Creator forgetting Initial Volume Settings

SoundSet Creator
#1

Recently I have been making use of the Soundset Creator Master/Minion interface and for some reason despite setting up initial volumes, they keep resetting to 100% each week.

I have the master volume set to 60% and then individually I set various Element volumes to anywhere between 60% and 80%, click the Sync Initial Volume button which the slider moves to the appropriate position and then its good… for a little while.

usually a couple of days later when I launch the Master interface again all the various elements return to 100%…

What’s going on/what am I doing wrong? the Sync Initial Volume button implies that it will remember the volumes I select per element but that’s not happening long term.

#2

Hi @raith.mkarran Interesting one. I’ll check it out myself.

The main place to set the volume of things is in MOODs. Is that what you are trying to do.

Initial Volume just sets the volume an element starts at when it first loads into the player.

#3

Here’s what I have been doing…

I set the Volume Slider for an element in the main area (Not a Mood), then I click the Sync Initial Volume button which adjusts the Slider inside the Element Inspector appropriately.

Essentially as sort of a master setting for an individual element as I most often just need to activate 1 or 2 Elements at any given time and a Mood feels like overkill.

Having said that I also created a Mood to see if it would remember the volume settings and it too reset to 100% on all the individual elements. I’ve also noticed that the various elements have sorted themselves back into the default order I uploaded them in rather than the order I manually sorted them into later.

Its like everything is resetting back to its initial state.

1 Like
#4

I am having this exact same issue @raith.mkarran @Benjamin — I had spent a significant amount of time going through various sets and tweaking the volume for elements. They were fine for about a week, then trying to use them again, everything is amped up. Running games with music blaring is not good, but still want certain effects louder than others. Does the volume not lock-in once you change it? It seemed like it did, but not for long.

#5

I can confirm that all of the volumes that I’ve shifted, have reset. This is potentially a major problem for using Syrinscape for me. Volume on music and repetitive elements like SFX needs to be maintained at a very low point during discourse during a session — while One-hit sounds should be maintained at a normal volume depending on what it is. Do we know if this changes if the Music, SFX, or one-hit is in your own custom set?

#6

Once you have set your volumes you need to click the “Save Current State” button in the Mood tab. That will then lock in all of the settings that you have made for that mood, including the volume

#7

Not for Moods, for individual sounds. It seems like everything hinges heavily on only using moods to save settings?

#8

Do you have an exact example of where you tried to tweak settings and the creator forgets the settings? Note that if you are tweaking official soundsets any change isn’t saved. To alter official soundsets you have to make a duplicate of it - that one can be tweaked to your liking.

#9

Perhaps this is example enough…

I have a custom set called DASFX-Village, it has 11 Music Elements, 1 SFX and 3 1-shots.

When I upload a new element I grab its individual slider and drag it down to various points. Music goes to 50%, SFX to 70%, 1-shots at full. I keep the master volume Higher like at 90% as this all gives me room to increase volumes if a particular element is too quiet without needing to run anything through say Audacity prior to upload.

Now yes, I could create a Mood at this point, but I choose not to, as to why I don’t… The Elements I upload I prefer to use on the fly. I know that when I use them I want the prearranged sound level to be used, but I am unsure where, when and how many elements I want to trigger until it happens in a session. And when I do trigger them it needs to be fast with the minimal amount of clicks to avoid interrupting a session.

I do not pre-plan session to the point where ahead of time I know there will be a marketplace with a child running around and builders at work, I prefer to make a soundset where everything is a possible option.

…so, without a Mood I use the Set (via the online player) for a session ~3 hours long and then at the end of the night I shut it down. Now if I return to a set within a week the volumes seem to retain their prior position but, if its longer or there is a patch to a Online Player everything resets back to 100%

Now, I have as a work around created a “Master Mood” for each of my custom soundsets to work around this… but it’s not a complete fix. In that Master Mood I set everything to the 50/70/100% range as I like I then trigger ALL the elements and very quickly hit the Save Current State button. Its a cacophony of noise as DASFX-Village is the smallest of my custom sets and you have to remember to click the Play mood theme prior to a session so everything gets to the position I need without deafening my players.

