So… I’m writing out .WAV files with Renoise, and it’s all lovely and all (especially the SINC-thing, although it takes a great amount of time).
But… I’d really like to be able to link several tracks into one .WAV-file instead of having “n amounts of channels” (say 32) stereo WAV files and one master and some Send .WAV’s. THis way I could minimize the tracks down to some 8 or 12 or whatever.
I know you can put out more than one column of notes in one track (extending the track or whatever) but say that i want all drums in one track. I have this one bassdrum and one snare trig on the same step but only the snare should use the retrig command, then I’ll have to put that in a new track, and all of a sudden i have one more drum .WAV that i didn’t want.
I more thinking of assigning specific tracks to a specefic output .WAV. That way I won’t have to redo soloing/mute:ing 10 times because of changes in the module and what not.
maybe it’s to complicate to organize this in a visual way … it must be shown that instruments are picked or not etc. … but i miss a mute function for single instruments (VSTi) too … maybe in the instrument setting it’s possible to add an on/off button? … like in the midi-instrument option.
it’s sometimes a litte bit annoying to work with the track-solo/mute-functions/switches and i don’t can mute a instrument for a longer period of composing. ok, i can set the volume to zero … but this isn’t a good solution.
maybe a track mute/active-lock button is also an useful improvment!
Im beginning to think of something more of a “Song-setup” -screen where you could set up all the specifics for the song your’e making. Say that you could change routing of instruments or tracks/columns into Groups (like a mixer-group) that also becomes a separate WAV-out (or instead of amixer group it’s just an output to a separate WAV-file).
I think that this could be adding the need for a Cubase like mixer interface, or maybe something like the eMagic Logic environment.
maybe it could be managed over a seperate screen with something like cable-stuff in Reason or some Midi-Routing utilities:
maybe in a seperate screen you see all tracks and for every track the used instruments.
now you can add an unlimited number of seperate wav-writer-objects (files) and route different tracks and instruments to this objects. tracks/instruments/wave-writer-objects could be linked in a visual way with a cable or something like this. don’t know …
but is this really needed? for me it’s enough if it’s possible to render seperate tracks and columns … hm
long time ago - as i started with tracking - i also made chaotic edited mods - and i don’t want to re-edit this songs today!!!
but at some time you will force a systematic order in editing your songs … it helps you in long term …
i think intelligent advanced pattern operations are a more useful enhancement (e.g. collecting the notes of one instrument to one track/or special columns with defineable sorting functions … maybe a simple macro/scripting language could be useful in Renoise)
it think a small script-language with totally simple commands is ok and without any complicated programmer stuff (arrays, loops, if/then, functions, classes) that all people could understand …
I love the Idea, for me it will be very usefull to sorten old messy mods with instruments shifting around tracks.
Some sorting feature will be even better than adjusting the WAV-writer.
Because then we would have a better/easier way to mix and aply effects to the tracks.
You are the hero of my day today! Brilliant suggestion!
Say that you have a top interface above this scripting interface, something similar to setting those rules in your ordinary mail program. Underneath that you could edit the specifics of such as script (in the same fashion that you described).
Please bear in mind that it is a really fast sketch and that there’s hardly any thought behind were things are placed and all that, but i think it gives a general idea of how it might work.
The “Advanced Edit…” button would lead to the script editing page that Alexander described.
… don’t know … some times ago in the 90s macro functions and scripting in software was a popular thing ( that’s my feeling - don’t know) … i also remeber AREXX on Amiga … today there is windows and visual basic … but knowbody needs it really (who need microsoft in gerneral ) …
you asked me about an interface … there is no need for an interface … a simple small (text)editfield and 20-30 simple possible commands … the commands will be processed line after line (by pressing a RUN button) with automated syntax checking - it must be very user friendly and also useable by people that knows nothing about any programmer stuff …
and in this way it should be possible to load/save this “script-snippets” …
a couple of snippets could be included in the Renoise-installer … so all hardcoded enhancements of the current advanced edit could be unnecessary coz it could be possible to realize (nearly) everything with the RAEscipting (Renoise-Advanced-Edit scripting)
maybe … the current Advanced Edit and the exisiting buttons could be changed to free definable “load-and-run”-script-snippets-buttons … or something like this…
the list of enhancements to Renoise is big in my brain … but i don’t know … the list of enhancements in the brains of the Renoise-Dev-Team is bigger … but maybe sometimes … who knows …
I was kind of thinking that the Advanced Edit button would lead you to the “text-edit” mode in wich you could lay your scripts!
