweaks.

That is all we will be able to get in for this patch and I hope that all in all it is much better than the Live version currently is. However we will be looking into correcting the remaining odd notes for update 16, so rest assured we are not done yet and keep those bugs coming in so we dont miss them on our next pass.

~Bunnyhugs~ to you all for the hard work we know you have been putting into this. You guys have improved the beta build a great deal so far. I however must ask. Will this stay in beta until it is right or will it be going live? I am sure I don't speak for everyone but I for one, do not want to see it go live until it is right...or mostly right...
I posted some video links above showing considerable note loss while playing in a band and that surely needs to be fixed or the concerts will suffer once again.

[Orlor]

I agree. I am pleased that you are addressing the Bagpipe drone issue. However, just fixing that and a couple of vol levels does not address the issue of instruments being cut off in band pieces. If it is released live like that, then there is no point in playing in a band. Please do not release it live until that issue is fixed. The banjo-like strings on the lute and other stringed instruments may be annoying but they are not the most important thing to fix at the moment (In my opinion at least).

[Vyvyanne]

We believe that the dropped notes issue has been fixed or significantly reduced in the version that we will next put out to Bullroarer (late in the week as we are contending with a blizzard) We however can not test in house all the different ways you could be putting together a band with all the instruments and variety of size. We think part of this problem could be a limitation of the number of notes that can be played at one time. If we can get an idea of the number of instruments and types you are using when you see this bug we will have a better chance of confirming.

[Ingleton]

I agree with Orlor, notes being cutoff/not played at all is a problem even in the live version right now.

maxplayingsounds=64 is simply not enough! Some of our compositions are note heavy and it truly, truly ruins the experience when notes are cut off.

There was a time we were able to manually change maxplayingsounds in the preferences file to 128 to resolve sound cutoff issues in one's own client - this only changed it for you the user, but it was a solution and it worked for anyone who needed/wanted this option. These days it is fruitless because the launcher or game (I know not which) resets it to 64 no matter how many times you try to set it to 128.

Surely it is possible (and hopefully not too much work) to give us this option/ability back?

If it is not possible to let the user define his own maxplayingsounds parameters in his preferences file for some reason, then please, I implore you, set it to 128 for EVERYBODY!

This is not the dark ages anymore - people threw away their 286sx PC's long ago! I'm pretty sure even a 5 year old machine with on-board sound can handle 128 maxplayingsounds...

[Lolorndinfey]

Need verification on this. Maxnotes = 64 translates to 8 simultaneous chords of 3 notes. Yes?

This is per instrument, and I thought that band pieces sound better because of the multiple chord possibilities and mixture of waveforms from each simultaneously played instrument? So the question becomes. Are any of the instrument parts exceeding 8 chords? What happens if you stripe half the chords out, and keep adding 2 chords at a time?

My suspicion is that the new samples are bigger in size, and that is influencing the initial playback as it caches. But it sounds like Vyvyanne's team has identified the problem. Fingers crossed!

[SpiritusLOTRO]

We believe that the dropped notes issue has been fixed or significantly reduced in the version that we will next put out to Bullroarer (late in the week as we are contending with a blizzard) We however can not test in house all the different ways you could be putting together a band with all the instruments and variety of size. We think part of this problem could be a limitation of the number of notes that can be played at one time. If we can get an idea of the number of instruments and types you are using when you see this bug we will have a better chance of confirming.

I look forward to testing the new build on all fronts.

I'd also like to request that the development team look into changing the maxplayingsounds to 128 as standard on all clients. If possible, it would greatly increase the complexity of what is currently feasible from a practical standpoint. And, if it's just not going to happen for whatever reason, a clear no-go response would be appreciated.

I would also concur that the problem in the current beta build is likely based on the number of simultaneous sounds that are allowing to be played at one time. The question is what is causing such a restriction as compared to the live build? Hopefully all is well on the next build, but even so, I would still encourage changing the maxplayingsounds to 128 as standard on all clients.

Need verification on this. Maxnotes = 64 translates to 8 simultaneous chords of 3 notes. Yes?

The "maxplayingsounds" parameter is not intrinsically a "music system" function. It is a function of game sounds in general. So, if you have a running water sound file playing because you are next to a river, you are at one sound. If birds are chirping, you are at 2 sounds. If you use a vocal emote, you are at 3 sounds. If an orc grunts in range while you emote, 4 sounds, etc.

So, in the vast majority of regular play, the likelihood of getting anywhere near 64 simultaneous sounds is nearly impossible. The closest possibility would be perhaps a massive battle in the moors. But your graphics card is more likely to give out under that situation before 64 simultaneous sounds occur.

