15.2 Player music

If you plan to keep on playing concerts, it's recommended you keep under the 5K file size per 60 seconds per part of song length as a rough measure to mitigate the snap-pop issue.

3K / 60s / part is failry safe. It only mitigates, but does not eliminate the snap-pop/note drop-out issue. So if you have a three minute song that has 5 parts, 45K or less for the multi-part .abc file should be safe to play. That's of course if you don't mind the new volumes and instrument sounds. It's a rough estimate on note density within the song length.

Harlequins only has about 110 songs that fit that rough estimate, tested a few and only a min of snap-pop and drop outs are heard. We have about 350 total not counting songs in development. This is not to say the problem has gone away, but much more prevalent in multi-box accounts where the unknown bleed thru of the focus loss filter is cascading thru each account window. Which is backed up by some unknown graphica focus and buffer issues in the music system when playing a song with lots of parts and lot of fast notes, like the drum saltshaker or 1/32nd note Lute solo.

Welcome to 11.2, where the string instruments went entirely silent? Or the infamous U15? Who said they've never had a problem with the music system since Beta? Short memories?




http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg

After some days spending time with the new music system here are my two cents.

To start with, I was quite disappointed to see the new lute make it live in the state it is currently in!

I have posted in this thread earlier asking to have the old lute available along side the new one, as I feel that would give people the choice to decide for themselves which one they like best!

Personally I still much prefer the old lute sound, though I have started to think the new lute would be a nice addition to the instruments, if only those odd notes would be fixed!


Still I think there are many positive things about the new music system, and I would hate to see those disappear without giving them some time to be tweaked and improved upon!

The development team stated they are open to change things further, and I feel they should be given that chance!


This week I have played some tunes with three of the bands I take part in on Laurelin.

Also I have visited a wonderful full length "Dark Side of the Moon" concert by the Maidens of Vanimor, and spend some time at the Bird and Baby Inn weekly gathering listening to many tunes!

Overall I heard various results with different songs, most of those were probably not rebalanced for the new system!

Still many sounded very nice (not taking into account the new lute's odd notes)!


As for the new instruments here are my personal thoughts / impressions:

Lute: Both the old and the new one should be playable! The new lute is a bit too loud right now and should be toned down slightly, and more importantly the odd notes should be fixed!

Harp: Sounds good as is, even with the funny odd high note! I still would like to see an improved version of the new harp in the future as a second harp!

Theorbo: Sounds good, but I'm still divided about this one! Too thumpy on the low notes for my liking! You can leave the drums at home as someone remarked here! The volume is a bit loud but good as is!

Flute: The new flute sounds very nice, but is too soft right now! It sounded better with the volume it had on Bullroarer! Perhaps the louder volume made the breathy sounds less noticable and made it sound livelier?

Clarinet: I love the new clarinet! Good volume too!

Horn: To each his taste, but I like the new horn! Good volume here as well!

Drums: Nice and good volume! Possibly make the rattles a bit less loud, but that was the same for the old drums.

Bagpipe: It has a nice sound and volume. (I do wonder if the cutoff it has now on the short notes are a result of the fix to the missing notes?)

Pibgorn: Could actually be useful now! *grins*

Cowbells: What's not to like!


While listening to music this week I did not notice any of the snap / pop issues described in this thread so far!

Not even when multiboxing with five alts. I found that quite curious and did ask some others but they told me they did not hear those issues either.

I did notice a slightly more laggy playback when looking from an alts perspective rather than the main player, but that has been the same with the old music system!

It would be great if the devs could meet in game with the people who do have these sound issues in order to investigate those further!

It's only fair to give things some time, even though they may inconvience us as players for a while!

That said this should not become a story without an ending, where things keep being adjusted and tweaked!


Where from here? I'm sure there's many different views to that question!

Personally I would like to see the old lute added as a second lute as soon as possible, as this may improve things greatly.

Also I would welcome a volume increase for the flute (so it can better be used for lead melodies and give it some more brightness) and a slight volume decrease for the new lute.

I would not like to see the old system be rolled back just yet!

I fear another roll back would be an end to the efforts to improve the music system.

