I don’t think my explanation is as good as it can be, so here are some signal-flow-charts to show what it is I’m after. This is in response to a few replies to this post in a different thread. Behold my mighty MS Paint skillz!!
All levels for arrows represent the output level of the device relative to the original pre-DSP audio signal. All levels in devices represent any gain applied to the signal by that device. Thus a device that applies -6dB gain will output -6dB relative to its input signal. For simplicity all DSP chains are assumed not to affect the signal level.
First, we have what Renoise currently does:
Note that the Send is passing on an unaffected signal to the Mixer, but attenuates the signal passed to the Aux Return track by -6dB. This is how the Sends currently work when set to keep the signal.
Apply -6dB gain to the mixer output and you get this:
Now the levels of both the Mixer and the Aux Return are -6dB relative to the original signal, which is generally not desirable.
Now here’s what I would like to be able to do:
Being able to move a Send to the right of the Mixer (or add a new Post-mixer Send device) you can do the same -6dB gain on the Mixer and you get this:
Now the Aux Return Send level remains -6dB relative to its input, for a total gain of -12dB relative to the original audio signal.
Without this capability, Renoise will never be very strong in the mixing arena, especially for auto-mapping to control surfaces.