Help with looping Music in VX Ace

[sampsonj]

First post... since I joined almost 2 years ago... WOW! ha ha But in all seriousness I am in need of some help. I am currently in the process of making a project and I am planning on writting all the music(not uploading any) for my project (and creating my own sounds). All my music I write is done using a program called finale and when I export it, I use adaucity to.... atleast try and get it to loop however I can never get it to work and when I put it into RPG Maker VX Ace, there is always a very small short cut. Now I could just use finale and add a repeat to repeat like 50 times giving it a beautiful sounding "loop" making the song like an hour... however I don't want to have audio files that are redicilously huge as you can imagine. I have tried following the tutorial for Adaucity but there always seems to be a bit of a "skip" or blip noise. Other than that... the loop sounds great... Is it a problem with looping ogg files or is there another program or method to looping something so it doesn't give that noise?

 

[_Shadow_]

Audacity is your first sin.

Audacity adds a small gap of no sound piece in the beginning and the ending of your sound.

That will destroy any loop.

Not anymore, bug is fixed.

Audacity works sweet.

ogg files are PERFECT for looping actually. You just need to have the skill to cut the loop to a place it will not make a click sound on loop (due to a frequence or level difference) and also make it sound excellent.

THIS might need research on the music loop and it might actually take you a lot of time. Adding a little white noise to the whole sound, in a low level, no need of exaggeration here, might probably glue things better thus make your life on slicing the loop easier. 

Just try things out.

I use Reason.

And Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 11 for the final mastering of the loop.

AVOID Audacity, I KNOW what I am talking about. Been there...

You can use Audacity.

 

[sampsonj]

Hmm... took a look at "Reason" and... it's a little pricy for something I am looking at just making for friends Anything that would be better that....isn't so much? Finale was though school which is why I have that and well, I don't got much disposable money so I used adaucity So is there any that would do the trick that is under $100? Other wise I might just have to use some tricks that may... take a while to fix to have it sound more smooth.

 

[Shaz]

I've moved this thread to Program and Utility Discussion. Please be sure to post your threads in the correct forum next time. Thank you.

 

[cabfe]

@Dreadshadow:

I've manually looped a music with Audacity, no problem...

I don't know what issue you could have faced, but I never had "no-sound" parts added by the software.

 

[_Shadow_]

@cabfe It was actually adding a part of flat silence (very annoying) while I was trying to do the job.

It might be enhanced since it is an open source  software, but I don;t think it would spend time again trying it, while I do my job using Magix ACL11.

(I don't recommend Magix though, since service is worst than EA's)

Anyway, the problem I had with audacity was that each time a loop finish, it has a part of silence (especially if the loops is under some seconds) and also it has an added part on start.

In any case, you made me curious now... I will try it... again....

Edit:

Not anymore, bug is fixed.

Audacity works sweet.

 

[GrandmaDeb]

Audacity is your first sin.


Audacity adds a small gap of no sound piece in the beginning and the ending of your sound.


That will destroy any loop.


AVOID Audacity, I KNOW what I am talking about. Been there...

It can't be edited out?


Wah! I've been using Audacity!

 

[Scythuz]

I use audacity for looping my music, none of my clients have reported any problems.  Quite a lot of the other composers I know on this site also use it.

 

[_Shadow_]

Ok I am on my way to try it again then. 

After all it is free.

Edit:

Forget what I said about Audacity.

It is a completely different piece of software.

I just tested this...

So Audacity actually CAN loop (at last they fixed it) a song.

@sampsonj you now have to find a sweet spot for the music to loop, that will not click or seem not fitting.

The loop noise is because of the sudden change of the level or frequencies in the sound.

 

[Scythuz]

Ok I am on my way to try it again then. 

After all it is free.

Edit:

Forget what I said about Audacity.

It is a completely different piece of software.

I just tested this...

So Audacity actually CAN loop (at last they fixed it) a song.

@sampsonj you now have to find a sweet spot for the music to loop, that will not click or seem not fitting.

The loop noise is because of the sudden change of the level or frequencies in the sound.