I've been quiet on this for some time because my thoughts are just a mess and I don't want it to turn into a rant. Good progress has been made, and I was really positive about the music system update the last communal test session on BR... until the devs in attendance started talking about this going live "soon". I also had a little voice in the back of my head saying "you don't have any alts on, that's the real test for you". It feels like our feedback was being listened to up to a point and then they got tired of the conflicting views or fed up with how long it was taking and pushed it to live despite all the cautions that it wasn't quite ready for that. There's obviously a few bands that don't use alts and aren't getting much of the horrid crackle effect, or you are one of the lucky ones who does have alts and doesn't get it. You are also lucky if you find a song with lute in it that isn't ruined by the banjo twangs. Until those are fixed, finding songs that are ok to play is exhausting. Continued tweaks has been hinted at which makes it even more frustrating that we'll have to repeatedly re-test songs to check if they are now playable (and wasn't it stated early on that they weren't going to do that? One update for the music system other than new instruments being introduced?).

~deep breath~

To comment on a few things, I do get the terrible crackle. I get very very little of it when playing an intestive lute part with just myself logged on. Adding alts and playing the same part gradually increases the crackle, to the point that when I have three alts on it can be so bad I can barely hear the actual music to tell if the song is ok, needs volume tweaks, or has dud notes and should be disregarded for the time being. There was a comment that being in Bree seemed to make it worse. I've found lag & my old audio issues (eg full volume water sounds, particuarly when an alt is near a water feature and the sounds will randomly persist even after no characters are anywhere near the apparent source of the sound) worse in Bree ever since it's revamp. What does seem to be different for me to what a few others have commented, the lute crackles don't affect me as soon as I log the alts off. Both porting them elsewhere first and logging them of in the same area as the music, the lute crackle stops.

I also don't want the system rolled back. Last time I wasn't worried that if the system was rolled back they would continue to work on it, this time though I am very concerned that if it's rolled back that it won't ever be touched again. The dynamic balance is better this time round. I've commented on my feelings about dynamic balance (ie matching the old live version vs making them match across all instruments) and don't really see the point in going over that again. As for the new samples, I don't have an issue with any of the new sounds. It would be nice to still have the old lute sound as it works much better for some songs but overall if those dodgy notes were fixed I could live with that being our only lute. With all of the instruments, if the dodgy notes were fixed I'd be happy with the new sounds. That said I don't think I will ever say no to a new instrument, and they seem more likely than increasing the octave range of current instruments.

I will plug on though it's not the most pleasant prospect with the system as it stands. Would love to see some comment from a blue name in here, after all this feedback from players

Dear Musicians,

At 2.00pm Servertime, Saturday 4th April. Landroval - Methel Stage.

I will be attempting to test TSO24.

We have a warm up
A Horn Concerto by Hummel
The Blue Danube
And
Symphony, Fellowship of the Ring.

This could be a time for us all to rejoice that my Orchestra is unscathed but I think I may need quite a few friends about me.

I too witnessed this timing playback issue - Could be something to do with lag?? Who knows.

I am prepared to wait for fixes but I do believe what would be the best outcome is to take the best bits of both systems. I would be happy with the old system but with Tuned Flute Clarinet and fixed Pib. The rest I would roll back.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keli

Oh all right, I admit I forgot the pibby.

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/scold :p
You know you love the Pib!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Silmelin

About the weird sounds people are having:

Is there someone who can record the snap-crackle sound? I don't know what to listen for in game.


(This is going to be long because it's hard to explain things in a brief way when I don't have full control of the language I have to use. Sorry!)

I used to have weird sounds long ago when I multi-boxed to play music, at least when playing wind instruments. I had always set the other clients to Mute on focus loss but after an update long long ago that weird sound (like some of the notes would push through extremely loudly randomly. More and more often, the more clients I had) appeared.
Anyway, later I found that setting all clients to Disable instead of Mute worked. There would still be a few short loud BEEPS here and there, but a lot less than earlier.

That sound problem changed recently to this: Before this update I used to have a weird sound problem when playing wind instruments while having Chrome open with hundreds of tabs. If I closed it down the weird loud note sounds would disappear.

