So, I thought I was pretty clear.

1. There are two scenes.

2. There are two parts. One part is a piano. The other part is a sample of a rain storm that you guys helped me set up in the drums that plays continuously. At a point in the song I want to lower the rain sound to half so it's not so prevalent.

3. Not sure what this means. The rain is in both scenes. One is loud the other is soft. All I did was copy the first scene to the second, change the volume of the rain and save it.

4. Only the volume of the one part.

As I said in my original post I'm already using both pedals for other things.

Riders on the Storm...

@Bill - this issue is another of the reasons I suggested envelopes for Scene transitions.

At OP:

As Bill rightly points out, you can fake this by making a transitory Scene that goes from one volume to the next, in an animated way, via a Motion Sequence, BUT: you need a way to activate this that's congruent with how you're playing, and for it to be programmed to start at an arbitrary volume accordant to your origin Scene..

Sadly, I don't think we'll ever get Scene transition envelopes, despite the fact they'd take this device to an entirely different level of wonder, and not be super difficult to add.

You can use scenes to "smoothly" change volumes. Let me explain.

You can't do this directly, but you can do it indirectly. I am on the road - so I'll have to just give high level details for now.

I would use arpeggios to do this. Arpeggios are not only about notes. There are control arpeggios too. Control arpeggios can twist your assignable knobs. There are built-in control arpeggios that show this off and you can record your own user arps too that automate assignable knobs.

Once you have assignable knobs turning - you can set the tempo and recorded speed of rotation to match how fast you want the volume to change.

And SCENEs can change arpeggios so you can have scene 1 use a Mute 4/4 arpeggio then scene 2 use the control arpeggio that twists an assignable knob.

The assignable knob being modulated by an arpeggio should have volume as the destination in the control matrix. Arpeggio loop should be off so the modulation stays put at the end of the arpeggio.

In this "example" - starting with scene 1 will not change the volume. Pressing scene 2 will start moving the assignable knob to change the volume smoothly over time.

Motion sequence is the best way to tell a destination parameter to do something over time. Triggering would be done by hitting a key (or motion sequence trigger button) instead of pressing a scene button. So that's an option if you want to define a specific key (or different MS Trig button) to cause the transition instead of a scene. Motion sequence cannot change keyboard control or other things scenes can do -- so there are limitations. However, if you remove the reliance on scenes then there are other ways to skin this cat as they say.

[quotePost id=117611]@Bill - this issue is another of the reasons I suggested envelopes for Scene transitions.
...
Sadly, I don't think we'll ever get Scene transition envelopes, despite the fact they'd take this device to an entirely different level of wonder, and not be super difficult to add.[/quotePost]
I didn't see your earlier discussion of this, but I don't really understand it. An envelope process occurs when a note is triggered. Scenes don't trigger note events. I could see a "transition time" parameter that would "morph" between the current settings and the settings of the new scene, which again gets back to the motion control approach that has been mentioned. But what would you be looking for an "envelope" function on a scene to do? (Maybe best to link me to your earlier suggestion?) Though whatever it is, as for it not being difficult to add, as I've often said, usually the only people that say something should be easy to add are the people who don't have to do it. 😉

[quotePost id=117624][quotePost id=117611]@Bill - this issue is another of the reasons I suggested envelopes for Scene transitions.
...
Sadly, I don't think we'll ever get Scene transition envelopes, despite the fact they'd take this device to an entirely different level of wonder, and not be super difficult to add.[/quotePost]
I didn't see your earlier discussion of this, but I don't really understand it. An envelope process occurs when a note is triggered. Scenes don't trigger note events. I could see a "transition time" parameter that would "morph" between the current settings and the settings of the new scene, which again gets back to the motion control approach that has been mentioned. But what would you be looking for an "envelope" function on a scene to do? (Maybe best to link me to your earlier suggestion?) Though whatever it is, as for it not being difficult to add, as I've often said, usually the only people that say something should be easy to add are the people who don't have to do it. ;-)[/quotePost]

On the Novation Peak/Summit are quasi AssignableSwitches that sort of operate more like Scenes than merely AssignableSwitches.

In a recent update, Novation added envelopes to these, such that they morph to the subsequent state based on chosen envelopes. But that's only half the fun. They're interruptible, and begin falling back to their original values when interrupted, from as far as they've gotten at the point of change. So it's possible to increasingly rapidly spam these buttons to create buildups/drops - IOW, you can live PLAY the morph in this manner.

This is so addictive that you begin designing stronger differences between states/scenes to do more of this.

// The thing about it being easy to code is a homage to the common refrain about that and a reference to the fact that Bill thought it would be difficult to code and a poor use of time considering there's so many other issues with envelopes in these instruments that could use a bit of a polish. I don't think those other envelopes can be fixed, for legacy reasons, so might as well add another envelope system 😉

The UI considerations for it would be more effort (for Yamaha) than the code. The Scene StoresThisButNotThat would need a check box on things that are appropriate to be swept into via the envelope for Scene transitions.

