I have it turned off. I still notice when there is an update, though, because I have to wait for it to complete before I can play. Are you saying your client was updated that day?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey
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I have it turned off. I still notice when there is an update, though, because I have to wait for it to complete before I can play. Are you saying your client was updated that day?Quote:
Originally Posted by Lolorndinfey
Thank you for the update. I'll be happy to provide whatever help I can during the next focus pass, though unfortunately I can only speak to the system as a creative. I may consider creating a priority list of notes from most to least bothersome if that would be of help. Though admittedly it would be a highly subjective list (For the most part. I think everyone can agree that Lute B3 and Clarinet A#4 are the most ear-poppingly off-timbre).Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyvyanne
Suggestion: I understand the notion was to push the new system live in advance of the concert season for people to adjust, but it appears that many bands are either simply not adjusting waiting for further focus passes, retiring, or making minimal adjustments to get by hoping for a future focus pass in order to start making serious changes to past libraries and making new songs. Furthermore, creating the .abcs that have made the LOTRO music system a feather in the cap for Turbine heavily rely on 3rd party applications created by folks giving their free time. These programmers are stuck in the same boat as the transcribers, which creates a snowball effect. No updates to 3rd party apps -> harder to make songs sound good in game without vigorous testing -> people not having the time to test new songs multiple times before performances -> less engagement in the music community -> less reason to update 3rd party apps that aren't being used.
While I understand that it was already unorthodox to roll back the system once, I am asking for it to be done again for U16.
Since it is unclear when the resources will be available for that second focus pass, I feel the current system will be a net negative for the concert season if no one is seriously attempting to adjust their libraries (or make new songs for what is ostensibly a temporary window) and waiting for a more complete version of 15.3. Or, in other words, if the goal was to allow for time for adjustment, yet no one is adjusting in lieu of fixes, have you really accomplished your stated objective of giving time? The simple answer is yes. But I feel the intent was to give people time to adjust songs to make the concert season awesome -- or simply for it to occur without serious disruption. If that was your intent, then I don't think you'll be pleased with the outcome of keeping the 15.3 system unadjusted on live for an unknown amount of time.
I feel the concert season will go much more smoothly if the system was reverted and we all get one more crack at a focus pass when resources allow. That way we can work together to clean up the off-timbre issues, technical wonks like pop-clicks on the bagpipes, and some of the odd directional issues with the sound projection in 3D space.
Couldn't o said it better meself...o course, I would o been cuter when saying it!Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiritusLOTRO
For the love of Eru, please do not roll it back again. Some of us have already dived in and made extensive adjustments. If people would like a tutorial on how to use a simple text editor to adjust volumes in your files, let me know and I'll be happy to write one up. It boils down to using the find and replace tool.
Its not been a matter of making adjustments so much as making any that save a song. The new system is less than we had imo. I wouldn't mind if it was fixed so much, but I think it needs more than just fixing. I've said it time and time again that the new music sounds flat and lifeless. I do not know how else to describe it but its much less vibrant than we had before. Its broken. It should be fixed. It shouldn't be done live. Again...we wanted better, we didn't get better, we got new. Granted some notes are now in tune but I would take the out of tune old system over this any day. Beta testing is to fix things and for far to long Turbine pushes out content live before its ever right.
I also don't believe any program is going to ease the pain since some songs I have had to change a volume on a given instrument and on another I don't. Each song needs individual attention. There is no easy fix for any of them that I have experienced so far. Then there is the issue of those still having sound issues, dropped notes are still happening. ect ect ect and some more ect.
With the new samples being published in Diegro's work I see more clearly now the disparaging differences between old and new systems.
For me, and I am sorry to oppose Beor's viewpoint. This is now my view:
While I understand that it was already unorthodox to roll back the system once, I am asking for it to be done again for U16.
I have spent the morning with the new system in the new Maestro trying and trying to make a decent file out of a simple song and I am not satisfied with the results at all. You can put the lute all the way down and still need two of everything else to balance it out. Just not good enough, to not fix it within a day of going live.
