Ciao!
I have two fire sounds which play at the same time – a base rumble, and a more intense sound that plays as you are much closer to the fire. Both of these events exist in their own mixer groups.
In the intense sound, I have a snapshot called SS_FireDucker. This snapshot is used to duck the base fire mixer group, so that the lower rumble gives way to the more aggressive crackle of the intense fire. In the mixer, the volume fader is brought down when the snapshot is active, and the fade (or automation on the distance parameter) on the snapshot works well.
The problem is that the snapshot’s effect on mixer groups doesn’t seem to obey any seek speed rules. This snapshot also brings down the music mixer group, so when you’re very close to a fire, the music is brought down a bit. This results in the music quite quickly and noticeably going up and down in level as you approach and withdraw from a fire – especially as you move away, as the music quite noticeably comes back up in level. I’d like to smooth this return a bit using a seek modulator, but it doesn’t seem to work.
Applying a seek speed, with a very low speed, to the music bus’ volume fader does not make a difference to how quickly the level goes up and down. If I play in editor with the mixer also open, I expect to see the little orange dot on the fader move very slowly to where it should go, signalling that the fader is moving up or down with a slow seek speed, following the snapshot’s effect on it, but this doesn’t happen – instead, the change is instant, just as it is with no seek speed.
Am I right in thinking that the mixer group’s volume fader should be adjusted by the snapshot very slowly, if a seek speed of 0.01 range/s is applied to it? If I am in the fire, so the snapshot’s effect is at its maximum, and then quickly run out, shouldn’t I be able to see the fader return to its unaffected position much slower than the speed at which I actually moved away from the fire?
I should be able to get around this relatively easily, but I’d mainly like to understand if this is expected behaviour or not.
Indeed. Mixer volume seek modulator doesn’t seem to work at all (for exemple with automation). Not sure it’s that important, however, since it’s possible to modulate the snapshot intensity.
This is the expected behaviour, but I can see why it might be confusing.
When you add a modulator to a property in the mixer, that modulator modifies that property’s value in the base mix. Similarly, when you add a modulator to a property in a snapshot, it applies to that property’s value in the snapshot. Thus, if the property’s value changes within that base mix or snapshot (perhaps due to the property being automated on a parameter), a seek modulator will affect that change - but when you start a snapshot, the snapshot replaces or blends the value of the property in the base mix (i.e.: the post-modulator value of that property in the base mix) with the value of that property in the snapshot (i.e.: the post-modulator property value of the property in the snapshot), and so the seek modulator will not adjust the property’s final value.
Because the modulators applied to a property only affect that property within the context of a specific mixer state, you can use this to create some interesting effects. For example, in a game where time can occasionally be frozen, you could place an LFO modulator on a volume property in the base mix, but have no modulator on that property in a snapshot, in order to make a wailing klaxon sound become an unceasing scream when the snapshot is active.
If you want to make a snapshot’s effect fade in and out gradually, we reccomend putting an AHDSR modulator on the intensity of the snapshot, instead. Alternatively (or in addition), you could create timeline automation within the snapshot to cause the values of the scoped properties to change over time while the snapshot is active.
Thanks for the response – I think I’ve got it. If I’ve understood correctly then, adding an AHDSR or timeline automation wouldn’t help me in this case, because it’s a custom distance parameter that I am using to automate the intensity of the snapshot. The snapshot intensity is mapped directly to the Dist parameter, and the music ducking follows the snapshot intensity. Unfortunately I can’t add a seek speed to the Dist parameter because it is used by other things, so I’m wondering if there’s another level of smoothing that can be applied to this ducking.
It would be easy enough to create a duplicate parameter, used just for this purpose, which has a seek speed applied to it, but it would be good to know if there was something else I could do down this avenue first, and if the rest of my thinking is correct.
I think I’ve just seen the effect of an envelope on the snapshot instrument. As I approach a fire, even if I do so very quickly so that the playhead in the above screenshot would very quickly move to the left, to full snapshot intensity, the attack on the envelope would slow this snapshot intensity ramp. Unfortunately, this isn’t any use to me, as it’s the release I would like to “soften” by adding something like a seek speed to, and the distance going from low to high leads to a direct drop in snapshot intensity as the playhead moves to the right and follows the fade on the snapshot instrument. By the time the release is triggered, the playhead is far enough to the right that the snapshot intensity is already low and the effect of the release is minimal – that’s what I’ve understood.
Adding a release to the envelope gives an unexpected result though - occasionally on approaching a static fire, the release is triggered, and I see its effect in the mixer as “scoped in” parameters move even though the snapshot should still be active. I’m not sure how to explain this as I can’t reliably replicate it, but sometimes approaching a fire has the expected result of the snapshot adjusting an EQ in the mixer and the EQ value staying still, and sometimes the EQ value starts to return to its default (non-snapshot-modified value) on its own. How exactly then is the release supposed to work on a snapshot instrument, considering I’m seeing the release being triggered when I don’t expect it to? I would imagine that the release would only be triggered once the playhead leaves the snapshot area.
Have you considered putting the seek modulator on the intensity property? Specifically, the same intensity that you’re using the distance parameter to automate. Doing so would remove the need for the AHDSR modulator, would allow your distance parameter’s value to change rapidly (and thus wouldn’t interfere with its ability to control other things), and would still ensure that the intensity doesn’t increase too quickly or slowly.
Again, putting the seek modulator on the intensity property should allow you to achieve the behavior you want - especially if you set the seek modulator to asymmetrical mode, as doing so allows you to set different seek speeds for when the property value is ascending and descending.
I can’t explain this behavior, as I do not know what’s causing it.
As you say, the release period of an AHDSR modulator on an instrument should only begin when the instrument is untriggered. Therefore, if the release period is beginning, the instrument must be being untriggered somehow. To be untriggered, an instrument must either cease to be overlapped by the playback position, or its trigger conditions must cease to be met.
