Brainstorming: Arranger

Ideas & suggestions
221

OK, so it looks no one really cares about the arranger any more. Or maybe it has already been decided how it will look like and there’s nothing more to discuss about?

Anyway, expanding on my idea expressed few posts above, I’ve managed to make some sketches of what I have in mind :)

So, imagine a blank endless pattern with lets say 5 tracks:

Now:

  • select a group of notes
  • from the context menu choose “Create new clip”
  • enter a name and (optionally) a group for the clip
  • add it to the pool for later use

The ‘R’ and ‘T’ parameters denote number of rows and tracks for the clip, which means the clip can contain more than one track data.

When you have a clip in the pool, you can re-use it simply dragging it from the pool to the pattern.
Additionally, if you make any changes to the clip, all other instances of it will be updated.
Of course, there is no need to create clips - if for example you know you want to play some sample only once in the tune, you can simply put the note to play it and leave it there. Clips are there as an extra layer of information.

So, you create more clips…

…and couple more…

…and finally you end up with a complete track (well, sort of anyway)

Now, the best part. With something like this you do not really need any special arranger. Instead, you just zoom out the pattern data (CTRL+mouse wheel - Excel style!) to see how your song looks like globally. Maybe at some point of the zoom the pattern data should be replaced with WAV image or something? You then can move the clips about, add / delete them to the tune etc. In short, play around with it.

At any moment you can zoom in and go back to fiddling the hex parameters :)

Now, there are people who frown at any mention of arranger.
For them, there should be an option to automatically create clips containing e.g. 64 rows in all tracks. This way clip = today’s pattern. Of course, it would be possible to change the length of the clip.

In the end, zoomed-out song in an old-school approach would look like this :

Pretty familiar, eh? On the right you’d then have a pool with clip (patterns) and you’d arrange them in zoomed-out view. Both worlds combined!!! :)

Now, I’m not sure how the automations should be included in this. Probably, the best way would be to create another layer of clips? The effect chains would still be tied to the track, to provide backwards (and old-school) compatibility, but maybe sometime in the future there could be two levels of effect chains & automation - one for clip and one for track.

What you guys think of it?

:)

222

I like what I see!

223

Thanks :)

And I’d like to see that implemented sometime in the (near?) future. I wasn’t able to finish a track in Renoise for 2 years, simply because I have no time. I’m using it like 2-3 hours a week (scattered over few days, which mean 0.5-1 hour long sessions), which means that when I get back to the song I already forgot what was where and I loose the flow and inspiration… Besides, that would allow drawing sketches of the tune much faster - you wouldn’t do that copy/paste pattern stuff so much just to remove a kick at the end of the sequence. Instead, you’d just simply clone the selection of clips and add a new one at the end.

What I like about this idea is that you don’t have to change screens (and orientation) to go to the arranger - you simply zoom-out and voila - you have an overview of your tune.

Also, this could be transparent for old-school users. Don’t like clips? Don’t use them - let Renoise automatically create patterns for you and all you do is move them about, more or less like you do now.

224

Pretty much what we have been discussing internally too.
All the things you are describing have been thought of. :)

For instance this and this picture was made a long time ago. They show a special arranger window with the clip list. The clip list will of course also work directly in the pattern editor exactly like you describe.
Clips will however be automatically made when you enter anything in an empty track in the pattern editor (the clip will be default one pattern long) to keep it backward compatible. Then you can alter the clips by selection/create new from selection/merge/split/resize etc…

Also hide options in the clip list to hide different types of clips etc.
Preview options, both audio and graphical.

There is a long story behind those pictures. But you should understand most of it. But some cool layering options have been considered too etc…

225

Wow! Great to hear all that - with some sort of solution like that Renoise will be perfect!!! :w00t:
I’ve read yesterday through this thread from start to finish, so I assume those pics you posted are from another thread, right? Got to read it all, I suppose :)

So, when can we expect it? :rolleyes:

226

Finally, a comprehensible, very realistic and quite clever design idea, summing up (to my great joy!) the ideas that I like so much in Arguru’s Aodix.

