Idea: Distribute Samples To Layers.

Fairly simple idea, no idea if it’s possible…

So now we have the Distribute button in the Sample Keyzones, and what it does is distribute each slut to its own key. But when it comes to layering there isn’t really an easy way; afaik we have dragging from the disk browser and dragging from the sample slots, where you always have to get that damn basenote correct and stretch the box out…

It’d be nice if there’d be a tool that did this for you. Perhaps where you drag the samples into the slots, and then process it with “Distribute to layers”. :)

If you add automatic offset in tuning and panning for all the layers, either randomly or within a settable range, to your idea I’ll +1 :slight_smile:

unison, fattening tool ftw :drummer:

Well, if someone will make such a tool then make also one for layering single hit sounds.
For me it is annoying when i want to layer some snares and a large box appears instead of a single zone.
So one tool for this problem too please :)

This tool would make both synth layering and drum layering easier, CLAPZ. :)

First of all, I’ll be happy to inform you that even when dropped, you can change a KZ’s base note with a right click. This was the only way I had layered and transposed samples until I found the transpose/finetune setting in the instrument tab.
Second, very good idea, but do you have any concrete ideas? Just a tool for layering 3 kicks or 3 snares together after which you can transpose/pan/vol each one? I’ve been thinking about easier/more versatile drumkit generation but this idea is so easy I think I’ll build it right now and post it here in an hour :D.

Here you go. One hour, yeah, that may just as well and just as swell be interpreted as two and a half hours.
Layer All
warning, it’s destructive for your existing keyzones in selected instr. :P

:rolleyes:

O I didn’t work like 2,5 hours on it don’t worry ;D
You like? :P

I assume that, like me, he sees nothing there…

LOL.
everything i attach gets discarded by the darn virus experts :P
Or, maybe I forget that it’s an oldschool bb forum and I need to press attach as well.

Thanks for the tool!

@ E.H.V.A.H. SDC:

Dunno how hard it would be :slight_smile: , but could you also create an inverted version of your tool applicable to instrument slots with one sample? So the tool duplicates the sample N layers across the keyzone (where N can be defined by the user in some kind of tool pop up window), so afterwards the individual layers can be panned or tuned for easy unison or fattening purposes!

FUCKING HERO!! this will save me plenty of time. lots of love! :)

and jonas, if i understand you correctly, just throw the same sample in a few times? :s

Throwing a sample in the instrument settings / sample tab a few times doesn’t layer them automatically across, so that pressing the keyboard plays all samples at the same time. Ideally B) I’d have a fattening tool where you can say for example, duplicate 8 times and being able to specify a volume/panning/tuning distribution range that is automatically applied / divided across all samples. Would save some time imo.

Hey man I’ll think about it. It’s a little more complicated than this thing I just wrote. Also, do you agree just duplicating a sample in-instrument without parameter changes doesn’t make sense at all? That would be the same fattening effect as just doubling the volume…
Right now I’m thinking a GUI like: right click instr with one sample → Fatten…

  
+------------------------------+  
| Panning |  
| from <10 Left> |  
| to <10 Right> |  
| in <2> steps |  
|------------------------------|  
| Tuning |  
| from . semitones |  
| to <8>.<10> semitones |  
| in <15> steps |  
|------------------------------|  
| Create 30 duplicates? |  
| [OK] [Cancel] |  
+------------------------------+  
  

and pressing ok in this example would dup the sample 30 times and put 30 different layers on top of each other (15x2 steps).
Still if this is a good way to fatten… wouldn’t you probably have more control if you just have a lot of note columns and then render selection a lot? just a thought

[Edit]
thought about it some more and I’m not gonna build it because I think it’s useless. If one wants more panning range, increase the width on the track. More volume, put a gainer device in. Tuning, experiment with pressing multiple keys at once (at different velocities). If still this would be a very much wished for way of fattening (to say, in-instrument) one can always ctrl-tab to the samples list and press a lot of ctrl-D. Layer All will still work with that.

hence why I wrote down the ‘ideally’ bit in the post before :)

Looks interesting, though why over-complicate things by using different amount of steps for panning and tuning? And 30(!) layers, that’s one hell of a super saw sound! :wink: .cool though for experimentation! I’d try it out.