Now after the update the BEEPing sounds when playing wind instruments with Chrome web-browser open seems to be gone, but instead I have a new sound problem. When playing stringed instruments, even solo, I'll hear a loud static sound, like if someone is hiding behind my speakers, randomly wiggling the cord where it connects to the speaker. The more clients I have open, the more often the sound appears. I had all other clients set to Disable on focus loss.
Have not been able to try with Google Chrome closed or with a restarted computer as of yet. I have some work I must finish before I can shut things off, so it might take a few days.

---

I finally finished all I needed to take care of and could close down my Chrome web browser to see what would happen. The horrible loud static sounds (I mentioned above) during string instrument songs were instantly gone! Same thing used to happen before this update, except that the strange sounds came from the wind instruments and not the string instruments when playing LOTRO with Chrome open. Really weird! I always have Firefox open 24/7 and that browser has hundreds of tabs open too, and it never interferes with LOTRO :eek:

I'm still not sure what the snap-crackle sound lots of people are reporting is. Has anyone recorded it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Silmelin

I'm still not sure what the snap-crackle sound lots of people are reporting is. Has anyone recorded it?

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Someone posted a link to a recording of it awhile back. I had never heard it before watching the video.

Just some suggestions and observations.

If you are not getting the snap-pop/crackle bug, help out the community by posting what settings you are using. Are you using alts? How many alts? How big is your mult-part .abc file? Is it slow/fast paced? What is the song's BPM? How long is the song? We are glad some are unscathed by this bug, which has knocked out some bands so far. Perhaps it's a sensitivity issue to not use this unofficial debuggiing forum topic to declare a concert for those untouched by the current release of U15.3.

Turbine's focus during the last two BR testing put aside tonal qualities of instruments to dedicate their focus on the note-drop/snap-pop issue. I guess some here disagree with this higher priority decision by Turbine and have focused their attention on tonal qualities of instruments. I appreciate both can be show stoppers. However, one is an involuntary show stopping bug, the other is a loss of quality in the eyes (ears?) of the bandleaders. Magnitudes and priorities.

Using a browser, or any other application in desktop has been reported to intensify the snap-pop symptom. Unfortunately this is not news. I know there's a lot to read through here, and can empathize if some details are missed.

Turbine, Vyvyanne, or the dev's may be too busy to respond right now. There are other show stopper bugs to address in U15.3, but I'd like to think since they declared the de-bug "advanced far enough" prior to release, and the contrary has occurred, that this area merits a higher priority to address in any future fixes or updates.


http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg

All the love, gratitude and thanks to the Turbine team that fixed the issue.

Was going to record the snap-pop/crackle, and lo and behold. 132K, 1118K, heavy polyphonic songs that never played on BR properly now plays on Landroval.

*****

Snap-pop is gone.


*****

Played a few more heavy content songs to verify. Yup. It's gone away.

Had some invisible friends that seemed to bring some more invisible friends that sat in and confirmed.

I thanked them profusely and asked them to pass the word to the team.

Just minor note drops and hiccups that are of acceptable level for concert play. No greater that pre-U15.3 Live levels.

Breaking open a bottle of wine to celebrate. Wow. What a soap opera it has been, huh?

I wonder who those invisible audience members were that sat and danced??? Hmmmmm....


Now resume griping on the dud instrument notes

...as you were... :P

Harlequins will be resuming it's weekend tour this weeknd. ... fingers crossed. 1st venue in about 3 hours. lmao


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by frickinmuck

Someone posted a link to a recording of it awhile back. I had never heard it before watching the video.

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Ooops I must have missed it! Thanks for the link :)

Yes that's exactly what I was hearing while having the Chrome web-browser open. The more game clients the worse it got (until I hardly could hear the music), and as soon as I closed Chrome it went away completely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey

Just some suggestions and observations.

If you are not getting the snap-pop/crackle bug, help out the community by posting what settings you are using. Are you using alts? How many alts? How big is your mult-part .abc file? Is it slow/fast paced? What is the song's BPM? How long is the song? We are glad some are unscathed by this bug, which has knocked out some bands so far. Perhaps it's a sensitivity issue to not use this unofficial debuggiing forum topic to declare a concert for those untouched by the current release of U15.3.

