Axs Style Controls For Performance

Ideas & suggestions
1

OK, I am a traitor :wink: I don’t *just * use Renoise for musicmaking…I also use AXS, an old tracker (from newstyle) with somewhat limited editor, but excellent controls for performance and realtime recording.

AXS was Fasttracker to me, in the transitional phase until Renoise came along. Been using the software since 1998, I know the keyboard inside-out and I think Renoise could benefit from a few of the controls, since they are uniquely suited to live performances and jam sessions… :guitar:

Here goes:

In AXS, the active pattern can be “shifted/rolled” by pressing SHIFT+INS/DEL. This is great for re-arranging drumbeats in realtime, moving 1st beats to 3rd position, and back etc…

An example of what happens when pressing SHIFT+INS, or SHIFT+DEL with a “pattern” of just 5 in length

Initial_|+INS |+DEL
00| C#1 | — | A#2
01| A#2 | C#1 | —
02| — | A#2 | —
03| — | — | —
04| — | — | C#1

As you can see, pressing SHIFT+DEL shifted the initial notes up one position, as a result the first C#1 was moved to the bottom.

Furthermore, in AXS the step size also determine the UP/DOWN arrows step size on the keyboard. Simple stuff really, but it enables you to make really interesting stuff with a basic melody or rhythm (adjusting the key repeat rate can be important to make this trick work). Would it be simple to make Renoise work in a simular way? I think so.

Finally, AXS has shortcuts for mute channels 0-9, by using SHIFT 0-9 (although Renoise with 1.27 has two “mute” modes, this functionality could also be transferred, possible with the addition of an extra modifier such as CTRL)

OK, can’t think of any more right now.

But these suggestions are “production proven” in the sense that I’ve been benefiting from them in years.

The actual keyboard shortcuts that I describe are taken straight from AXS, so if any of them conflict with Renoise shortcuts, just go ahead and change them. These suggestions are simply pointers.

2

I I have understood well your INS/DEL sugestion, you can already to this in ReNoise 1.27:

Press the play key, then ESC.

This way you enter the “edit” mode while the pattern is still playing.

Now you can do everything you already do in edit+stop mode; for example:
CTRL+SHIFT+INS: selected note column down 1 step
CTRL+SHIFT+DEL: selected note column up 1 step

3

IT-alien >> Nope, that’s not what I meant.

If you look at the ascii graphic, you can see that notes that are pushed below the bottom-most position will turn up at the top, and vice versa. Call it note wrapping, roll or whatever. What’s nice about this kind of editing is that it doesn’t delete the notes (nondestructive:-), just pushes them back and forth in the pattern.

Immensely useful for performance/jamming, there is however no way of capturing/recording such editing unless our beloved Renoise-developers become very creative (it is possible but never done in a tracker before)

4

More commands!!!

I forgot to mention another realtime command that AXS offers: increase/decrease value

It is simple to use: F11 will increase any numeric value in that particular column from the active cursor position downwards, while F12 will decrease (both has SHIFT as modifier, making the step size larger).

It is a bit like transpose in Renoise’s advanced edit, but not restricted to “just” notes. Any value can be manipulated, volume, cutoff etc. Also, the increase/decrease is sensitive to instrument/volume columns so that an instrument number can be raised or lowered in steps of 1 (or 10 if SHIFT is pressed simultaneously). Great command!!