While I recognize the lute as too loud, I don't see it having that much discrepancy. However, that is rather small potatoes overall and an easy fix.Quote:
Originally Posted by Katiepie
What is more troubling to me after going through some of my anthology and attempting some new transcriptions (in Maestro) is the overall reduced quality of the baseline timbre. And by that I don't mean the off-timbre notes, but the general richness of the sound. I have continued (and will continue) to provide feedback because it is more useful to try to improve something that seems workable than to tear it down. However, I keep coming back to this standard:
I cannot say that the 15.3 system as it stands on live is intrinsically worth it to make adjustments to ABC files. Admittedly, it is a subjective standard, but is one that I think is shared by a good deal of the community. Furthermore, I feel most folks that are making adjustments, like myself, are doing so out of the desire to keep the community going rather than because they feel the system is truly worth it. And that doesn't seem like a recipe for long term success of the product.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vyvyanne
EDIT: After some additional tinkering, I need to listen to a live song and a song played in Maestro back to back. I'm getting the feeling the approximation isn't very solid. But I have to reserve judgement until I can do further testing.
We just assembled for a last minute rehearsal just now *mid day thursday Apr. 16th* and once again, snap-pop is gone.
I did a sound driver update, and god knows if Turbine snuck in an update via the anniversary festival. Noticed HP adviser popped up an update advisory on the IDT sound driver. That's about our only setting change.
You guys might want to assemble and test very soon. Petaline was on hand and did not hear any snap-pops. I did hear one snap, but that was the 76K file. There's still a slight delay on saltshaker drum runs, but pending further multi-server tests, we may be good to go for this weekend. Now we just have to finish our songs in development in under 30 hours or so? lol. TBH Lay and I were getting ready to take a long vacation from concerts with the focus on U16. I believe Frelorn had said it's going to be weeks before U16 goes live. I would still recommend re-working your files to minimize saltshaker and fast repeated beats. More rehearsals and testing pending.
Any chance of posting a version number on the launcher, so we know if something has changed? This one is a pleasant surprise. Though Lay would not use the adjective pleasant. I'm still thankful for the fix though. More testing and last minute rehearsals for us before we can green light for this weekend. There's still a lot of work on unfinished songs we had planned. Lay was pretty angry and depressed after the last appearance of the snap-pop. We had 15 songs written specifically for U15.3, and on 4th rehearsal snap-pop reared it's ugly head 1 day before concert.
http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg
I don't think there have been any little fixes done at all. We have done a few shows and I have had no problems, then Wed. night, while playing with Bright Star, I was getting a few pops and snaps. It seems to come and go.
To be honest. This new system has drained the enjoyment out of trying to craft songs. Its taking a ton of work to fix old songs and none of them sound as good as they did.
I never thought it was possible to enrage the music community O_O
It stands to reason that anyone who can convert a midi file to abc and then balance the song to a high enough standard to get approval from a band to play it, actually has the mental capacity to do what you suggest above.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summer_Beor
In fact there is a very nice tool online to change volume for songs transcribed on Firefern. For those of us who use Maestro, it is simple to change the volume.
But really, the lack of ability to use a *text editor* is not the problem. Transcribers are not the problem and they should not have to be the solution. The problem once again is a new music system that was rushed out the door with known problems.
I have kept silent since the new system was rolled out and wary about posting anything here. But after two weeks of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and trying to remain upbeat and positive that things would be fixed sooner than later, now being told *we'll get to it when we can* just isn't good enough. Don't get me wrong, this new iteration is far and away better than the *first* one. And I appreciate the good faith effort on the part of the devs to make improvements. But this new system is not better than the old one, it is simply different. Different doesn't necessarily make it bad, but it doesn't make it good either. And being *different* has introduced a lot of problems described by others better than I could ever describe them.
