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One of several previously working tones gone super quiet


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Hi,

I've tried everything I could think of for 7 hours. I'm stumped. Please help me.

Problem: My lead arrangement solo tone loads and performs the proper tone switch animation in-game but is so quiet it is inaudible unless I press pause and then I can hear a quiet tone when I strum.

Facts:

1. Same problem tone loaded in Tone creator is the appropiate volume.

2. It started when I tried to pack with DDC 3.2 beta (command prompt) but I don't see how DDC could be the cause.

3. I tried rebooting, repacking, refreshing XML's, creating new toolkit creator profiles, checking .tone2014 is identical to originally working tones, tone slots disabled and not disabled, unpacking my problematic custom and ensuring XML and tone are fine.

4. I have noticed that the toolkit now ads and id# in the XML for each tone numbering them from 0 and in order of first appearance in the custom. This is not authored by EoF. Might this logic have a bug in the conversion to .json? Probably not since my custom originally packed well with same version of toolkit.

5. Even No DD versions that worked before have stopped playing that tone at it's proper volume.

6. I even stopped packing with DDC and NoDD versions exhibit same problem.

7. I have not yet tried to uninstall the game or Windows (though my PC is working fine with everything else).

8. So I have 6 tones, 3 of which are identical to my lead solo tone. The two other lower volume copies work fine.

In case someone can attempt to pack my custom and check, I have provided a link to every element of the custom including .dlc toolkit file.

I'll admit I am using the 24Oct2016 nightly build of the toolkit (2933f3b1) which packed fine until a couple of days ago when suddenly just my lead arrangement solo tone went quiet! I had tried using the latest Nov 3rd build of the toolkit but that crashes on me when I try to generate, whereas 23Oct2016 version doesn't crash. So I can only report on the version of the toolkit I can run.

My PC:
OS: Windows 10 Home Version 1511, OS build 10586.633 - 64 bit, RAM 32GB
CPU: Intel® CORE™ i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00Ghz
AV: Haven't installed any - useless.  Even with them I have to re-install Windows every 6 months
.NET Framework 4.6.1

"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

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FIrst thing I noticed was your IntroLead tone is classed as "Lead" (in the dropdown box) and your Lead tone is also called "Lead".  I would change one to be "Low Output" or something unique at least.

 

I tried to make my own build using your files but with the newest toolkit rstoolkit-2.7.1.0-1fb0b831-win I get this error

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oZs0ta32KybVItNVFhRnhJOXM/view?usp=sharing

 

and when I hit generate a second time I get

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oZs0ta32KySVRYZmx2VDVzZDQ/view?usp=sharing

 

 

I think it has something to do with the .wems but I am not sure.  Maybe @@cozy1 could shed some light?

 

Its the first time I have tried to use this newest version of the Toolkit so maybe its unique to this version.  I'll try an old one...

 

 

 

Edit

 

Yep, loaded up the Toolkit save using rstoolkit-2.7.1.0-835b0852-win and it generated no problem

 

I'll pm you the .psarc (don't want to "release" something which isn't mine :D )

 

Basically I made sure all the tones had a unique tag (Distortion/Lead/Bass/Low Output etc etc).  I can't actually test it until later when I am on my own pc.

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FIrst thing I noticed was your IntroLead tone is classed as "Lead" (in the dropdown box) and your Lead tone is also called "Lead".  I would change one to be "Low Output" or something unique at least.

 

 

Given the limited selection from the dropdown box, I didn't expect having two different tones with the same classification would cause a problem. In fact I had wondered that last month and tested my custom with two different tones (actually same tone different volume), selecting "Lead" from the dropdown menu, and it always worked until now when suddenly either Rocksmith 2014 made a mini update and/or when I tried running DDC3.2 Beta. I doubt it is a DDC problem since now even NoDD  packings render the lead solo tone quiet.

 

I did test your repacking and the issue sadly remains.

 

 

 

I tried to make my own build using your files but with the newest toolkit rstoolkit-2.7.1.0-1fb0b831-win I get this error

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oZs0ta32KybVItNVFhRnhJOXM/view?usp=sharing

 

and when I hit generate a second time I get

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oZs0ta32KySVRYZmx2VDVzZDQ/view?usp=sharing

 

 

Yeah I get the same crashing of the toolkit with the latest Nov 3 build. I believe I got the identical error messages, with the Toolkit still with a moving green bar as if it was still trying to work.