Interesting idea of using render to sample to selection, I’ve done it in the past, but didn’t think of it for this. Thinking about it some more :), how would you set up different tunings this way at the same time, impossible no? (or do you mean rendering the layers with other fine-tuning settings after one and other sequentially, instead of parallel and then make one instrument out of all the renders afterwards?).

There isn’t a tuning column or tuning pattern command, maybe you can fake it with 2XX or 1YY, and then render all the columns to selection at the same time, but that’s the work I’m trying to avoid, same for setting up different volume & panning values each time you’d want this.

You mean the width slider in the automation editor? That is something completely different then having a few layers mixed & panned linearly or logarithmically within a range, together with the original sample, it wont give you similar sounding results!

I wouldn’t want more volume, if anything I’d like the tuned layers volumes to be adjustable downwards, to get user definable balance between the original and detuned duplicates.

I think you’re misunderstanding the tuning bit in the request! I’m not talking about multisampling chords or different keys at the same time, but having different ‘fine-tuning’ settings for the different layers!

I think I’ll have to whip up such a tool myself once I get my head around Lua seeing I’m the only one interested in it!

Yes that’s where this tool comes in… Isn’t a lot more work to change the vol/pan/finetunes of each sample yourself.
But yeah, cool idea to randomize them in a given range. +1 :)

Because, maybe you want to get to layering and you definitely don’t want the low tones only to show on left channel and highs on right??? Anyway, music making, and this layering thing, is hard work and some manual labor always has to be done :P so good luck on trying to learn Lua, I hope I’ve helped you on the way a bit with filling the OP’s request and perhaps even with my ASCII mockup :D.

I think pan-layering a sound logarithmically from left to right, is a stupid idea. Please give me an example where it’s not. Also, I mean the width slider in the “Track DSPs” tab. And yes you can see it in the automation tab as well, I’m not too sure what exactly it does but I think it has something to do with Left&Right panning.

The Gainer dev also has the option to turn down a bit. -INF if I’m not mistaken. All (non-master) tracks also have pre and post volume.

You’re totally right in that I don’t get it. Let’s say we have one instrument with one sample. It’s a sinewave and it’s on repeat obviously. In this case, I really don’t see the difference in the end between having to 1. duplicate the sample a few times, doing some tuning/finetuning to some, and finally layering them with my tool and pressing Z or C-4 on a MIDI keyboard, or 2. just letting the sample play on different note columns in the same track, with different notes and/or velocities, rendering this to a sample and pressing Z or C-4 again. This is the last time I’m going to try and explain why it’s the same. Actually I think the really only difference is in the very detailed ‘finetuning’ option that Renoise provides for every sample.

Think more a Bell Curve at centre, rather than Logarithmic from one side to the other. You often want weighted spreads, rather than even distribution for both pan and finetune.

Master does also. Don’t know why you think it doesn’t.

You can not play different fine tuning in different note columns with the same sample! You would still have to load the sine wave into multiple sample slots or instruments, finetune them all away from the base note by hand, and then play and render. Coupled with the fact that a finetune of 1 is so small that you are going to have to render a sample of many seconds, if not possibly minutes, to get it to contain the whole variation in sound it gives you. Being able to do it with a script by automatically loading in multiple slots and changing finetune within a range is far, far easier!

Thanks for the explanation. Is this what the Width track parameter does?

I never said it doesn’t.

That’s where you’re right, and my point that I think this kind of layering is too custom or different everytime you want to do it, is still valid for me and I’m not gonna capture this behaviour in a xrnx tool… Just duplicate the sample and fatten/tune it yourself. :D