There is an injustice here with how the previous changes and now these changes have divided the music community. Talk about PvP! The ones who love it on one side, the ones who don't on the other. Very little room for agreement. I personally have had some heated debates with others in my kin over the new lute sound. Not fun. The wrangling within kins, the wrangling here on the forums, the overall negativity this new system has inspired, and the hard work of transcribers being flushed down the toilet with likely no chance of them being recovered is a travesty.
Even I can see that being *Pollyanna* and trying to laugh rather than cry has a expiration date. After two weeks of double testing sessions which are no longer fun, the law of diminishing returns is swiftly setting in. If it take two weeks of testing to come up with an hours worth of songs, there is a problem. The onus should never be on the players to make fixes and try to fit a square peg into a round hole, the onus should be on the devs to either make the peg and the hole the same shape or go back to the drawing board.
At this point, I call for a rollback until the devs actually have the time to do this right. With that said, I have my doubts that lightning will strike twice.
Fionwyn Wyldemane
Transcriber, Lyricist and Member of Les Beaux Chapeaux
Well said Fionwyn,
we need to stick together and try to agree on the one thing that matters right now : the rollback of the old music system (together with any technical issues that increasingly occured along the side of those recent modifications).
After that we can still discuss why this was a failure and I'm sure we'll disagree within the musical community over the details, but to me it looks like we have a concensus here that the new system is just a changed one (a lot would say to a state worse than before) and destroying more than 10000 arranged ABC's for a changed and not an improved system is NOT worth it. (10k is way too low as a number, as there are some that got more than 5k just for their own band)
But honestly ... destroying our main instrument -the lute- by taking away it's sound, making the tones shorter and destroying 2 tones entirely ... there is nothing friendly I can say about that: HOW COULD YOU!
I am not against them continuing work on the new system, I just think the work should be done in beta. Left in beta until right, and once it is, then release it. If Turbine rolled it back into beta and vowed to keep working on it, I would find new faith in them. This sending out garbage however and then trying to fix it once it goes live, is a bad policy and should be stopped. That goes for all new content.
Bah. I am truly sorry that the Devs who worked on this are being subjected to this because the system is not broken as I feel some others are claiming. Take some aural skills courses. Many of the frequencies on the notes of the instruments were off in the first place and have now been placed where they should have been in the first place so they can mix better with all the other instruments. It does not make the new note frequencies wrong because they sound different. Clarinet was practically unusable before because of how flat most of the notes were compared to similar notes on other instruments and yet I'd hear arrangement after arrangement where people used it for the melody. Not it can be easily mixed with flute, horn, or anything you like. Low bagpipes notes were flat and higher flute notes ran sharp, so you couldn't mix them well before. Now you can. Seriously, grab a tuner app on your phone and listen across the ranges of the new notes compared to the old.
I just invited a group of 16,000 music educators to bring their students and try the system with their students because the improvements to the system open the doors to neat orchestration and arranging possibilities in a gaming environment. I'll hope the new system remains in place when some of them take me up on the offer.
I have begun a closer look at each instrument over it's complete range. My first instrument is the flute, sampled notes which I feel could be improved are: D2, F2, A#2, B2, - C3, C#3, D#3, F3, G3, B3, - D4, F4, A#4, B4.
Video posted below:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhYey-o_EyA
Please note that this is a recording from LOTRO. However processing through my movie maker has made the top range of the flute sound shrillier than it is in LOTRO and on my .flv OBS recording.
If we are to agree, then let us agree to move forward! There are good things and bad things about the changes, but a rollback will give us back out-of-tune instruments and also I think another rollback would be the end of the matter...
It is possible to work with the new instruments, good music is being made and played as I type this. Admittedly they could be better but isn't work on this in progress and on Bullroarer already? Even if there is nothing about it in the patch notes.
What would make a big difference I think is more transparency from the dev side as to what happens when and more dialogue with us users.
And now excuse me, I need to go read today's installment of Dilbert.
