New Tool: Preclick

So, since this is a feature I’ve been waiting for…and now that we can do the scripting ourselves I decided to make it happen : )

Turns out Lua is not so bad. ^_~

Thanks to Bantai for TempoTap which I used as a base for this tool.

Metronome Pre-Click / Pre-Record tool.

Known issue : If you press a single keyboard note about midway into the countdown in no-GUI mode you may get a freak note 1/4 down your pattern. (Shouldn’t cause problems if you use the tool normally)

[b]v0.4

-Some syncing problems should be fixed…

-Now remembers the state of the current track, stays in solo mode if it was before recording.

-Doesn’t skip to the next pattern no matter what.
[/b]

v0.3

  • Synced start point, should work much better until I figure out how to move to a specific point in a pattern
  • Max clicks at 16, be careful with this, 16 clicks at 40 BPM will freeze renoise for a long time
  • All the tracks are now muted while the metronome is clicking

v0.2

-New binding option to trigger record without bringing the GUI up

v0.1

-Allows to set a number of metronome clicks or beats before the recording of the pattern begins
-Map to a keyboard shortcut with Edit->Preference->Global->Tools
-Set the number of beats from 2 to 8
-Option to stop the metronome after the pre-clicks
-Option to clear the current track in pattern before recording (Allows for multiple takes)

wow, now that is fast!

ha, nice! (:

Great :) it seems though that after the preclick it starts a bit too fast?

This’ll be a lovely little tool! Right now, I agree with epc - playback seems to start slightly too early. I also noticed a bug with 8 clicks in, clear track disabled, after doing a couple of test intros…it was playing notes from the entire pattern during the click. If I can replicate this, I’ll post back :)

Nice work!

Yep, I did that on purpose, it’s actually BPM dependent. so it’s wont be WAY too early at 300 bpm. The problem was that if i did not do this the first note was often too early and missed by renoise. Maybe i can make the delay a bit shorter though This is now fixed

As for re-recording on the same pattern where you have note already the script will play the notes (it’s actually playing the track) . I think I know how to fix it, will try some stuff tomorrow…

  1. MUTE (not off) everything
  2. Enable metronome
  3. Loop pattern
  4. Go to last X lines in the pattern
  5. Start playback.
  6. When looping to the first row
    6.1 Enable record
    6.2 Unmute everything
    6.3 disable metronome
    6.4 disable pattern loop

Er…

Recording to sample!!!

The best thing about your script is that it finally allows a click intro count for recording external audio from a mic or hardware! I personally never record directly to the pattern, but your script is the perfect accompaniment to Renoise’s new Autoseek; we can finally record and replay long samples properly.

So if you try recording to a sample from an external source using pattern sync and your click script, you’ll see that the delay causes some real problems :)

Actually, I (sort of) take that back; it technically doesn’t cause any problems, as the recording still starts perfectly in sync with the start of the pattern…but it throws the performer right off. And having said that, an early start when recording MIDI to pattern also throws the performer off, so I hope Renoise’s first note cutoff issue is something that can be solved with a bugfix request, if not in your script.

Finally, could I suggest that there’s an option for disabling the click once the song has begun? Not all musicians want to have the click track going during the take, especially if they have other tracks (percussion, etc.) that’ll help keep their time. It’ll also distract them if they’re going for a swung or free-time feel.

Cheers again!

This is already in the script :)

Shit, of course it is. That’s the second time I’ve run my mouth off since the beta release without reading a] tooltips or b] text that’s right in front of my bloody eyes. Excellent :D

Oh, to clarify, my point about recording to sample is that that’s why some people wouldn’t want to clear the track, and I’m glad you’ve got that option in there! And Suva’s proposed solution looks sound.

Ok I just made a new version V0.3:

It has:

  • Synced start point, should work much better until I figure out how to move to a specific point in a pattern

  • Max clicks at 16, be careful with this 16 clicks at 40 BPM will freeze renoise for a long time

  • All the tracks are now muted while clicking

awesome! ;] thank you

Nimitz:
Your tool has been drawn out of quarantine, so you can also update it in the tools folder now…:
http://tools.renoise.com/tools/preclick

Thanks for the update, nimitz, but I’ve just noticed that when it starts, it solos the current track. Ideal for some types of recording, but not when you need to play a live instrument along with a headphone feed of the rest of the mix! Please could you make this optional? (Not sure if it’s intentional; it didn’t behave like this before, so maybe it’s as a result of the other updates you’ve made).

Also, when counting in with four clicks, a fifth click plays as the tune starts. Sounds like this might be an artefact of Renoise’s weird ‘first-note’ behaviour, as described earlier, but I’m just pointing it out as it could inadvertently end up on somebody’s recorded sample ;)

That shouldn’t happen, I will fix this soon

As for the timing issues, this is mostly because renoise is somewhat inconsistent in the time it takes to do those functions, still trying to find some workarounds.

V 0.4

-Some syncing problems should be fixed…

-Now remembers the state of the current track, stays in solo mode if it was before recording.

-Doesn’t skip to the next pattern no matter what.

This version is supposed do do everything the tool was meant to do. I’m planning on adding a setting to change the clicks per bar on V 0.5, this way it will be easy to record in odd time signatures and such

Quick question - how beyond the intended scope of this plugin is it to add punch-in recording, so the pre-click would allow you to loop and overwrite the existing pattern continually. The pre-click is an absolutely neccessary tool for those that play live. The pre-click plus puunch-in are required for folks like myself who record live but need 10 consecutive takes to get a simple take right. =)

Well, right now you can bind any key combination to start the pre-click automatically, which works pretty well for multiple takes.

I suppose what you mean if having the pattern loop and clear itself automatically until you press space or a button to stop the script?

When I first started working with midi gear I used cakewalk (this was a long time ago) and the best way for me to play in my notes was to use punch-in recording. As opposed to try to explain it I think the easiest thing is for me to refer you to a 2 minute youtube video which I’ve included below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5p3NnfRnAE

The concept is you start by setting up a loop and playing notes in. Within this block of notes you establish a section for “punch-in” recording. Think of selecting a block of notes within Renoise. Once you have set your punch-in and punch-out markers, within this area you will overdub any existing notes while playing. As the pattern plays during playback you play your midi instrument along with it, and when you reach the punch-in marker Renoise will overwrite any notes in that section. This allows you to constantly play a riff over and over again, keeping the good parts but overwriting the mistakes until you have a perfect take. Renoise currently just adds more notes on top of the entire pattern continuously.

Punch-in is beyond the intended scope of your plugin (which has solved one very big recording problem), but I thought… maybe build on it because punch-in and overdub are the biggest things missing in terms of Renoise midi recording functionality.

I love the tool , but I have 2 questions :

would it be possible to hear myself playing when preclick starts ? All the input is muted as soon the preclick starts,
Takes (for me !) the reason to use the preclick away for now.
And could it be possible to put the auto solo-ing as a feature? I always play to rest of the beat.
That was it !