Hi! I just recently got the Tracker and it’s a ton of fun but I have one maddening issue. I wanted to make a drone, with a looped single-cycle waveform in step 1 of a pattern. It plays nicely until it gets to the end of the pattern and jumps back to step 1 - at this moment the Tracker makes a short clicking/popping sound. I tried with other waveforms, same thing. It’s driving me nuts. The zero crossings at the beginning and end of the sample are ok, it looks like there is some internal “pop” when restarting the pattern and retriggering the sample.Does anyone know of a trick to get rid of it?
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It sounds like the click or pop could be because the drone is sustained and then cut off abruptly by the playback of the sample again. The way the tracker works is the sustain of the envelope is engaged until it is told to release. Since the track is monophonic a new note will stop the one before. I would try adding a cut/off/fad on the last step of the pattern, or before that to trigger the release of the envelope, and try adjusting the envelope.
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Clicks and pops at the end of samples is something you have to learn to live with using the Tracker.
Bro that’s a bit harsh, I have 34,000 samples loaded on a 256 Gig SD Card. No pops, no clicks whatsoever.
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Thanks, I’ll try woth the signals and the envelope. The problem with it is that any such “interference” with the co stant drone sound introduces some unwanted variation , not pops maybe, but on the other hand some audible decay. Anyway, I’ll give it a spin, thanks!
Use ping pong instead.
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To add a possible solution and another explanation:
When you are working with a single pattern. Your drone sample will get restarted everytime you hit the first step again. Depending on the current playback position of the sample when that happens, it can of course introduce clicks as it may not be an ideal looping point.
One solution could be to have two patterns. A short one that starts the drone and a second pattern, where you keep that track where the drone is on empty… and use the remaining tracks for everything else / loop the pattern.
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That is an excellent idea! thanks:)
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actually, you got me wondering - if the drone is just a single cycle waveform, looped thousands of times during the duration of the pattern, and then at the end of the pattern, it ends at zero, the same level it will begin at when the sample is again triggered at the start of the next pattern loop, then there should not be a noticeable break in the sound just by “native” sample levels. Does the tracker ignore the envelope when looping the waveform through the pattern, but the somehow “rushes” to execute the release and attack part of the envelope when it detects that the sample is retriggered in step 1 again? Like “I’m looping the waveform, looping, looping, oh sh*t, a new sample, I have to do the release of this one, and the attack of the new one, quickly!” ?
Yeah, might be so.
But clicks appear on the same loop, the same pattern, just randomly.
It’s an erratic behaviour by the tracker, which has nothing to do with the samples as such. Never had a sampler before that played back so inconsistently, but I learned ro see it as a feature with the tracker.
Let’s face it… it’s not an E-MU and it never will be.
I just use more cowbell, its the perfect frequency to mask those pesky random clicks. Embrace the wonkyness it’s a delight.
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