ADD LINK:

convo start:

https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/low-hanging-fruit-fixes-improvements?start=20#reply-116902

[quotePost id=117603]Riders on the Storm...

[/quotePost] The EXACT song I'm working on!

[quotePost id=117629][quotePost id=117603]Riders on the Storm...

[/quotePost] The EXACT song I'm working on! [/quotePost]

How did I guess? :p

It would be interesting to know what you are using "both pedals" for.

Considering the nature of the song, I'd be tempted to put the "Rain" Part on an Arpeggio, that is constantly droning through the song, and just have the Volume of that Part assigned to a Foot Controller, so you can fade it in and out at will. (Another bonus tip would be to run it through a cross delay and a really slow Phaser in the Insert FX to add realism)

As far as the "keys" are concerned you can control the dynamics with standard Velocity switches... play softer/harder etc.

[quotePost id=117603]It would be interesting to know what you are using "both pedals" for. [/quotePost]

I'm using one pedal for overall volume and the other to dynamically adjust some effects like reverb, etc. during the solo part. It wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't use the second pedal for the effects and use it to control the level of the rain. But I'm still learning and I'm trying to understand what options are available that I don't know about.

Currently for the song I have five "rain" samples from the original Doors recording made from the very first storm at the beginning of the song. I'm obviously using that to start off the song. But then I edited the .wav and just grabbed the thunder and saved it to use in various places in the song. Then I edited again to just get the rain portion and I let that play in certain parts. Then I took that rain sound and lowered the volume for it and looped it for about 3 minutes. The fourth is that softer rain sound but only plays for about 5 seconds and then fades out. I use this at the end of the song or when I want the softer rain to end.

From previous posts and help from the forum I took those five .wav's and put them into a new init'ed drum kit. For the full storm I have it assigned to the lowest F# key, the thunder to the G#, the louder rain to Bb, the softer rain on B and the faded rain on A. The softer rain and the faded rain are in a group so that when I hit the A key it kills the one on B and fades out. Works pretty well.

The one thing I don't like is that I feel like I've "hard coded" the volume difference between the regular rain and the softer rain. Plus the lightning .wav needs to be softer during the song. This is why I was originally thinking of two scenes. There's been a lot of good suggestions here that I'm going to try and make this better.

The other thing I'm not happy with is that I didn't know how to take a short .wav and have it loop over and over without doing it externally and then loading it in. I feel like I'm wasting storage space by creating a looped .wav when there maybe a different way to do this. Maybe your idea of putting the rain in an Arp could do that? How would you get a .wav into an Arp and have it loop until another specific key is pressed?

Thanks,
Fred

You can use scenes to "smoothly" change volumes. Let me explain.

How would you get a .wav into an Arp and have it loop until another specific key is pressed?

Use a drum key for the sample as previously suggested. Use group to have a different key cancel. The other drum key using the same group number will cancel the first key in the group. The second key in the group can have a new custom sample. You can have more than two keys in a group. And also one of the keys can be "silence" so you can use one of the keys to stop samples from playing.

ARPs shouldn't be necessary if the sample is set to loop and the drum key filters out key off as is an option.

Thanks Jason, that's pretty much how I'm doing it now. But I don't fully understand how "sample is set to loop" works. Is this a setting on MODX or do I do it in my audio editing software?

I tried using the loop feature in Audacity, but that didn't seem to work. That's why I ended up "looping" it manually in Audacity and saving the whole looped .wav. But it's pretty big and I didn't want to waste precious memory.

Thanks
Fred

I don't think I've ever advocated using Audacity to add the necessary .WAV metadata to properly loop samples. I think because Audacity didn't create proper .WAV files for this task.

For the PC I have advocated using Wavosaur. https://www.wavosaur.com/

For the Mac I've advocated different things depending on the "era". Sometime since 2016, Endless Wav added native MacOS support - so I would suggest using Endless Wav for Mac. https://www.bjoernbojahr.de/endlesswav.html

You may want to run the Endless Wav homepage through a translator if German is not your native language.

To directly answer your question, the looping needs to be set outside of MODX. Samples have to be pre-conditioned as MODX (currently) doesn't have any "sampling" capability embedded. Including manipulating the loop points or setting one-shot vs looped. I think you're on the right track here but perhaps are using the wrong tool. It'd be great for Audacity to cover these bases and maybe someday it will (if it doesn't already - I haven't tested recently).

BTW - I say MODX (and, for that matter - Montage too) doesn't currently support "sampling" functions not because I know that someday they will. I doubt they will. However, I feel that some basic sample manipulation would not require a heavy lift or memory (for preview/surgical editing) that would allow for some crude sampling inside the box without "costing" much in the development. Similar to the limited sequencer that was added post-release for MODX/Montage. So I say "currently" to leave the hope alive in what I transmit - not because I have any particular insight.