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I'm sorry. I don't really know except that I set my clients to Disable instead of Mute on focus loss, and all settings are as high as I can understand to set them, which is mostly just clicking Ultra High on the overall graphics setting, and hoping that all the audio settings are set as they should automatically :o

I built my own computer, and knowing nothing about what I was doing I used google and my brother to help me find the things to put in it that would be most suited for my way of using a computer, which is: keeping the computer on for months on end and never closing any of my clogged-with-open-tabs web-browsers or other things I'm using, so I looked for stuff that would let me multi-task in the heaviest of ways, and for the longest of times without needing a restart :)

One day long ago after an update I started having sound problems (wind instruments only) while multi-boxing to play a song at Ales & Tales. Never tried to close Chrome then, so I don't know if it would have helped. Though I did keep having that problem ever since then, and when I finally tried closing Chrome and noticed that the problem went away, I haven't been using Chrome as much which is a problem for me since I need it. And after this update I can play wind instruments without closing Chrome but not string instruments.


EDIT:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey

All the love, gratitude and thanks to the Turbine team that fixed the issue.

Was going to record the snap-pop/crackle, and lo and behold. 132K, 1118K, heavy polyphonic songs that never played on BR properly now plays on Landroval.

*****

Snap-pop is gone.


*****

Played a few more heavy content songs to verify. Yup. It's gone away.

---

Oh oh oh! That's great news! :D

You snuck in your post while I was still writing mine so I'll use edit XD

Anyway, awesome news! :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey

All the love, gratitude and thanks to the Turbine team that fixed the issue.

Was going to record the snap-pop/crackle, and lo and behold. 132K, 1118K, heavy polyphonic songs that never played on BR properly now plays on Landroval.

*****

Snap-pop is gone.


*****

Played a few more heavy content songs to verify. Yup. It's gone away.

Had some invisible friends that seemed to bring some more invisible friends that sat in and confirmed.

I thanked them profusely and asked them to pass the word to the team.

Just minor note drops and hiccups that are of acceptable level for concert play. No greater that pre-U15.3 Live levels.

Breaking open a bottle of wine to celebrate. Wow. What a soap opera it has been, huh?

I wonder who those invisible audience members were that sat and danced??? Hmmmmm....

---

What do you mean by "invisible"? How did you know they were there? I didn't see an announcement; was this a "stealth" update, or a server-only change? Just curious.

Yeah. sorry for double post. But I think you'll understand it was big enough news to post right away, yes?

As always, planning for the worst. Following my own advice.

If you're still having problems with snap-pop, please post here all the settings you're using. Alts, no-alts, Song length, size, BPM. the usual. How many parts to the song I think I forgot. Just heading out now to the store and coming back to test on the 1st tour stop to make sure all songs play properly.


These were my settings;


Default audio setting.

Only master, user interface, and player music slider set to 1.
Focus Loss Behavior: Disable
Enable NPC colour Text Voiceover Sounds: off
Quantize Player Muisc: off
Low Latency Mode: off, leader set to on
All Voice toggles: off
All four VOICE sliders: set to 0.00 (bottom to left, 100 value acutally)

3 part songs tested:

Could you be loved BPM 102, 4:10, 76K,
Counting Pies BPM 124, 4:14, 72K,
If I ever lose my faith BPM 96, 4:37 132K,
Go West BPM 120, 4:56, 118K,
Remedy BPM 96, 4:10. 48K



Here's hoping it's a blanked solution and not just isolated to our band.
*invisible audience clapped, danced, sat* (GM) Maiar in attendance?



http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey

Yeah. sorry for double post. But I think you'll understand it was big enough news to post right away, yes?

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Yes. :D

So was the improvement the result of you changing your settings? If so, which ones?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey

All the love, gratitude and thanks to the Turbine team that fixed the issue.
[...]
Snap-pop is gone.
[...]
Played a few more heavy content songs to verify. Yup. It's gone away.

---

Bara agree :) 5 lotroclients, no more snap-pop/crackle on heavy and speed content tunes!

Really appreciated!

Zed'Roaring'Rock!

Let me clarify. We did nothing on our end. We tried everything 24 hours ago and was just hopping on to record the snap-pop. Exact same settings.

