simulation: Mushen wants to make a sequence of bass notes every 8 steps and wants note offs 6 steps after each note. Mushen uses ctrl+8 and (auto-off)+6. Mushen proceeds to hold the key down until the column is filled
i imagine it working something like ctrl+number setting the auto step. same process yet does not move the note focus around. so say you hit (button for auto-off)+number, on keying in a note, an off note will be generated that many steps after.
one issue i foresee is what if the auto-off step length oversteps an already keyed in note. if there are notes in the column within range, it would just not generate the off note, but would genereate the off note according to your desired length only in working scenarios.
[11:50pm] Mushen: but i’m surprised the note-off feature didn’t already exist, seems so essential
[11:50pm] MickRip: but it would be nice to use a tracker within a tracker to make an instrument a macro.
[11:50pm] Mushen: not saying it wouldn’t, just that i want note-offs asap
[11:51pm] Mushen:
[11:51pm] Mushen: whichever way it can be achieved
[11:51pm] MickRip: just track it
[11:52pm] Mushen: that’s 100% more notes to key in
[11:52pm] MickRip: you lazy bastard
[11:52pm] Mushen: technology is for lazy bastards!
[11:53pm] Mushen: that’s like walking when you could easily craft a bicycle
[11:54pm] MickRip: walking is sometimes healthy
[11:54pm] MickRip: but I agree with you
[11:54pm] ralph: yeah, can you craft me a bike? i gotta go buy cigs
This is interesting…I am in fact experimenting with using an instance of Renoise to control another, like MickRip suggests. And I was suggesting something similar just a few days ago, having experienced that changing song position via MIDI causes “note off” events to be skipped, with hanging notes as the result. However, this problem wouldn’t be solved by automatically inserting “note off” commands, since the note off event is never actually reached.
Okay…If we can come up with a solution that could improve the Renoise work flow while solving the hanging notes issue, everybody is happy!
This is what I suggest:
Imagine that any instrument could have a “duration”, with a range going from “infinite” (default value) to “X” number of ticks. When a duration of 50 ticks are chosen, and playback started, a note will stop after 50 ticks unless a note off event was already received. When going into editing mode, the duration could be translated in real time into a “–” (note off) in the pattern editor, in the way that Mushen describe.
Implemented this way, Renoise work flow would stay exactly the same until a duration was set, and the note-off length could be set on a individual instrument basis.
It could perhaps even be visually indicated that note off events are automatically generated by having the actual “–” (note off) slightly transparent until note is set ?
Slightly disagree with danoise’s suggestion though, I think noteoffs should either be in the pattern data or not, no ‘virtual’ note offs for me, it could get fiddly if you wanted a single note to be very long.
I reckon there should be a number box next to ‘edit step’ called ‘note length’, no idea how this could be squeezed into the GUI though…
The box should default to – (infinite note length), and then allow you to dial in / type in any number from 01 to FF.
Auto noteoffs should only be generated in empty pattern data (not overwriting other notes).
I like danoise’s idea of a transparent ‘OFF’, but instead it could be used as a guide when ‘note length X’ is chosen, by constantly being visible in the pattern editor X rows down from the cursor.
If you held down the |>| button next to ‘note length’ you would see a transparent OFF whizzing down the screen away from the cursor.
Very long, or never-ending? Just for comparison, notes played thru the MIDI instrument currently has a maximum duration of 8000ms. That is enough for me, when using Renoise to generate MIDI data - but of course, some may want an even longer value…
From my standpoint, having an “auto off” for samples, just like the MIDI instrument, would solve a number of issues (especially when changing the song-position in realtime). The current option in preferences (a global “note-off” when changing the song-position) is simply too drastic!
To elaborate: since note-off events support the delay command, this value could either corresponds to a “tick”-based time, or (perhaps better) be split into two seperate boxes, one for #notes, another for #ticks?
Here’s a note-off event using the panning column for tick-based delay:
