Feeling foolish, but VST duration increase?

Cyntalan · June 07, 2018, 14:35:02

I've just started down the path of using VSTs in MPT (VSTs are altogether new to me, I'm used to working with raw audio samples, never even messed with the instruments side of life, though I have observed some instruments and how they should behave), and one thing I can't seem to wrap my head around is using an instrument for a long duration. From what I can tell, the VST sound is unlooped in any manner and ends on its own, regardless of what I do. The oddest thing I've discovered is that when loading an instrument, I don't even see the normal graph of said instrument. My guess is that it's due to it being tied to the VST plugin.

While the duration is fine for most instances, if I want to hold a note longer than its duration, how am I supposed to achieve that, considering I have seemingly no means to manipulate its looping functionality? My first thought was to bounce between two channels and start a second version of the same note as the first one starts to end, but that sounds funny.

Saga Musix · June 07, 2018, 16:49:54

How long a note sounds is completely up to the plugin you are using. There are note-on messages (i.e. notes in the pattern) and note-off messages (sent with every new note on the same channel, or when placing == in the pattern) being sent to plugins, but what the plugin does with those is not something OpenMPT can change. For example, in a typical synthesizer plugin the shape of the sound will be controlled by an ADSR envelope (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release), and if you have a very short envelope with a low Sustain point, it will generate a very short sound. You need to explore the plugin's editor in order to understand how to modify this. Every plugin comes with its own editor so there is no specific help I can give here.

Cyntalan · June 07, 2018, 17:19:32

Quote from: Saga Musix on June 07, 2018, 16:49:54
How long a note sounds is completely up to the plugin you are using. There are note-on messages (i.e. notes in the pattern) and note-off messages (sent with every new note on the same channel, or when placing == in the pattern) being sent to plugins, but what the plugin does with those is not something OpenMPT can change. For example, in a typical synthesizer plugin the shape of the sound will be controlled by an ADSR envelope (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release), and if you have a very short envelope with a low Sustain point, it will generate a very short sound. You need to explore the plugin's editor in order to understand how to modify this. Every plugin comes with its own editor so there is no specific help I can give here.

I did notice the envelope controls, but it seems like the sustain value doesn't really change much at all (if anything, it only seems like it controls the sustained duration of the richness of the sound, but the length does not change).

I don't suppose there is a way to extract a single sample from it so I can just fiddle with the sample itself, is there? My guess if that's not possible, I'll just have to manually record it to get the sustain I need.

The VST in question I'm working with is the Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra VST, if that is of any additional use of information.

Saga Musix · June 07, 2018, 19:23:16

I cannot give you any specific usage tips on that specific plugin, but you can expect that it's more than just playing simple samples. If you want to just use the sound of a single note from the plugin in your track, you can put that note in a pattern and render it into a sample slot. But if there is no way to control the note length, then there is nothing OpenMPT can do about that, neither by rendering it nor by any other way.

Cyntalan · June 07, 2018, 19:24:55

Alright, that's kinda what I figured was going to end up happening. Thanks!

Alice (Midori) · June 08, 2018, 09:03:01

SInce you mentioned, it's Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra, i'd suggest to use the samples directly instead of VST, they come with.sfz instrument mappings, which OpenMPT should be able to handle just fine

Cyntalan · June 08, 2018, 13:29:56

Quote from: MiDoRi on June 08, 2018, 09:03:01
SInce you mentioned, it's Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra, i'd suggest to use the samples directly instead of VST, they come with.sfz instrument mappings, which OpenMPT should be able to handle just fine

All the instruments in SSO are MSE files. I'm not sure how to use those. Are they essentially just compressed sfz's? If so, how do I extract?

Alice (Midori) · June 09, 2018, 08:34:51

No, they aren't, have you downloaded it from the official site? Sounds like you haven't, in this case http://mattiaswestlund.net/samples/sonatina-symphonic-orchestra-1.0.zip

Cyntalan · June 09, 2018, 14:58:26

Quote from: MiDoRi on June 09, 2018, 08:34:51
No, they aren't, have you downloaded it from the official site? Sounds like you haven't, in this case http://mattiaswestlund.net/samples/sonatina-symphonic-orchestra-1.0.zip

Yeah, that's not at all what I have. This looks like the individual instruments and samples rather than the VST plugin. This might be way more valuable to me. Thanks!