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[Jamie Ramone]

OK, here's the deal: I'm composing a tune for a game I'm making and I can't get a good volume slide I need. It's a piece for brass and woodwinds, a sort of Big-Band sound as opposed to "chiptune". The thing is I'm going for a smooth volume slide across the 1^st 3 patterns, starting with a very low (yet audible) volume going all the way up to full volume. Think Maurice Ravel's Bolero, not the original version but the modern reinterpretation.

What I originally did was set the volume with effect G04 in the 1^st row, and using the same effect at regular intervals, 6 steps in total, I'd increment the volume as the sound got fuller (more instrument sections come in). Unfortunately, even by adding finer steps, it still always sounded like a "staircase" effect on the volume, were the volume changes were way to noticeable. Then I tried using H10 to make small but frequent enough slides, but it slides way to much, way too fast.

I'm writing it in MilkyTracker, and the speed and BPM are 7 and 120 respectively. If anyone here can give me some tips, recommend some technique(s) I could use, Id be very grateful. Thank you for your time.

[Saga Musix]

The volume resolution in most legacy tracker formats (including XM) isn't great, and since it's linear you get the "staircase" effect you mentioned. There are a few things you can do:
1. Combine global volume and note volume slides to increase the available dynamic range. That is, slide both the global volume using Hx0 and the note volume using Ax0 or EAx.
2. Use instrument volume envelopes. Even if the resolution of the envelope is the same as that of volume commands, it is typically provides a higher resolution because of interpolation between envelope nodes.
3. Combine 1 and 2.
4. Render the section to a sample and do the volume slide in a sample editor.

[Jamie Ramone]

Thanx! I tried 1 but it got a bit hairy, meaning point 2 was out of the question, and I didn't even think twice ignoring the other 2: no way I'm touching those envelopes (Kiarchive instruments), and resampling feels like cheating to me 

In the end I just put like 4 evenly spread Gxx effects, coinciding with the bassline chords in increments of 5. It's fine grained enough. Every other volume change feels a bit abrupt but it's not TOO bad (read tolerable) so I'm leaving it alone 

[fuzion.mixer01]

You can try to set sample volume to 50% and play it in two channels to reduce said 'staircase' effect