 

 

I think it has something to do with the .wems but I am not sure.  Maybe @@cozy1 could shed some light?

 

Its the first time I have tried to use this newest version of the Toolkit so maybe its unique to this version.  I'll try an old one...

 

 

Hmm, the wems? What makes you say that. I have been developping this custom all year with the same wems and it always worked.

 

I also can pack with my current version of the Toolkit from nightly build Oct24,2016. I haven't had time to check all nightly builds in between. Our devs are quite prolific.

 

 

 

I'll pm you the .psarc (don't want to "release" something which isn't mine :D )

 

Basically I made sure all the tones had a unique tag (Distortion/Lead/Bass/Low Output etc etc).  I can't actually test it until later when I am on my own pc.

 

Thanks. Like I said, tried it and it has the same issue. :( I guess when you try the custom we'll see if the issue ius on my end or not.

 

 

Devs, I perhaps falsely am assuming it is a toolkit issue. If so I apologize for posting here. I have a feeling an operation I performed with the toolkit is sticking and causing me issue. At one point when trying to fix the error all my tones went blank in the toolkit (just name, set to Bass, -12db volume). Another repacking just locked up all the tones. So I assumed something the toolkit is doing is affecting me. And like I said the toolkit adds tone id's which EoF doesn't.

 

I also noticed you add the mysterious "unk5" tag in the bends which the ODLC do but no one could explain to me what it does. Do we now know what it does. Seems to replace the "bends count" attribute.

 

Plum, you could've posted here. You wouldn't be "releasiong" my custom. hahahaha.

 

Thanks Plum for you help and anyone who can help me. I'm totally stalled.

 

Cheers!!

"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

Check out the Tech Notes Tutorial Version 1.1 // Chordify Tutorial Rough Draft.

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The problem is your EoF file.  You did not erase the tone change to the solo, you overwrote it.  Given that the tone change occurs on a brand new beat/bar/section, it is more than likely that the overwrite occured on an identical millisecond (to the nearest millisecond denomiator EoF allows) 

 

The game engages the intro tone at the solo (as opposed to the "Lead" tone meant for the solo), manifesting all your problems.  There must be some lingering/conflicting tone change data in the XMLs produced by EoF.

 

Can provide evidence if requested.  Pretty damning stuff here though :D

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oZs0ta32KyTzhkUmtNZmlTTVk/view?usp=sharing

 

They way I built the custom that tone change should have said "Lead" not "Low Output".  The only tone with Low Output tag is the intro tone.  And I know from experience that the intro tone and main lead solo tone used to be identical.

 

I have subsequently built a working custom and have PMd you.

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Oh my goodness, @PC Plum, the solo tone is back and it is like ear porn for me!

 

So, now the fun part, doing on my end what you did on your end in the interests of self-reliance. It seems here your key statement is:

 

The problem is your EoF file.  You did not erase the tone change to the solo, you overwrote it. 

 

So I double checked my XML and, regarding tones it has nothing different than yours other than:

 

YOURS

    <tone time="290.13" id="3" name="StareLead" />

I guess you renamed the tone.

 

MINE

    <tone time="290.360" name="StareAtTheSunLead"/>

I even tried bringing my tone change earlier than yours (earlier than 290.130sec) and it didn't solve my issue on my end, still using the Intro Lead (Low Output descriptor) for the solo.

 

Using the unique Tone Descriptors such as Low Output, Overdrive or Lead helps diagnose the problem because when I name the Intro Lead riff tone descriptor "Low Output" and the identical but louder solo tone descriptor "Lead" then in the game when the solo arrives and "Low Output" mysteriously loads, which explains why it is so quiet since Low Output volume is -18.6dB and Lead is -29.6dB.

 

So something is undesirably loading "Low Output" tone instead of "Lead tone for the solo.

 

You say I did not erase the tone change, I overwrite it. What exactly do you mean? How did you determine that - I see no clues of anything wrong in the XML? What is the right way which I seemed to deviate from.

 

I tried, among other things, deleting the Lead tone from Track > Rocksmith > Tone Change > List >Delete  and did CTRL+SHIFT+T to re-add it and that doesn't solve this issue like it seems to do for you. I always get "Low Output" tone for the solo even though all the mechanics of using EoF and Toolkit seem to show everything as fine (and like you I'm not running DDC to rule out it being the culprit).  I even tried to re-import the tones from Tone Designer  and inspect the .tone2014 but they remain unchanged with the ones causing me trouble. 