Now, IIRC, each instrument is capped at 6 simultaneous sounds. That includes sustain. So, assuming no other sounds are present, and you are attempting to pack as many notes into each instrument as possible, you can have 10 instruments playing 6 note chords, with an 11th playing a 4 note cord. However, that will vary depending on where you are playing, if there is a crowd making noise... etc. However, if you have a bunch of instruments playing quickly (think of an orchestral piece with tremolo strings or thrash metal) you can easily sound one note and have played another before the previous note is considered "complete." This is how you can get to the maxplayingsounds (64) cap very quickly without actually having 10+ instruments playing 6 note chords.

I hope that somewhat answers your question.

[Mellana]

I did some testing on Bullroarer today playing many songs in a band. Different setups, different types of music.

Me, too, I had this strange problem of missing notes sometimes. It becomes very obvious the moment the lead instrument misses some melody notes.
I tried to find a reason but couldn't - on live those songs are fine. As others said, it seems a limit of notes at a time is reached which is far beyond 64!

And I had some problems with short notes following each other rather fast. Sometimes they are played as triplets, sometimes some of them are just missing.
Especially flute has problems playing fast. It seems the tones themselves are a bit too long.
But it happened playing lute and harp, too. Those songs do work on live.

In the end I was very satisfied with the changes of wind instruments. They sound very well played together. Thank you very much for this!
Still I would like those flute notes already mentioned by spiritus here and by others to be changed.
Especially while playing a solo piece for flute they sound too different from the rest.

I am rather sad about harp being switched back to its live sound.
Alright, I missed the "new celtic" version.
But I was truly looking forward to a harp as soft and smooth as the old one but less "dark and muddy" in the low area. And maybe without this one "flapping" note and a bit stronger.
Right now on BR it's a mess - Lute and Theorbo have got more Volume than before while harp has been taken back to its volume on live (which is already rather low).

But my biggest sorrow atm is lute.
I like the new clear sound of it but I truly dislike those already mentioned banjo-like tones very much!
For me this is a nogo!
Many pieces I wrote rely on lead guitars (lutes) and with this new version they sound broken.
I won't play them while this lute version is current (which in fact means I won't play at all).

Like Emere (hey Fincin! ) and Orlor I'd prefer to wait till U16 hoping we all can help to improve the music system until then.
There is NO point in changing lots of song files to fit the U15.2 version knowing we will have to do it again once U16 is released!
Please do not release this version yet!

Mel (Smila)

[Edit]: I just saw Vyvyanne's request. I had this "missing notes" problem while playing 5 or 6 parts at a time, e.g. 2 lutes, 2 harps, theorbo and clar. Or 2 flutes, lute, harp and theorbo.
(No way of reaching 64 notes at a time).
I will have a closer look once I can log in again.

[Emere]

We believe that the dropped notes issue has been fixed or significantly reduced in the version that we will next put out to Bullroarer (late in the week as we are contending with a blizzard) We however can not test in house all the different ways you could be putting together a band with all the instruments and variety of size. We think part of this problem could be a limitation of the number of notes that can be played at one time. If we can get an idea of the number of instruments and types you are using when you see this bug we will have a better chance of confirming.

First off, let me say... We wish you all the best during that terrible weather and hope everyone stays safe and warm!

Okay....
Three lutes, one harp, one theorbo, and a bagpipe on the first song in the video. Six instruments total as shown here on Landroval on 1-24-2015 with no note loss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsjEAcxScW8
again...
Three lutes, one harp, one theorbo, and a bagpipe on the first song in the video. Six instruments total as shown here on Bullroarer on 1-24-2015 with note loss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZy8M8uEcXY

The person recording was the same for each video and they were done within a few minutes of each other. No settings were changed.
I have posted the three files used at our bands website which can be found here: http://w11.zetaboards.com/LesBeauxCh...ic/10940014/1/
I look forward to seeing if this is fixed as soon as the new build is released and will post again once I have


Oh yes, before I forget....BUNNY COSMETIC PETS!

[diamond-tinidril]

I agree. I am pleased that you are addressing the Bagpipe drone issue. However, just fixing that and a couple of vol levels does not address the issue of instruments being cut off in band pieces. If it is released live like that, then there is no point in playing in a band. Please do not release it live until that issue is fixed. The banjo-like strings on the lute and other stringed instruments may be annoying but they are not the most important thing to fix at the moment (In my opinion at least).

I can tell you from experience on live with the exact same problem (as demonstrated in Fincin's videos) is primarily due to a limitation of the number of sound events allowed to play at one time.