So that’s what things are like for me, I have tried other ways to get the Interface to remember things over time without success.

What I would like to see and I mentioned this to people at PAXAus last year, would be 1 of 2 options, preferably both.

  1. Inside each Element, specifically add a “Set Element Volume to” option, this would define position the Elements Volume slider moves to whenever the Set is opened.

  2. Up the top near the button that adds an element or the small/medium/large display add a set of buttons “Set All Music/SFX/1-Shots To X” where I can define X inside the Soundset properties overall (it’d even mean this then was the default to new elements uploaded I think)

Oh and before anyone mentions the “Initial Volume” property for a Soundset or individual elements which I thought was going to do what I am asking for… well the individual element initial volume resets to 100% anytime you refresh the browser or log out/in of Syrinscape and in any event as far as I can tell this just defines the ducking at the start of the element and doesn’t have much to do with overall/long-term volume control.

I really want the capability of setting an individual elements default volume position and a way to set it per element within the elements properties so when I share Elements to other sets I don’t need to worry about trying to add it into a Master Mood which means triggering everything once more.

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#10

That’s very well put @raith.mkarran — I’m having a very similar issue… essentially, my workflow looks something like this…

I’ll play a music element at about half volume. Then I may build things up… perhaps the wind picks up, I’ll play a SFX at about 70% volume. And if a creature needs to make some random sound that one-hit is 100% volume. I rarely use a mood unless it’s something planned out well in advance.

I suppose I could make a mood for every single music and SFX combination… but that seems absurd.

I cannot seem to tell, however, once I move an element into my own set does the volume always lock when I change it? It locked over several days even in the publicly available sound sets, but then reset after about a week. So far it seems the volumes are not moving from their set states in my own … yet.

#11

So - i took a close look at the soundset you mentioned. Especially at the “initial volume setting” and the online player “forgetting” the set value upon refreshing/restarting.

I can confirm that the values jump back to 100% and yes, that behaviour is strange. We will check if this is an overall problem, a problem with the Online player or a problem that could be linked to the soundset somehow.

Great find! Thanks for bringing this to our attention! :smiley:

#12

If it helps, I see this happening across all the Soundsets I make. I had previously wondered if this was a browser caching issue combined with a Dynamic DNS causing every login to appear different to the Master Interface, i.e. the “Initial settings” is only stored locally and not uploaded to an off-sight save or some such.

I hope not the issue given that’s the only way the internet will connect in my neck-of-the-woods-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. Hopefully you guys can work it out.

#13

Yeah, so it looks like this is a new bug. We’ve noted its stripes and will kill it when we can find the right can of bug spray! THANKS for the report.

ONE THING TO NOTE: When you find you are wanting an element to run REALLY quietly (i.e. 5-20% is approximately the right amount for a balanced mix, it is actually better to set a LOW volume level in the sample’s Playlist entry… so then you will be free to set the Element Volume to a more reasonable level. This will also work as a work-around for the voluime jumping up to 100%.

Makes sense?

#14

Interesting. I thought that slider was more for choosing to only play a portion of a track. But I will try this out next time things rest on me.

#15

Is anyone still looking into this issue as I am experiencing the same problem?

#16

Yes, this is on the dev list, but not at the top yet.

In the meantime, definitely look at a couple of post of mine up above for work arounds/explanations etc. :slight_smile:

#17

Just wanted to reiterate that this is still an ongoing issue, and proves very troublesome for running games using syrinscape. I have starting moving towards just using foundry for my audio because the volume resetting creates harsh transitions when I start an element for my players, especially music, since it will reset to 100% and be VERY LOUD while we’re trying to set the new scene or enter combat. If it isn’t addressed soon I’m probably looking to drop my sub and just use foundry.