 

So if you could provide a tiny bit more detail on what exactly you meant above overwrite versus erase I would be extremely grateful!

 

PC Plum, you efforts to help me are something I appreciate beyond words!!!
 

"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

Check out the Tech Notes Tutorial Version 1.1 // Chordify Tutorial Rough Draft.

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That's actually a bit of a large assumption "you overwrote it not erased it" :D

 

The problem might be to do with the fact the tone change lies exactly on a new beat, bar and section/phrase.  The must be some lingering data in the XML somewhere.

 

Its just too much of a coincidence that when you started this project the intro tone was the main lead tone, and now you spearate them this problem appears.

 

What I did was

 

- Erase existing change to Lead tone at solo

 

- Create a new tone change a few milliseconds prior to the beat/bar/section change using a brand new unique tone name

 

- Save EoF

 

- Open toolkit project

 

- Remove all arrangements

 

- Edit Lead tone name in the tones section to reflect what I used in EoF

 

- Re-add the arrangements (which are now "fresh" EoF XMLs)

 

- Build

 

 

To be honest I jumped a few steps through laziness.  If I had been more patient I would have did smaller steps to nail down the problem exactly.  But hey, it worked :D

 

 

I have a number of little quirks and processes when I make customs.  Some people do not agree with me on some things, and others have other ways of doing things.  Fully accepting that these statements may get hate mail... 

 

- I never ever make tone changes exactly on beats.  I always seek to a beat, then move ever so slightly before it, then create the tone change

 

- If I need to edit the positions or names of tone changes I generally erase all tone changes in my EoF arrangement, save the project (i.e. blank with no tone changes), then re-add them again.  This does not take as long as it sounds and it removes a fair bit of doubt for me.  I have ran into issues in the past editing tone change positions and names.  Better to spend 5 mins re-doing some work than 7 hours troubleshooting eh...  :D

 

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

Edit

 

In the lines you posted from the XMLs, mine has id=3 written in it.  Is this because I used a unique name?  Maybe because yours does not specify an id=n then the game gets confused.

 

Also, it might be worth searching the document for "290.360" to see what else occures exactly oon that new beat/bar/section.

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As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the XMLs. The problem is with the tone names and what gets written into the SNG file. Because of the similar names, the tone is replaced for some reason.

 

Tones named "StareAtTheSunL", "StareAtTheSunLe", "StareAtTheSunLea", "StareAtTheSunLead" get replaced with "StareAtTheSunLeadIntro".

 

A tone named "StareAtTheSun" (or "StareAtTheSunC" etc.) gets replaced with "StareAtTheSunClean".

 

For example:

  <tones count="6">
    <tone time="32.589" id="1" name="StareAtTheSunLeadIntro" />
    <tone time="62.106" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
    <tone time="116.544" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="290.36" id="3" name="StareAtTheSunLe" />
    <tone time="385.405" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="445.571" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
  </tones>

(PART REAL GUITAR XML)

 

Becomes:

  <tones count="6">
    <tone time="32.589" id="1" name="StareAtTheSunLeadIntro" />
    <tone time="62.106" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
    <tone time="116.544" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="290.36" id="1" name="StareAtTheSunLeadIntro" />
    <tone time="385.405" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="445.571" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
  </tones>

(SNG file converted back to XML)

 

Changing the tone name into something more unique makes it work as expected.

 

The id="x" is just something the Toolkit writes into the XML when you generate a custom.

 

I don't think removing all tone changes and re-adding them is ever necessary (at least it shouldn't be). You might need to remove and re-add the arrangement to the custom template if you edit the tone changes in EOF and that should make them work again. Except in cases like this.  :)

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I would suggest to avoid using the same naming convention as ODLC as the toolkit seems a bit of a pain when it comes to proper tone management and overwrite name a bit too carelessly.

 

The more simple and unique are the name the easier it is for everyone to get things straight directly.

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So @PC Plum your workaround of renaming the lead tone was the correct workaround! @@iminashi, you cracked the root cause of the problem! I finally got my lead tone resounding in all it's reverbing glory. I'm sorta jealous I hadn't thought to checkmark the "create XML from SNG" file.  :) It would have immediately shown that the toolkit conversion to SNG is the culprit.
 