To our pleasant surprise everything played to Pre-15.0 standards for gaps due to lag or minor drop out. maybe 2 snap in 5 soungs? Something that was impossible immediately following U15.3's release.



http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg

I'm glad you found some goodness out of this big mess Lolorn. Now if we could just get some happiness from the rest of the mess :)

I have no idea what has been done, but right now I am playing music with Chrome open again and no sound problems so far! It's been so long... probably a lot more than a year since I could play music without being forced to choose between hearing what I'm playing or being able to reach some of my friends! I really hope it stays this way :D

Thanks for continuing to work hard on our Music System, dear music team! <3

Well, I've finally came to the conclusion that the new system is by no means an improvement when all things are considered.
I just finished helping Lilikate and The Starlight Orchestra test a few of their songs, tested with Bright Star, and Les Beaux Chapeaux. Attended a few shows of other bands.
Everyone sounds generic now to me. No one band I've heard or tested with sounded any different than the last.
Instruments no longer blend to make alternate sounds which gave the music a unique sound from each band depending on how they transcribed and blended.
For example, I have used the clarinet and flute many times to achieve a nice mimic of many singers voices, or used the horn and bagpipe to derive an electric distortion guitar, overdrive guitar, harmonica or fiddle. Things we don't have in game.
The new system just doesn't cut it for those things anymore. TSO testing was a disappointment as Lilikate and the other TSO transcribers are some of the best, and their music was lessened by the new system as was Bright Stars and LBC's. I wanted to cry for them and for us. It was disheartening at best. The new lute is terrible and is just versatile enough to be used for renaissance period music and little more. The directional troubles do not help either. Standing behind the band to get a better sound is laughable.

My suggestion is roll back the music before Weatherstock begins. If they wish to continue working on this, do it in beta and leave it in beta until the testers by majority, agree it works.
I would rather see the old clarinet be tuned, and replace the missing note that is a cough, and same with the horn. It would be better than what we have now and its what we mostly wanted I believe. Not a new system, just fix the one we had. Then give us some new instruments as mentions before, a sustained theorbo, something to mimic a violin, ect. Add octaves if possible. Add notes to the cowbell to give us a variance since there are many bells that are used in music and a single note one really is limited.
Later on maybe add a lute that is actually a lute for those that want it, give us a mandolin sounding instrument or banjo.
It was a gallant effort but like so many things from Lotro, it was pushed out before it was ready. I just don't understand why pushing something out like that is better than giving a quality item that is ready for the market. It makes no sense at all to me.
Roll it back!

Flute and clarinet blending? Clarinet was horribly out-of-tune with the flute, as were many of the instruments, even with themselves. The system is much improved and I am sure not a part of the "majority" you like to speak for. Sure, tweaks are needed (especially the directional bug) but from the perspective of someone who works in the music field, it does not need to be rolled back. The new options for arranging and mixing instruments has incredible potential compared to the limits many of us used before.

IMHO, most of the exciting songs sound flatter and less energetic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Summer_Beor

Flute and clarinet blending? Clarinet was horribly out-of-tune with the flute, as were many of the instruments, even with themselves. The system is much improved and I am sure not a part of the "majority" you like to speak for. Sure, tweaks are needed (especially the directional bug) but from the perspective of someone who works in the music field, it does not need to be rolled back. The new options for arranging and mixing instruments has incredible potential compared to the limits many of us used before.

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THIS. People who are basing their feedback on old files need to spend a bit of time experimenting with arrangements and judge the system based on NEW ABC files, not old libraries. I think it's totally unrealistic to expect everything to sound the same or to even sound great right out of the gate, using old files. Some work will be needed to achieve new and exciting arrangements. I do not miss, nor do I want to see, the old broken sounds and levels.

PLEASE don't call this update into a rollback because it means tweaking - or even completely rearranging - old files. Spend a bit of time making something new and exciting.

After some playing and listening to quite a few bands I think it is absolutely vital to repair the lute B's (B and b) as soon as possible - or give us the old lute back as that is basically the same!