There are obviously fixes that need to be done when the Devs are able to get back to work (post U16). But surely lowering the current lute volume by x % can't take much effort and could be done now? That at least takes care of one nasty.
I still want the old lute back as an option though :)
I just wanted to address this line of reasoning quickly. I don't think anyone is suggesting a permanent rollback -- or to not move forward. And the developers have already made it known that they intend to perform another focus pass. So we know they want to continue to improve the new system. The problem is we do not know when will that next focus pass occur. That is why it is of paramount importance that any new music system be as polished as possible before it is released. Not perfection by any stretch, but to only include minor enough hotfix level issues that would have no bearing on general transcription practices. As it stands, anything that is transcribed or adjusted between 15.3 launch and the release after the indeterminate next focus pass will be essentially wasted long term effort.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulipan
What I, and others, are suggesting is to roll back the system and go ahead with that next focus pass whenever development resources and timelines normally allow. The live state should have no bearing on the development schedule as the time and effort has already been invested. That work isn't going anywhere. The more paramount concern is keeping a vibrant music community invested in the game until such time that the new product is generally satisfactory to the using customers at large.
The one thing that will certainly kill any new development in the music system is a drastic decrease in people engaging in the music system, and the 15.3 system is threatening just that. Regardless of my or anyone's individual opinion of its virtue.
My apologies for the double post (triple, actually), but this is a completely different topic that really is more talking shop than anything relevant to what course of action should be taken going forward.
I agree that just because something sounds different doesn't mean it is worse. And it is absolutely true that the 15.3 system is better tuned than 15.2. However, I disagree that the new system mixes better. Sure, in a vacuum where the timbre remained unchanged and the only difference between 15.3 and 15.2 was a proper pitch balance between the instruments, it would be hard to argue that the system wouldn't be objectively improved.Quote:
Originally Posted by Summer_Beor
The new timbre is a serious problem that, at least for me, presents a bigger issue than previous quality of the pitch balance. When it comes to mixing sounds together, timbre is far more important than pitch. And not only when you have "off-timbre" notes, but if the baseline timbres are compatible, you'll not have an ensemble, but multiple sounds competing for the same space instead of combining to create something new.
My example I'll provide is the 4th Movement from Dvorak's "From the New World" Symphony. In just the first 20 seconds you can noticeably hear many timbre related issues that, even taking the better pitch balance into account, subjectively reduces the quality of the piece. Note the "off-timbre" notes, the flatter mix of bagpipe and horn, and most glaringly obvious, the full orchestra section sounds like has been reduced from a philharmonic to a chamber group. All of that is due to the new timbre:
15.3 (New System):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGqa9XU9iZU
*EDIT: I just noticed that I forgot to drop the volume on the theorbo, so my apologies. It shouldn't impact the general idea I'm trying to convey.
Old System version follows for side-by-side comparison:
15.2 (Old System):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SypCR4robuA
It sounds beautiful to me. :p And the new version is a damn sight more in-tune than the old one.
Regarding the "chamber group" effect, isn't this more realistic and appropriate for the game?
Again, I acknowledge the subjectivity in preference. However, no. A chamber music piece should sound like it is played by a chamber group. A symphony should should sound like it's being played by an orchestra. To not have the capacity to transcribe for both is an objective, gross (as in not net) downgrade in the quality of the system. If we go by the standard of what is realistic and appropriate for the game, we should be axing a whole host of features. Playing multiple simultaneous notes on wind and brass, for example. Limiting genre. Etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Thurallor
I like the new system. It has flaws still, but: In-tune instruments, a lute that is different from the harp, lower horn/clarinet notes that are not just coughs... all good stuff for me.
