The problem with that is that I get ideas for what notes to play as I hear the chords, and I usually can’t play it on the keyboard at the speed in which the song plays (which I know I can adjust the speed, but that doesn’t help), and I never enter it at a consistent speed, and sometimes I don’t even know what notes I’ll play until I tinker with it in conjunction with the chords that are there, and if the note I enter isn’t right, I simply hit the up arrow and try another note, and try another note, and try another note until I get it right. That’s the whole beauty of entering it in edit mode. That is precisely how I used to be able to make such complex music on the Amiga and pump out a couple songs in an hour. It’s all because I was able to use the up arrow and try a different note, and try another note, and try another note again, and always be able to hear how the note sounds with what’s already in the song.
If it’s all about entering notes live, there are much better programs to use than a tracker program, which I’ve used plenty of: ProTools, Logic Pro X, Cakewalk, Reaper, I’ve used all the good linear-based programs which are far superior for entering notes live. A tracker program is, quite frankly, the worst interface for entering notes live, hands down. It’s an afterthought, it’s not a primary function of a tracker program. Anyone who has followed my music knows that when I’m forced to enter notes live, the complexity of my music goes in the toilet. Sure, I can make songs, but they’re the type of complexity that you’d hear a live group play, not the crazy stuff that can be done in a tracker program.
A tracker program’s bread and butter is its edit mode. Hearing the notes that are on the current line while entering a note used to be a basic function of a tracker program, that is, until around 2001 when techno became the definition of electronic music. Before then, if someone said they make electronic music, it wasn’t always assumed to be EDM, which now it is. People have been able to hear the notes that are on the current line_while entering a note_on a lot of the old tracker programs made before 2002, but for some reason the Renoise team doesn’t think it should be important. They’d rather keep adding options that make it easier to write techno, which never needs to be musically complex, techno music can virtually always be planned out long beforehand (because generally musically it’s as simple as most pop music), it’s all about complex effects, it’s all about the production itself, production in which you can’t even listen to reasonably in edit mode in the first place, you must hit play to hear that kind of production.
It makes me wonder whether I should get an old Amiga again and dig out my old keyboard modules again.