Of course there’d be need for more buttons probably, or maybe changing the way they work, what they do. My sketch was made in 3 minutes or something so it’s just to get ideas started for those people that are more keen on looking at pictures rather than reading peoples ideas and trying to visualize them in their heads. This means that my mock-up interface in no way is something that has been entirely fool proof
The general idea, that I like, is to have somewhat of an easy going interface.
You have this wonderfully simple interface that allows you to easily sketch up stuff (this actually counts for every part of the program). In this case it allows you to make up “simple rules”/“a rough sketch up” for in what way you’d like your sounds/tracks/whatever be routed out to a .WAV-file. Some users would be completely fine here…
Then we have all of those tech-heads/modifiers/“Advanced users” that have this urge to modify and make more advanced configurations. They could easily just first make the rough sketch (the script is built by the simple interface) and then take it even further by pressing the “Advanced edit…” button and then all of a sudden angels play trumpets, children and old women are singing and all will be good and blissfull (wich is a big understatement). Suddenly you can edit your own script from what the simple interface built up for you, or if you’d wish you could just skip the easy to use interface by clicking the “Advanced Edit…” button and you’d write everything from scratch. Load an old script or save the one you just edited by clicking the corresponding button.
Sorry if I’m being unclear at times, but I usually think that even if ideas are rough at times they get better by being taken in part by more people at once rather than them being inside my mind (possibly rotting away and getting forgotten).
I have a hard time seeing the use for this feature… maybe because the way I structure my songs. For a start I would never use a render instrument to wav even if it was implemented. I always put separate instruments on separate tracks and sometimes even split up one instrument into several tracks to be able to put EQ and effects on them. And that’s the reason to render a wav the way you describe it too, right? (or am I missing something here?). So for me it seems only like a slower way to achieve the same thing…
Anywho, I really like the scripting idea, but would rather see it as a way of manipulating patterns and sequence, launched as a hotkey.
Well, the idea, wich isn’t by any means finished, is that you could either choose to put several instruments, or several tracks or several instruments and tracks into one single .WAV file, instead of getting one WAV file per track or one Master-out-Wav file as it is right now. This could be set for as many files as you’d like. the point is that renoise will remember how you set it up, and you don’t clog you harddrive up with 5 million 32-bit (float) 96 kHz wave files.
The per track is good as long as you’d really really would like 32 or more wav-files per projects, but as you might imagine it get’s quite tiresome for those that don’t have diskspace and/or disk-speed enough for it.
Today:
There’s a problem if you’d like to have, say, all your drums in one WAV-file (this is just one example) and the only way to do this is by 1) either merging the track-WAV’s into one .WAV each time you output them or 2) programming the track so that you have all your drums in one track.
The problem with the first part of this would be that it’d be a hassle if you need to render your song many times, as sometimes you’d need to make adjustmens in renoise and then redo the WAV-files.
The problem with the second part is that if youre programming drums with loads of effect commands such as retrig and such youd be getting retrigs on all sounds on the same line on the track your put them in, which would render that way of tracking pretty useless.
Tomorrow (or maybe never):
You could see this whole idea as having your standard mixer, but with an infinite amount of sub-groups (them being the actual WAV-outputs).
Doing it this way, you could have all your effects per track and you could track the way you want and you could output your 2000 wav-files (if renoise permits you to have that many), or you could set-up renoise in a way that you’d like to have your instruments and/or tracks routed to WAV-files and you’ll have a cleaner (i think) set of .WAV’s. You’ll get (i think) less time writing out the WAV-files and you’ll also have a nice way to pick exactly what track/instrument you need that extra .WAV-file for in case you redid something you had to intput to your favourite HD-recording/studio program where you have set up your final mastering mix.
Something like that. Loads of text today…
Keep asking away or adding to my idea or whatever… i hope im not being too fuzzy on my ideas, although I’m quite aware I might be at times.
Hmm, no you can render several different tracks into one wave file from renoise today by muting the tracks you don’t want to be rendered and then render as song…
Yeah, i know i can, but is that really a good and userfriendly interface for doing this?
I want something that remembers my settings everytime. Something that is a little bit more flexible than having to mute some 48 channels and then un-muting them to mute some other 54 channels to make some new EAV-file, and on, and on, and on, and on…
I don’t know about you guys, but to me that seems like wasting an awful amount of time just muting/un-muting everytime you have had some things redone in renoise and you need new files for use in, say cubase or cool edit or wherever you post-process your work. Also this means youd have to have a list of wich channels were put into what .WAV and all that
It’s really a wierd way to do it. Many don’t even know of this possibility. Anyway I think a simple and easy solution (as a start) would be an interface for grouping of tracks in the render dialog (i.e. not rendering instruments) that also is saved with the song. Have no idea how it could look right now…
This has a major advantage as these things are already possible now, only the GUI and saving are missing. Render instruments would probably take a lot of time to implement…
