I’m working on a project where certain enemies trigger what instruments we hear. It’s working fine in game: when a fire enemy appears, the violin enters; when an air enemy appears, the flute enters, etc. I’m doing this with labeled parameters set to “Off” or “On.”
How, though, can I made these have a slight fade? Right now it’s pretty jarring when the instrument just comes in. If I add an AHDSR to each track, it only swells from the beginning of the event; I need it to happen whenever the instrument is triggered.
Do I have to rethink the idea of using my parameters simply like this?
Have you tried putting the AHDSR modulators on the instruments’ volumes, rather than on the tracks’ volumes? If you put an AHDSR modulator on an instrument property, its attack begins when that instrument is triggered. It should work, provided that your instruments are being triggered by the parameter change.
Thanks! I see what I did wrong; I was triggering each track / instrument by just having the volumes change instead of using the “Conditions” box. I think I may have figured it out now…I hope!
Ah, so the instruments weren’t being triggered by the parameter change; instead, they were playing at all times, but their volumes were automated to silence.
If that’s the case, there’s an alternative to using AHDSR modulators: If you put a seek modulator on the automated volume properties, you can put a “speed limit” on the rate at which that property changes its value. You can use this to ensure the property takes a few moments to ramp to its new value when automation sets it to a new value, instead of changing instantly.
Thanks for the suggestions!
I wound up simply having it trigger with conditions, as it makes things more streamlined.
Though, the AHDSR envelope is trigging when the music loops. I.e.: at the beginning of the piece of music, everything is fading in again. I want it just to fade in and out when the parameter is triggered, not on loops. Is there a way to do this? For now, I just have another copy of the audio file play for just a half second and fade out. It works; it’s just a bit clunky.
An AHDSR modulator on an instrument property begins its attack period each time the instrument is triggered and begins playing. Therefore, if you want an AHDSR modulator to play out its attack only when the instrument begins playing after not playing instead of every time the music loops, you must ensure the instrument is only triggered and begins playing when the music starts after a period of being stopped and not when the music loops. There are a number of ways to do this, but most involve restructuring your event.
The simplest way is probably to set your instruments to be asynchronous (if they’re not already) and set them to loop, such that they play continually without being retriggered as long as they remain triggered. This method will definitely work, but may be incompatible with certain types of timeline-dependent content.
While it would be more work to set up, the seek modulator method I mentioned above should work while allowing timeline-dependent content to remain intact - though it’s not compatible with the parameter condition-based behavior you have currently.
If neither of those options work, let us know what about them doesn’t fit your project, and we’ll reccomend alternatives.