As well as making sure a track loops properly in your DAW before you exporting, having a tiny fade-in at the beginning and fade-out at the end of the audio file helps to make the loop sound more natural if you're just using the regular start to end loop in Audacity.  For loop points from specific locations, check here.

 

[sampsonj]

Hmm. Ok, so it is just an issue of where I am cutting it? This is going to take a while it seems, I've already spent like close to an hour and I just have the little blip. ha ha. It is my first attempted at using adaucity for looping. It makes me feel happier seeing that adaucity works fine though... Finale was already expensive enough XD

 

[harmonic]

Hello Sampsonj,

That blip in Audacity is better than it was before, but it's still there. However truth be told, any sudden, "unnatural" change in amplitude will create some form of unpleasurable noise when looping. Here's how I do it with Audacity:

Here's the overall waveform, and the LOOPSTART point and the loop end point. 

Zoom way into one of the points, and look for a unique visual cue. This is probably obvious, but over time, I've found a few tricks that seem to create a seamless loop each and every time.

Low amplitude: Try to find a quiet section - a lesser amp means a lesser blip if there's a disparity.

Precision: Zoom in enough (at least as much as below) to the point where you can get it down to within just a few samples of the exact same point in the other point.

Choose the lowest point: In the below example, I've picked the lowest point in that particular waveform, though on 2nd thought I'd probably be better using the low point before it, since you can plainly see this is a quiet section before a louder section.

Might seem obvious but those tricks do make a difference in my experience.

Cheers!

 

[_Shadow_]

Might seem obvious but those tricks do make a difference in my experience.

Cheers!

I feel a little embarrassed now, I didn't thought of making screen shots.

@sampsonj, what @harmonic successfully shown you, is what you actually have to  do.

"Low amplitude: Try to find a quiet section - a lesser amp means a lesser blip if there's a disparity.

Precision: Zoom in enough (at least as much as below) to the point where you can get it down to within just a few samples of the exact same point in the other point.

Choose the lowest point:"

PERFECT DESCRIPTION. Kudos from me and a cookie! 

 

[_Shadow_]

As well as making sure a track loops properly in your DAW before you exporting, having a tiny fade-in at the beginning and fade-out at the end of the audio file helps to make the loop sound more natural if you're just using the regular start to end loop in Audacity.  For loop points from specific locations, check here.

SkyThuz....

That link...

Oh man!!!

Dude, thank you!

I was trying to figure out if there was a freaking way to set up something like that. 

You just got +10 respect from me mate! (will stalk your activity as a creepo )

P.S.

I might got a little Rick Rolled in the tutorial, but that was the most pleasant rick roll ever,   

@Shu was a ninja.

Came to the forum, made only 1 post, NAILED it, then disappeared as it seems.

Poof!



@Shu If you will ever read this, thank you too!      

 

[Ms Littlefish]

I also use Audacity to loop my music and usually have no troubles with blips and dead space. There is sometimes a tiny, tiny bit at the very start of the track but if you zoom in a lot you can edit it all out preciously, by selecting the area and 'cutting audio" under the edit menu. Finding the end point depends on the type of song but many of the tricks Scythuz mentioned work beautifully.

There is often a lot of reverb at the end of a track that are just the instruments ringing out, and the loop point is before that. You can usually see on the waveform where the last full note was struck and where they begin this ringing. You get the eye for it but even then it's a lot of trial and error (nothing is as satisfactory as getting a perfect loop on your first try, nothing).

Also, if you ever need help with Finale. Not tooting my horn but I am totally a Finale grand master.~

 

[Scythuz]

Oh yeah, one final tip and this is only if you really need it.  

Sometimes you'll want the tail end of the reverb after the end of the track to be playing at the start at a lower volume, just cut and paste it in, maybe even use a fade in or out effect depending on what you want to accomplish.  This will ensure maximum realism and works best for very reverberated tracks.  

One of the shortcuts I use to avoid doing this in some cases is to just apply a slowing of the tempo at the end so that the reverb has more time to "dispel" naturally.