Kick Track Ignoring Filter and Volume Settings

Not sure what’s going on here but for some reason the kick track on this .xrns file is completely ignoring the pre & post-volume settings, and the filter cutoff settings on the digital filter.

I have the volume set to -INF on both the volume sliders of the track and a low-pass filter set to 0.02Khz with 0.00% resonance. If the kick track is soloed there’s no sound. If the grouped track containing the track: snare, hat 1, & hat 2 is soloed then there is still no sound. But when I play all the track together the kick track suddenly plays sound even though it’s volume settings are turned down and the filter is closed?

Anyone know what’s going on here or am I just overlooking something really simple?

Your drum kit instrument in slot 00 has a DSP chain that affects the output of the entire instrument.

That means that it can only output to a single track at any given time — one single stereo audio stream from the single DSP chain.

You’re trying to play that instrument through 3 different tracks simultaneously, resulting in them all fighting to be “the one”.

The end result is that the last active track — named “H2” in your song — is stealing focus from all the others, and causing the audio to be routed there instead.

The notes on tracks “K” and “H” are all being forced through “H2” instead.

You’ll need to either remove the DSP chain from the instrument and put it on the track(s) instead, or split your sounds out to different instruments, or play all drum sounds through the same track, etc…

Ah right ok. Thanks dblue.

I removed the DSP chain and everything works as it should. What exactly is it about the DSP chain that’s causing that to happen? I tried to replicate it with a different drum kit just to see if the same thing would happen but it didn’t?

I tried to replicate it with a different drum kit just to see if the same thing would happen but it didn’t?

The notes on each of the three tracks are all playing separately, never together at the same time.

Renoise will try to makes things work by switching the instrument’s output to whichever track appears to currently have the main focus.

In this particular example Renoise is able to switch the instrument’s output from track 1, to 2, to 3, just in time for each note to play more or less correctly.

Try playing notes on all 3 tracks at the same time and you’ll see it immediately fails.

As I mentioned before, the reason for this is the DSP chain essentially forces/mixes the output of the entire instrument down to a single audio stream, meaning we can only route it to a single track at any given time.

Let’s say your instrument DSP chain has a ton of reverb on it, and you’re playing a kick, snare, high hat, etc., all at once.

You have the kick on track 1, the snare on track 2, and so on.

The output from the instrument is just a mess of reverb coming from all the sounds in your drum kit, so there’s no way for us to separate that and then split it between all the different tracks.

This limitation doesn’t apply to instruments without DSP chains, because internally it’s very easy for us to simply route the raw sample to another track.

But once you start processing the samples with DSP, then these limitations take effect, and you need to start thinking more carefully about the exact routing of each sound.

You can still have instruments with DSP chains and then route each chain directly to a unique track, you just need to be aware of the limitations and kinda plan for it from the start.

Great. Now I’m off to sit in my corner