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[Junglord]

Hello all, I've only just got into Tracking as I've always used a DAW. Now realised how much fun they are to make Jungle on and resampling Amiga style for some oldskool goodness, so I'd like to see what this community has to offer 

-*Problem*-

When certain samples (usually ones with lots of sub frequency) are repeated a lot they keep popping/clicking/clipping as if the samples are overlapping. I have quite a large attack on the subs which I did so by using the volume fade tool in the sample editor. How can I get rid of this and is there a useful ADSR feature or anything?

Cheers,

Junglord

[Junglord]

I'm using the latest Milky Tracker btw.

[Saga Musix]

I don't really understand the first problem, but as long as you are going to use the XM format (instead of Amiga-style MOD), every instrument has a volume and panning envelope - they are much more powerful than your standard ADSR envelopes.

[Alex Parker]

First you need to understand the problem that causes the pops and clicks.  

If you're familiar with a waveform, you'll know that it oscillates around a central point, so a sine wave goes over or under the center line of the oscilloscope, for instance.  When it's above the center, the speaker cone is pushed out.  When it's below, the speaker cone is pulled in.  When the waveform is stopped, the speaker cone sits in the middle of the two extremes.

If a sample is playing and the speaker cone is pushed out or pulled in to a certain degree, and then is stopped abruptly, the cone will suddenly return to the center, hence the "pop".  Similarly, if a sample is suddenly triggered (and the offset is not in the central axis of the waveform), you'll hear a pop.  

So the trick is to avoid the speaker cone suddenly returning to the center position from some extreme.  So you need to avoid both the sudden triggering, and stopping of an audio sample that is far from the center position.  

If you are talking from a purely sampling perspective and can't use envelopes then you can avoid popping by only stopping or starting samples at a "zero crossing."  These Zero Crossing moments occur when the sampled waveform crosses the center line.  If you can trigger and stop sounds at the zero crossing there will be no pop.

Of course...  This means you'll need to have a very high sample accuracy in your tracking to prevent this, which can be a mathematical and musical nightmare.  So...  Realistically depending on which tracker you're using you may be able to use a relatively fast attack to prevent popping when samples are triggered, and a fast release when they are stopped.  This can smooth the sudden return to zero which causes the popping.

I come from an Impulse tracker background, and Schism tracker is similar in that you can use the Instrument Panel (F4 if I think) to edit the envelope and make sure these sudden leaps to and from zero don't occur.

Hope that helps?

[Jay]

A trick I use to prevent clicks in basslines (especially DnB/Jungle type sub-basses!) is to never ever start or stop the sample if I can help it. You need a really seamless loop for this to work, pretty easy with sinusoids.

Essentially I start the note at the beginning of a sequence and porta to every subsequent note with GFF (or G9 in the volume column - sorry, IT syntax), while controlling the volume with fast slides to give the *illusion* of starting new notes.

Here's my bassline from "Free Motion Machine" - sample was an almost pure sine, looping endlessly

B-4 17 .. D08
F#5 17 G9 D80
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
B-4 17 G9 D08
... .. .. D04
F#4 17 G9 D08
... .. .. .00
B-4 17 G9 D08
... .. .. D04
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
F#4 17 G9 D08
... .. .. D80
... .. .. D0F
... .. .. .00
...and repeat.

Note that I was also ducking the bassline (side-chaining) with the kick+snare drums on every 4th tick.

(If you're not familiar with IT: G9 is the fastest possible porta-to-note in the volume column, D0x is vol. slide down, Dx0 is vol. slide up. Also, entering a note resets the volume to default so e.g. the 4th note down, B-4 17 G9 D08 starts off at 64 and begins to slide down by D08 immediately regardless of the fact that it was 0 by the end of the previous tick!

I really need two simultaneous effects for this... No idea if it is possible to translate to e.g. Milky!)

This is exactly how classic monosynths work; the waveform itself never "stops" or "starts" but the notes you hear are created by sliding the pitch (voltage) and applying a volume envelope. I'm just emulating those monosynths.

(BTW, in some of h0ffman's newer stuff he does similar things in *ProTracker* - he doesn't even have a *volume column!* Madness!)

[Jay]

The same bassline from a pattern without the kickdrum (no "side-chaining"!), if that makes it more clear what I was doing:

B-4 17 .. .00
F#5 17 G9 .00
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
F#4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
B-4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
F#4 17 G9 .00
... .. .. D0F
... .. .. .00
... .. .. .00