Hi,
A new Renoise and Redux user here, and I have to say you should be really proud of both products. Especially Redux; as a first release of a VST plugin it is a really polished product with exceptional attention to detail! I will certainly be using it extensively.
I actually have a few questions and suggestions from my first use of Redux.
First, can you just clarify whether samples within Redux are automatically embedded within the the host/DAW project? That is, there are no external files saved anywhere that would also need to be backed up to ensure the project is self contained? I know that if you save a preset within Redux it bundles the sample into the preset, but I’m talking about not actually saving the preset within Redux but just saving your project within the DAW. There are only a handful of VSTs I know of that do this (New Sonic Arts Vice, IL SliceX and TW16Wx sampler are the only ones I can think of) and it’s such a brilliant approach to ensure projects play back as intended!
Secondly, I am really using the slicing features extensively and wondered if there was a simple way to preview an individual slice without having to press the appropriate MIDI note on the keyboard. It would be great if it was like Recycle, where you set the slicing sensitity and then can click within the waveform (maybe Ctrl+Click, or a separate slice audition button/mode you can choose from the toolbar) between two slices and this automatically plays just that one slice so you can then go in and edit the start/end slice markers to get things perfect.
Also, would it be possible for the slices to automatically adjust as you change the sensitivity value? Rather than having to change the value and then click the detect button, change the value a bit more, click detect, etc.? That would be a real time-saver. A few other features from ReCycle would be great additions too - the ability to right-click on a slice marker and lock it (so you can then drop the sensitivity and it remains) or “mute” (i.e. mark it as ignored)it so you can take the sensitivity higher and, unlike deleting aslice,it will stay muted.
Finally (for now!) the “Render slices to phrase” command is awesome (hopefully coming to Renoise soon!) but I think it would be better implemented as a dialog box rather than all the options being in sub-menus. If you want to tweak the options you need to right-click, navigate down a few levels of the menu, click on one of the options and the menu closes, so you right-click again, navigate down a few levels of menus to choose the next option, etc. It seems this would be simpler as a dialog that pops up with all the options available (and remembering your last used options) and a render/cancel button. Ideally a little button on the toolbar in the slice section to launch this directly would be great too as you’re likely to use this often when you slice samples. I wasn’t even sure the option existed until I explored the right-click context menu.
I’ve also had a few instances where I’ve tried the “render slices to phrase” option and it created a phrase of just one line with all notes on the one line. I’m not sure how to recreate this but it happened quite frequently. Is this to do with how Redux works out the length of a sample (number of beats, etc.)? I’m not sure how to set that actually and whether it makes a difference.
Many thanks - and again, great product!