Personally (and sadly) I had to put Renoise away since 1.8, because of lack of essential things (proper routing and arranger) and I’m using Aodix because it seem to be the only thing at the moment that makes the job done for me (and honestly, because of the mixing quality too, which, I hope, will improve in Renoise.)

Now with what I have seen above, if the dev and the community approve this design basis, I feel great hope for ver 2.0! This has the new beginnings of an ultimate tracker.
Cheers.

227

I’ve just posted this on the KVR forums - renoise thread- my first experience of renoise - Just bought my licence yesterday - seems to be relevant to the discussion here:

Beginning of rant.

well, after a three/four hour session of tutorials on renoise I learned some stuff, but I had a headache (really). But Im not giving up yet.

A year and a half ago I knew nothing about audio recording and have since done a full time course in music tech and sound engineering and song writing. And I can say down the line that I have a good grounding to keep on learning and the whole sound engineering in sequencers feels comfortable now. And I’ve learned my way around my virus TI. So i’ve tackled some difficult areas.

But renoise is like a culture shock. It is completely different. And may loose me through being overcomplicated. And through me asking is it really worth it.

I feel, with renoise that i’m back at day one with logic cubase or pro tools. It is completely different. But I get the feeling it’s also much more complicated (than even logics environment!!! and im still struggling with that over a year on). And I wonder if it could be made more accessible and less scary.

Im going to be patient and keep up the tutorials, but what is getting to me is all the numbers and letters. A lot of the GUI is intuitive and I get a lot of it. But the letters and numbers have the potential to scare me away.

Im not someone who likes computers; they are necessary to achieve my goal of writing music, and yes, they make it possible for me to have a studio at home. But renoise seems to verge on the ridiculous for being complicated. You seem to really have to be into computers to use it. ( I don’t like using the computerkeyboard too much when composing. I use my midi keyboard). But maybe i’m wrong and thats the nature of the beast.

And if it scares me, I guess it will scare off a lot of others which would be a shame because it looks like it has the potential to be great. Is there a possibility that the developers will make it more accessible?

I also don’t like the sound of the comments ive read of people who use it “trackers” who don’t want too many changes- to keep renoise different. I think that is wrong - it needs to be made as accessible as possible - to allow more people to gain access to its strengths. It does things which other sequencers seem not to.

Renoise looks to have great potential for music making. But many more headaches and that will be £50 down the drain.

Rant over.

www.garageband.com/artist/jigjaw

228

Trackers do tend to attract the more nerdy character (myself included), so maybe it’s just not for you?
It also depends what style of music you’re making, some styles are more suited to trackers than others.
Keep trying though, I’m pretty sure just about anyone can get used to working with hex patterns. I remember being pretty terrified of ProTracker when I first got my hands on it.

Back on topic:

antic - your clip arranger idea gets a huge stamp of approval from me!

Pysj - those mockups look very interesting, care to share some more details?

229

That is exactly how I felt years back when I outgrew madtracker and was about to learn logic. It was all so confusing … But then renoise came along and I didn’t have to anymore. phew.

Renoise is different. I learned “tracking” years ago and I stick with it now, but I am definately not someone saying “it’s the best”, I am just used to it and I feel like it works for me.

I think renoise is very nerdy. The Hexadecimal-System alone is a shock for everyone not used to it, but on the other hand, once you got the idea it is a real bliss because it is based on 16 (16th notes) and some stuff is simply easier to do this way. Also VSTs got controller-values of 0 to 127 or 0 to 80hex, and I really prefer to remember that 40hex is a half of that (instead of 63). This maybe abit like (f.e.) the colorspace of a computer vs. real colors, I know alot of designers who never grasp the idea of RGB, when they have a colour and want a darker tone they always look the values up in their colour-table instead of doing some simple math with the RGB-Values.

Please just ignore those few people. Simply put : What do you think, will the developers listen more to a few users saying “leave it as it is” (=stop development) or to those users making valuable suggestions to add functionality ?

230

Hi Paul,
Maybe it would have been easier for you to decide if you played more with the demo version.
The demo version is fully functional (for as long as you desire to use it, so no trial-period) with exception of rendering output and ASIO support and you see a nag-screen now and then.
Plus you would have gotten the support here for the demo version on the board as well, we don’t split registered users from unregistered users.

