Hi there!
Fading out an instrument seems to be affecting the loop transition. When the cursor gets to the transition area, it provokes an unwanted fade in effect.
Is this a bug? I’m using v2.02.18
Thanks in advance!
Not having heard your project, I can’t be totally sure what you’re hearing or how it differs from what you expect. Could you please describe in more detail what you expect to happen, and how it differs from what you’re observing?
That being said, I should mention that the fade-out curves on instruments function like automation curves: They define the volume the instrument should have when the playback position is at specific positions on the timeline. In your event, you are using a loop region to move the playback position from the right side of a fade-out curve (where it sets the volume to -oo dB) to the left of it (where it sets the volume to 0 dB). As a result, instruments becoming audible when passing through that transition is expected and normal.
You’re right, it’s difficult to detect the issue without properly hearing what’s going on. Hope this video makes it clear: FMOD_issue.mp4 - Google Drive
It is a comparison between the transition of a track with no faded instruments and the transition with a faded one. In the second example, even though the first instrument has no fade in programmed and neither are any fades programmed at the transition region, a fade in effect is clearly noticeable. I’ve been trying out different scenarios, and it seems that the issue has to do with the fade out curve at the end of the clip it is transitioning to.
Please let me know if I made myself clear. Thank you for your time!
Thanks, that video clarified things nicely.
To explain what’s happening here…
Under-the-hood, the fade-in and fade-out curves that you add to instruments are actually volume automation curves, similar to what you’d get if you automated the instrument’s volume on the parameter that triggers the instrument (the timeline, in this case).
Have you ever seen what happens to an automated property over a transition timeline? By default, the property’s value is linearly interpolated (read: smoothly ramped) from the value it has at the start of the transition timeline to the value it has at the end. That’s what’s happening here: The volume is “automated” to -oo dB at the end of the instrument (and thus at the start of the transition timeline, as the transition timeline starts to the right of the instrument), and is 0 dB before the fade-out curve (and thus at the end of the transition timeline, since the transition timeline ends to the left of the fade-out curve), and so the volume is linearly interpolated form -oo dB to 0 dB over the duration of the transition timeline.
As such, the behaviour you’re seeing is expected. Whether it’s desirable in your case, on the other hand, is another story.
If you want to work around this behaviour, the easiest option is to replace the fade-in and fade-out curves on your instruments, either with automation on their volume controls (which would allow you to define exactly how the volume should be affected in a transition timeline) or with AHDSR modulators on their volume controls (which would cause the fade-out of one instrument instance to have no effect on the volume of other instances of that instrument).