So perhaps, after all, I did post in the right place. :)  @@Alex360 @@cozy1 (I don't know the names of the other active developers) do you think we should have the toolkit prevent inimashi's observations above from happening. I always even thought it was good form and recommended to have a tone named "SongTonetype". In my case StareAtTheSunLead and StareAtTheSunLeadIntro (same but lower volume) were treated in the toolkit conversion to SNG as StareAtTheSunLeadIntro despite  explicitly calling up each different tone change in EoF.  I'm quite surprised with inimashi's observation that StareAtTheSunL would automatically become StareAtTheSunLeadIntro in the game.

 

It is a long name but descriptive and Rocksmith Tone designer allows it.

 

Do you prefer I open a ticket in guithub?

 

For now I call it BlazeSatSLead and everything works. This below is what my working XML looks like now. Interesting that the letter right after StareAtTheSun_ is what determines the tone.... C--> Clean, D--> Dist, L --> Lead Intro

 

If there is no need for a fix, can we know the toolkit logic... I guess @@firekorn's recommendation of keeping it short well received.

  <tonebase>StareAtTheSunClean</tonebase>
  <tonea>StareAtTheSunClean</tonea>
  <toneb>StareAtTheSunLeadIntro</toneb>
  <tonec>StareAtTheSunDist</tonec>
  <toned>BlazeSatSLead</toned>
  <tones count="6">
    <tone time="32.589" id="1" name="StareAtTheSunLeadIntro" />
    <tone time="62.106" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
    <tone time="116.544" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="290.109" id="3" name="BlazeSatSLead" />
    <tone time="385.405" id="2" name="StareAtTheSunDist" />
    <tone time="445.571" id="0" name="StareAtTheSunClean" />
  </tones>

An immense thank-you to you all for your valuable help!!!

 

Edit:

 

Little Side Note: I now understand why my custom always worked and suddenly didn't.

 

Earlier this week I  thought I'd clean up my custom and name the EoF and Toolkit tone name the same as the exportable saved tone name:

 

So Toolkit and EoF saw: StareAtTheSunIntroLead (which worked fine)

Exportable saved tone: StareAtTheSunLeadIntro.tone2014

 

Then thinking I was just tidying up, I renamed the EoF and Toolkit to now be inline with the .tone2014 name and inversed "IntroLead" to "LeadIntro" so it became StareAtTheSunLeadIntro and now started to conflict with the louder identical tone I use for the solo: StareAtTheSunLead now both with a suffix starting with the same letter, "L". The tone in the dolo felt quiet because it was 10db quieter as per the desired volume in the Lead portion of the Intro.

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"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

Check out the Tech Notes Tutorial Version 1.1 // Chordify Tutorial Rough Draft.

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@@Berneer + @@iminashi = testers

anyway, I know about this issue It's because toolkit check tone names assignment and it has "starts with" call on string so if your string not exactly the same as other but starts with similar chars, it will pass that check and so you'll get another tone at your tone switch, I can set that check to exact matching to prevent this kind of issues, already noted this in code so it would be fast to fix :)

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Hi Alex360,

 

So I tried to pack my custom with your new toolkit verson dc66f038.

 

Sadly I got the error message as I got with the previous latest toolkit, which also PC Plum experienced with my custom component files.

 

This is the message and the error message's requested log appears in the folder linked below. The green bar keeps moving forever, well at leas the 15 minutes I've been preparing this post...

 

The toolkit I downloaded before that is a few versions older (24Oct2016-2933f3b1) but it works in packing my custom.

 

Folder to all pertinent files I sued to pack the custom with latest toolkit

 

Cheers!

"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

Check out the Tech Notes Tutorial Version 1.1 // Chordify Tutorial Rough Draft.

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hahah, sure, I just didn't even think of answering Alex's question by starting a new topic. :) Let me go find that topic and once we resolve it, I will come back here and confirm that the latest fix resolves this issue.

 

Edit: Found it:

http://customsforge.com/topic/33952-packing-error-with-rstoolkit-2710-1fb0b831-win/

"A dreamer is someone who wants beyond what is reasonable. A hero is a dreamer who cannot take no for an answer." (Martin Spina)

My Released CDLC - Blaze Bayley - Stare at the Sun & MacGyver Theme Song & Iron Maiden - No More Lies

Check out the Tech Notes Tutorial Version 1.1 // Chordify Tutorial Rough Draft.

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