Obviously, Turbine pushed out this iteration too early. I'd rather not have a rollback, though, because this whole rolling out and pulling back again proves damaging too. Additionally, by now I don't believe that the "music community" will ever be able to give Turbine a clear, unequivocal view of what they want the new system to sound like. There are simply far too many different personal preferences in play, and some will likely never be satisfied whatever happens. My fear is that Turbine will just pull the plug on further development, rather than try tinker with it to please everyone. And that would be a shame, because of the many good things in this update.
In my view? The best thing Turbine could do right now is to do a quick fix including:
- A final pass at the volume leveling, which is then locked. This is probably the one thing impacting most on conversions anyway. Look into the strings - they are louder than the winds (theorbo in particular, likely also the lute).
- Fix those two dodgy B3 and B4 notes on the lute. Yeah, releasing the update with those notes was unfortunate, to say the least. This is an apparent flaw for many, both for those playing in a band and for solo musicians. I'd guess a lot of the general feedback on the system is related to those two notes.
- Fix that dodgy clarinet note (A#4?)
Get this in ASAP, as part of U16. Honestly, it should not take that much effort from the team (and if this really is too much effort, at least to me it would demonstrate that Turbine runs with a pretty small LOTRO crew these days). With these fixes in place, the new music system will for me be superior to the old one.
Afterwards, there should be a dedicated effort to fix other problematic notes, many of which have been discussed already in this thread.
I'd be inclined to agree, assuming one adds in the more technical fixes that are occurring with note pops and some 3D directional funny business going on. However, we already know this is a no go as the development team has been explicit that there are no resources to dedicate to the music system for U16, and the next focus pass will occur at an indeterminate time after. So, our options are a roll back -- as it takes no development time at all -- or to sit on the current system as is until at least the next update after U16 and then an unforeseeable amount of time after that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Linawillow
I can appreciate wanting those small, incremental steps to take place over that time instead of a rollback. I think I'd prefer that as well, but it isn't in the cards. Factoring in everything -- including the reactions from others and the net lost enthusiasm from the community as a whole, which could be more detrimental to getting attention to the system than anything else -- I have to support a temporary rollback until the next focus pass. I don't think it's ideal. I just think it is most rational to the cause of keeping a robust community and getting a better music system in what will be the same amount of time.
I think I've found something...
******
1. Launch Turbinelauncher.
2. Enter your pw and click login.
3. Select your server and click play.
Normally I'd expect the WB/Turbine logo audio to play through my headphones.
Audio default device is set to speakers and headphones, one of three devices on the "Sound" list of Windows.
It did not.
It played through the speakers.
Is this the heart of the issue. Turbinelauncher fails to detect or set the audio device properly?
It changes the behavior of other applications using the audio device. Youtube will now also play through the speakers instead of the headphones. Digero's Maestro and ABC player similarly now plays through the speakers instead of the headphones.
So for laughs, I log on a few more accounts. Each account behaves differently, though default audio is set for "Speakers and Headphones", I keep "Sound" monitor up, and actually see playback come through on "Speakers and Headphones" and my third audio device "DFX speakers".
Sometimes Turbinelauncher fails to detect the audio device, and on toon selection, the audio device is actually "None"
For tests I disable all devices except for "headphones". Better. It does not fix the Digero's playback through the speakers, which now becomes muted. (I guess it's still trying to access the speakers. That's something Digero needs to look into). There is still this mysterious lag gap during multi-part playback as if lag or something is accessed in the background.
This is not new, but an old nuisance us old time musicians have encountered before, where the audio device is not detected and set properly
"...it comes and goes"
An old nuisance bug that we just relog our toons on to fix, but when those of us that launch multiple accounts, it make sense. Audio coming through two devices when only one default setting is set in Windows "Sound" and in game;Option;Audio settings.
Is this the heart of the snap-pop bug issue, or rather the symptoms of the bug?
An old nuisance bug that's come back and bite with a vengeance in the form of the snap-pop, where audio is actually coming through two audio devices or not at all?
*******
I've submitted a copy of this to lotrobugs. Let's see what Turbine makes of this.
http://i62.tinypic.com/11sypf4.jpg