To explain what was the lute changes actually:

All the samples are the same (maybe resampled) except the B and the b - although one can tell that the new B and b are probably derived from the old samples.
Also the damping sound that some of the tones of the middle octave had was removed - before it sounded like the player used his hand to stop the tone by putting it on the strings - I think it added to some songs because it mimics a certain way to play melodies on a guitar.

So the "new" Lute is just the old one, minus some details and with 2 broken tones.

Edit: I wonder what will be the result if I compare the other "new" sounds.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Summer_Beor

Flute and clarinet blending? Clarinet was horribly out-of-tune with the flute, as were many of the instruments, even with themselves. The system is much improved and I am sure not a part of the "majority" you like to speak for. Sure, tweaks are needed (especially the directional bug) but from the perspective of someone who works in the music field, it does not need to be rolled back. The new options for arranging and mixing instruments has incredible potential compared to the limits many of us used before.

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Yes! Speaking as someone not working in the music field, having in-tune instruments is very helpful. I have no talent to use to try to work around the out-of-tune Clarinet so I could hardly use it at all :( The more in-tune the instruments are, the easier for us "commoners" to join in the fun as well :)

I knew right from the start that the music update would require the reworking of ABCs since that was said right away and I don't mind at all. It'll be easier to make music now with in-tune instruments :) And lots of changes can probably be made with the help of a program =)

Though there are still things to be fixed of course.

We might all have different bugs on the top of our lists, but now that the crackling sound is gone, the Lute would be at the top of my list :)


The biggest problem I'm having isn't the twangy note/s even though it's near the top of my list. At the very top is that I can't play any solo Lute songs, or duets, without the melody-"rythm" sounding kind of... off. Not sure how to explain it but it sounds like when a beginner is trying to learn to play an instrument. Even when you know the song, there will be hesitation in your fingers so the melody will have pauses when you are trying to find the next note to play.

Instead of:
PlingPlingPlingPlingPlingPling PlingPlingPlingPlingPling
I'm getting:
PlingPling..PlingPlingPlingPli ng..PlingPlingPling..PlingPlin g
So it sounds quite bad.

Music team, would you please please take a look at that? :)

I have always said the clarinet was out of tune, never claimed it was in tune. But I have found that by dropping the flute an octave under the clarinet on the same part, depending on how I set my volume, blended very well to create a melody. I've been able to mimic many singers voices with it and very well. Anyone who has seen LBC play knows as much. So yes, they blended very well the two if used well.

I just looked in detail at the samples of the new vs the old horn - it is still the same instrument, but filtered - in general the lower octaves had some of the deeper frequencies filtered out. Some of the higher tones are virtually the same. The cough at the low end was replaced by a tone - I think the cough had it's reason and should have remained, but I can live with the change. Also there are some adjusted volumes - so one could really say that the horn was improved in some aspects!


So in short: the new horn = old horn + a little filter on the bass sounds in the lower half and a few volume corrections, no pitch corrections/squeek removal in the higher octave

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Emere

I have always said the clarinet was out of tune, never claimed it was in tune. But I have found that by dropping the flute an octave under the clarinet on the same part, depending on how I set my volume, blended very well to create a melody. I've been able to mimic many singers voices with it and very well. Anyone who has seen LBC play knows as much. So yes, they blended very well the two if used well.

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That worked because both flute and clarinet were a little out of tune. The flute was transposed one octave higher than the clarinet, so by shifting it down you were playing them on the identical frequency. And because they were both not perfectly tuned, the addition of the two created a kind of interference with it's own frequency (depending on the missmatch). This is called additive synthesis which is one of the techniques to create synthesizer sounds (in a way that combined sounded like a synthesizer).

As we got in-tune instruments now, this method doesn't create those interference effects anymore - so yes, it's sad to loose that trick, but we can't have in-tune instruments and do that at the same time! So while asking for in-tune instruments we were actually asking for this effect to be removed....

The only solution for that is to include the pitch-wheel event in the lotro music system, so we can deliberatly detune the instruments to create this effect on purpose - it would open up a lot of options for new sounds, but maybe it'd violate the idea of a medieval music band playing songs if we could crank around with the base frequency of our instruments during a song.

I guess the old saying : "be carefull what you wish for" matches this story perfectly.