About your worries considering the progress of Renoise and the influence of users here:
There are a lot of registered users here on this board with various taste for desired features.
Yes some of them rather would stick to old values whereas others support moving on.
If you look at the history of Renoise back to date, you may get a confirmation on the question wether Renoise will advance in techniques and features in the future.
To get this evidence of that, i suggest you to go to the download page and go to the bottom of it, then start downloading the 1.1.1 demo edition and slowly download 1.27 and upwards.
And there is more to come in the future so i would not worry about that in your case.
Also your license is valid until V2.9, just check how many years have past since version 1.1.1.
It will take a while before you can consider your financial support a waste if Renoise has not been advanced in the desired manner(s) that you would have expected.

Meanwhile, don’t hestitate to report your issues here, we’re all here to help eachother.
It takes a little while to get used to hex numbers, but some things are a lot easier with it once you got the hang of it. Don’t give up too quick, you might find your workflow quick enough.

Vince.

231

Spot on.

:yeah:

232

Thanks guys :)

What makes me even more happy is the knowledge, that more or less similar idea is seriously considered by developers (vide Pysj’s posts). Can’t wait to see it, to be honest :dribble:

233

please forgive my ignorance, but i wonder how is this arranger proposal different then the way Buzz has it’s arranger ?

234

If you’re talking about the idea I proposed, then it is indeed pretty much similar to Buzz’s.

But, the difference is you’re still working/editing a pattern (not on a single track) and can overview tracks side by side - this is what all old-school people demand. You don’t have to change the screen to go from ‘track editing’ to ‘arranger’ - you just zoom out the view and are instantly able to see the big picture. It is up to the user whether or not use clips and how wide they should be - you can have one-track clips, but you can also have them spanning for 2+ tracks. Ultimately, you can have clips equal in size to today’s patterns (last picture in my post). That was the idea - to merge the two approaches, making sure that it’s still backwards compatible.

235

Nice visualization antic, I’ve also tried to voice the idea of sticking with the vertical pattern editor as much as possible for other features… mainly because the transition between modes would be more seamless and intuitive than switching between several screens with different layout. I like consistency in a program, once you learn the basics the rest is easy to figure out by playing around a bit.

Like…

  • If I need to edit larger chunks - simply zoom out. I can keep my eye on where I am in the song while doing it.

  • Automate something - open the automation column for that track, alongside the notes etc… automation can also be made into separate clips.

  • Piano roll, same thing - open a vertical piano roll column.

I believe this would make Renoise more user friendly, rather than switching between screens learning a different GUI for each feature.

236

Personally I’m not so sure about that.
And I don’t mean the vertical vs horizontal thing… I could not care less about that. I have no problem switching between those modes. However, the benefit of NOT having everything in the same editor is that you can split the views simultaneous. So for instance like now you can see both the pattern editor (part of it) and the automation for the entire length of the pattern on the same small screen.
Some ppl like that. Some don’t. But at least you can choose then.

To me, zooming extremely in and out all the time will just change the view so much that it can just as well be an entire different editor. Also remember that you will/should be able to compress the width of the track/clip (or you can end up only be able to see 3-4 tracks at once if you use many note/fx columns).
The benefit of a horizontal clip editor is that it can be very compact. And more easy on the eye reading the text.

Also. People having large/dual screens etc could later benefit from having different editors open at once.
I often prefer keeping two windows open, each with different zoom views, then to zoom extremely in/out all the time (when I have the screen space for it). But thats just me.
That said, of course we can expand the functionality of the pattern editor itself. But also from the coding point of view I would think its easier to do this in an external editor first.
In addition to that we also have to take into account how much we actually wanna ‘clutter’ the pattern editor.

To me I don’t see any solution in the pattern editor that will entirely function as an compact arranger.
As said, to make that work you would have to change so much of the view that I don’t see the benefit of it.
But if a separate fully featured arranger should be vertical or horizontal, that we can discuss.

just MHO

237

Nice sketching Antic.

