Volume Envelope...

[(>o_o)>]

Would somebody please give me a brief explanation of how to create a volume envelope in MPT? I tried to make one and I had no clue what I was doing.

[LPChip]

Would somebody please give me a brief explanation of how to create a volume envelope in MPT? I tried to make one and I had no clue what I was doing.

Seems very easy to me, but lets see...

On the bottom in the instrument tab, there are 3 buttons in the toolbar, and next to them there are 4 saying [vol] [pan] [pitch] [filter]

The first 3 buttons with images are controlling the view of the envelope. Eg. pusing the 2nd will show the envelope of panning.

The other 4 are used to enable or disable the associated envelope.

Now that you know how to enable them, lets tell you how to create one.

You asked for the volume envelope, so click on the 1st icon that will show you the volume envelope. Also enable the envelope by clicking on the 4th icon [vol] (will be in pressed state afterwards)

The initial screen shows 2 points with a blue line connecting them.

You have to visualise the sample to start on the left, and during playback it will go to the right.

To get an idea, press a key to play the current sample. You'll see the white line going from left to right until it reaches the end. The point where the white line crosses the blue line is how much volume your sample has at that given moment.

To get a better understanding, drag the 2nd point all the way down. (this is volume 0, and all the way up is volume 64)

If you now play the instrument, the sample will quickly fade out.

If you use the latest beta build, you will see a grid of vertical grey lines. This grid represents the row highlighting used in the pattern tab. If you have the default 4/16 highlights settings, you'll see them in the instrument tab aswell. This makes it easy to make an envelope that follows the pattern length.

You can add points by right clicking the grid, and choose add point. Same applies for remove point.

When you have made a nice envelope, it can be wishfull to add additional loop checks.

You can add a normal loop, which will keep looping your envelope. When enabling it, a loop is being made around the 1st point. You can drag the new grey lines to the right to set the loop as desired.

You can also add a sustain loop. It works the same as the above described loop inclusive setting the loop. The only exception is, that the looppoints will be ignored as soon as a note-off occours. It doesn't matter how this occours though. If you use a === or NNA note-off, it will start to ignore the loop points untill the sound is being played from start again.

Note: if you place 2 looppoints, where the sustain loop is whitin the normal loop, a note-off will not reset the sustain loop when the normal loop is being triggered. This means that the sustain loop will only loop untill a note-off occourcs, and even if it gets back in that loop, it won't loop again. The sustain loop was disabled by the note-off. It should be possible to make the note get into sustain loop by placing a note with tone portamento (IT: C-4 01 ... GFF)

You can also carry on loop, which will continue the loop to play from the last known position when a new note is being triggered. By default (when the carry on loop is disabled) the envelope will reset when a new note is being entered.

Another note: all the envelopes are similar, but the following info is necessary to know:

Volume: From top to bottom, top has value 64, bottom 0.
Pan: From top to bottom, top has value 64 Left, Mid has value center, bottom has value 64 right.
Pitch: From top to bottom, top will pitch note up to above 1 octave, center will be the current pitch, bottom will pitch note down to below 1 octave.
Filter: From top to bottom, top has value 64, bottom has value 0.

Note that the filter and pitch are not possible to have at the same time, and thereby use the same view (3rd button)


I dunno if this info is in the wiki, but if not, can someone add this?

[Sam_Zen]

2 LPChip
Nice work !!
Certainly worth adding to a wiki. Apart from a spelling thing like 'occours' or 'occourcs', which both should be 'occurs'.

[(>o_o)>]

Ah, thanks for the help. It sounds like I was doing it right before but I couldn't get it activated properly.