Note 1: "sound events at one time" includes any sounds in the environment or from nearby players
Note 2: notice the character on the extreme right complains that theorbo and bagpipe are dropping notes, this is because they are farthest away from that character. In the video, whoever is doing the video [edit] may be on the other end (originally I thought I noticed a definite stereo effect with the sounds matching the visual, but a second listen seemed not so, hard to tell where the videographer is standing) and it is one or two (or more) of the lutes/harp that are missing the most notes. In my experience the most missing notes happened with instruments with the most rapid note firing or farthest away from me.

I experienced this problem on live for years. I could not figure out why I suddenly couldn't hear instruments that were not right next to me or were missing notes unless I turned off all other sounds (and even then I was dropping notes). I searched the forums, asked other players, nothing. Then after a particular update (a little over a year ago, I think) someone mentioned there being a setting in the preference.ini for adjusting the number of simultaneous sounds. When I checked this I found my setting was for only 16!! I have no idea how that got changed, but when I increased that number my problem was (mostly) solved! I set it up to 128, but found that when I went back into preference.ini it had been bumped down to 64. So apparently there is a hard cap on live at 64 sound events.

I would ask that the devs increase the hard cap to 128 with a default setting of 64 sound events. This would not only solve the dropped music notes, but also the "silent" cries and missing battle sounds I sometimes experience (still) when in groups.

[Emere]

I can tell you from experience on live with the exact same problem (as demonstrated in Fincin's videos) is primarily due to a limitation of the number of sound events allowed to play at one time.

Note 1: "sound events at one time" includes any sounds in the environment or from nearby players
Note 2: notice the character on the extreme right complains that theorbo and bagpipe are dropping notes, this is because they are farthest away from that character. In the video, whoever is doing the video [edit] may be on the other end (originally I thought I noticed a definite stereo effect with the sounds matching the visual, but a second listen seemed not so, hard to tell where the videographer is standing) and it is one or two (or more) of the lutes/harp that are missing the most notes. In my experience the most missing notes happened with instruments with the most rapid note firing or farthest away from me.

I experienced this problem on live for years. I could not figure out why I suddenly couldn't hear instruments that were not right next to me or were missing notes unless I turned off all other sounds (and even then I was dropping notes). I searched the forums, asked other players, nothing. Then after a particular update (a little over a year ago, I think) someone mentioned there being a setting in the preference.ini for adjusting the number of simultaneous sounds. When I checked this I found my setting was for only 16!! I have no idea how that got changed, but when I increased that number my problem was (mostly) solved! I set it up to 128, but found that when I went back into preference.ini it had been bumped down to 64. So apparently there is a hard cap on live at 64 sound events.

I would ask that the devs increase the hard cap to 128 with a default setting of 64 sound events. This would not only solve the dropped music notes, but also the "silent" cries and missing battle sounds I sometimes experience (still) when in groups.

Hiee Diamond! <3
My .ini defaults at 64 though I am constantly turning it up to 128. Anytime you make a change in your options it seems to default back down to 64. As for my video person, she was standing right in front of me in first person view
I too would love to see the default set to 128. That would be an awesome move I think!
~bunnypets!!!~

[Thurallor]

Thank you everyone for the continued feedback.

We will have one more pass at this build which will go up on Bullroarer at the end of the week. This will have longer bagpipe notes to correct the cutoff bug and a couple more volume tweaks.

That is all we will be able to get in for this patch and I hope that all in all it is much better than the Live version currently is. However we will be looking into correcting the remaining odd notes for update 16, so rest assured we are not done yet and keep those bugs coming in so we dont miss them on our next pass.

It seems the following two options have been considered, of which the second one is the one that is being chosen:

1. Keep the current "live" system permanently, discarding all of the recent development work.

2. Push out the "beta" system to "live", thus requiring a lot of reworking of .abc files and potentially future reworking of those same .abc files after Update 16.

But isn't there a third option that is the "best of both worlds"?

3. Keep the current "live" system until Update 16. Continue to work on the "beta" system, and push it out in Update 16. People will have to rework their .abc files, but not before Update 16, and then only once.

[SchorschiSchrumpf]

About the 64/128 samples question:

There is another thing to consider, which is the internal way the mixing is done. Too many samples added together may lead to clipping (the maximal amplitude can't be higher than a certain numerical value).
Typically (and I guess lotro is no exception there) you'd have 16-bit integers representing the sound-amplitudes internally and all the samples that are being played basically are added together.

Now .. considering you add up 64 samples and all of them are at like 50% of that maximal amplitude chances are quite high that you'll get over that maximal value (you may reach 32 x that maximal amplitude, but that's unlikely) - so it'll be cut off, or modified by the mixer (a.k.a. dynamically compressed) which will have an impact on how the mixture of the samples will sound.