What about replacing group names, with a bunch of pre-made folders matching the track names?

Labelling any row might be helper to keep overview, like how we label patterns now.

I’ve always liked Adobes hand tool [ALT+LEFT MOUSE BUTTON DRAG] to move the canvas, this could be handy if you have to use the mouse for placing clips around the tracks… actually i’d like it anyway… huhu

238

That is why I proposed, that at some point of zooming-out the pattern data (notes, pans, vols & fxs) would be replaced by some sort of graphical representation - be it simple rectangles, or probably even WAV-pictures with rough automation envelopes. That’s why you wouldn’t get 2-pixel tall letters, that no one can’t read anyway…

I don’t agree. You know that in racing or FPP games they store the whole level in memory and only render the part you’re seeing through the eyes of your character? Why? Because it is much more convenient from the coding point of view that way - you just keep minimum amount of information of what you can’t see (skeleton of the scene, info about textures etc.). Similarly here - Renoise knows how every pattern looks like, so I assume it’s not a problem to draw (“render”) all of them and combine them into a single bitmap, which you could zoom in and out.

In fact, that kind of solution would be awesome to see even at this stage - without the arranger. Just imagine - now you can see only few lines of current pattern (in 3 sizes, depending from font you’re using). If you could zoom-out, even at the cost of visibility, ultimately you’d be able to see your whole song or at least a big chunk of it. This would be a simplified overview (without clips to move etc. yet), without much use but it could be a good test whether the solution I proposed has any viable usage or not :)

Thanks :) I don’t think I mentioned it, but I’ve done it in Excel :ph34r:

That is easily solved - Renoise could automatically suggest the name of the group when you create the clip based on the track name. If you don’t like it, you’d simply change it.

Yeah, that’s a good idea. It would be neat to see the additional text-track before track 1, where you’d be able to put some notes or descriptions.

239

Which was my point. You basically get a total different view, and if it should be functional too, it will probably have different functions then the pure pattern editor. So thats why I ask if this is of any benefit vs a separate arranger. My second point about a separate arranger is that you can see the whole song and a zoomed in pattern editor at the same time. If you have the screen space you can very easily navigate in your song by for instance just pressing/activate a clip in the arranger window, and you will instantly jump to that clip in the pattern editor. You see my point?

But let me say again that I know what you are talking about, and how you think about this. I and others suggested exactly this from the very beginning, but there are many obstacles in the way.
To show/handle clips directly in the pattern editor (insert/move/resize/split/merge etc) might sound like something easy to implant… it is not. The pattern editor it self is a complex and quite limiting beast. Even something basic as running out of shortcuts/modifier keys to do all the expected arranger features if you have an ‘all in one editor’ is actually a problem. Have already discussed this quite a but with takitk. Of course ‘everything’ is possible, But at what price? And for what functionality?

My main point here is that in the end you will end up with such different visual and functional views that I see no point in having them all in the same editor. Even if it was possible to spawn two or several windows of the same editor, and then keep different zoomlevels on the two, I think this can be quite complex to do with the current structure. But I would not mind at all to do some basic clip operations in the pattern editor itself, I would even expect this in the long run, but I still can’t see it replace a separate arranger window.

240

Ok, I get it. Indeed, if in the future Renoise’s windows will be somehow detachable or at least customisable then it makes perfect sense to have two levels of overview. I was thinking more about what we have now and what I thought could improve MY workflow.

In the end, it is not important ‘how’, but rather ‘what’ we will achieve and I see that even if the future looks not exactly as I’d wanted it to, then it is still very appealing and I’d gladly welcome such improvements. If I’ll finally be able to arrange my tracks other than endlessly clicking F3, F4 & F5 then I’ll be happy hippy and will seriously consider registering, because at the moment doing all this copying is too much hassle for me and I’m never able to finish any song before I loose the inspiration and flow…

So, is there any chance for any of this to be implemented in v2.0? What is the current status of ‘arranger’ project? Or maybe other things are first in line (Linux port?, piano-roll?, resolution improvement?, midi import/export?, RNI enhancement?).

Taktik, where are you? ;)