So it's not just increasing the number of samples played, it also takes to lower all samples in volume to allow adding 128 together without exceeding that cap. So all in all there maybe perfectly good reasons for Turbine not wanting to set that number higher.

I think something like this is already happening on Bullroarer when you play chords of 6 tones on the theorbo because in general the volume is cranked up there.

I could show a picture where you can see those waveform-oscillations being cut off at the tips, but I dunno how to upload those into the forum here. Just repeat [C,/2G,/2C/2G/2c/2g/2] two times at +fff+ with all sliders at 1 (player music, and main slider) record with audacity and look at the waveform.
However there is a slim possibility that it's related to the recording settings - it shouldn't be the case but it'd be nice if someone else could verify that.

[Emere]

Thank you everyone for the continued feedback.

We will have one more pass at this build which will go up on Bullroarer at the end of the week. This will have longer bagpipe notes to correct the cutoff bug and a couple more volume tweaks.

That is all we will be able to get in for this patch and I hope that all in all it is much better than the Live version currently is. However we will be looking into correcting the remaining odd notes for update 16, so rest assured we are not done yet and keep those bugs coming in so we dont miss them on our next pass.

Providing the next music update on Bullroarer doesn't fix the loss of notes....
My thought is to keep the music part in Beta if at all possible, because if the music won't play well, many people will go away until the next update. We have people who were so mad the last time they still haven't come back yet. I hate seeing my friends whose largest part of the game is the music community leave for extended amounts of time and some we may have already lost for good. If there are bugs to work out and more time will be put into it on update 16, then it might as well be left in Beta for now. That way we keep the people we haven't lost and have more time for testing and bugging this thing until it is worth releasing. However, if this next build that is to be released at the end of the week fixes the lost notes, I would be all for pushing it out the door and letting us bug report the little things and deal with it for now. The only other thing I could add for now is...BUNNY PETS!

[Swagman]

This whole 64 max sounds thing made me wonder if this is also the problem with the game music bug they talk about in this thread:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...w+music+system

[SpiritusLOTRO]

But isn't there a third option that is the "best of both worlds"?

3. Keep the current "live" system until Update 16. Continue to work on the "beta" system, and push it out in Update 16. People will have to rework their .abc files, but not before Update 16, and then only once.

I would implore this option. Can we get confirmation if the developers are willing to continue the live version of the music system to U16, while continuing to work on the 15.2 beta system in the meantime?

I think most of us would be understanding of this rather than deal with a system that still needs work. Again, I state that I will be happy to rework all my files for a system that is solid going forward. But should I need to rework files for an interim period, I'll be less happy.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think we would prefer another round of testing to something that still needs significant fixes.

Again, I'd like to thank the new team at Turbine for being so very engaging with the community. Many companies need to observe these exchanges and learn how they may better service their customer bases.

[osser]

I 100% agree with Fincin. If it has to stay in beta till update 16 or even beyond, I'm for it. If you guys run out of gas (so to speak) at least we'll have a known system still in place we can work with. I'm hopeful it can be worked on however long it takes. But we lost a great transcriber in my kin after the broken update 15 was released. Pretty please with sugar on top... let the transcribers and folks with great knowledge of the music system test it and fine tune it before you release it.
I'm grateful for all the work you guys are doing.

^^what Lifi said ^^

[Lolorndinfey]

maxplayingsounds=64 is simply not enough!

I would caution increasing this too much. Since Turbine would probably set a higher priority on keeping lag down, increasing this has a direct impact on fps.

Maybe a compromise? 72? 80? just a few more notes so it's better, but a nominal decrease in fps.

So besides the 3 instruments that need to be more quiet, cowbell louder a notch. What's the reason for not pushing out U15.2 again? Tonal qualities? Notes in lute/flute/horn that sound different than LIVE? Turbine has already compromised and rolled back harp. It's never going to be perfect. but I find the new qualities and fidelity of the sound sample an improvement, not a step back. Sounds like they've listened to the 15.2 beta feedback and are attempting to address it through a blizzard no less. What's the award for gaming again? Someone's up for a nomination. heh

Are we forgetting too that this included resolving all the different octave problems with horm, clarinet? Doesn't U15.2 fix it so all instruments have the same octave note range?

The big question is will volumes be within 10% of LIVE, no updating re-mixing volumes necessary for current .abc files.

For me, the bagpipe and dropped notes fixes are on the table. I vote yes if all three addressed and that's a lot of timely work done.