I tried dimming slightly as well, it looks pretty good actually. I think I’d vote this one.
Edit: Added some bling to the pattern sequencer - too much?
I’d vote for the last one too. 
The key combos seem pretty logical.
If a trackset was turned off it would dim as much as previous/next pattern.
And if loop in the pattern sequencer was active it would highlight the current loop selection as much as the active trackset, so you could easily see if loop is on or off.
Edit: Oh, and I’d like to be able to, with Follow Pattern turned off, move in the pattern sequencer with control/up-down while the song is playing without effecting it. Then trigger the selected pattern with enter or something, with quantisize on or off. If you can do that in a pattern with follow turned off, it’s only logical that it can be done in the pattern sequencer as well, IMHO. And it would be a killer feature for live use. 
dby, your image is pretty much exactly what I had in mind. It’s a significant feature if implemented, but fits very well with the current way Renoise works. You’ve done an excellent job of visualizing it!
It looks nice, but there are lots of issues with this.
First it will depend on what level you wanna arrange things.
Using two or three patterns at once,then this system seems ok.
What if you arrange in a smaller scale? You can end up
with 10-20-30 (who knows) patterns playing at once.
Then you will see you get in trouble.
You would have to scroll to see all your patterns in the pattern sequencer,
or it will take too much on-screen space.
What about the routing of tracks? Will the patterns share the same track-fx?
Or will you have independent tracks in each pattern? So if you
wanna just change some notes using the same instrument over two
different patterns, then you need to apply two independent trackfx on each pattern?
I’m not saying this is a bad idea or something. I’m just pointing out
some issues with this system vs a clip arranger.
With a arranger window you can also zoom in/out and use other types of
clips like automation, envelopes and audio clips. And this
can be done without dealing with complicated splitscreens and routing issues.
That said… even with a clip arranger I see no reason why not the
pattern seqeuncer also could be enhanced.
Yeah, I’m not trying to get a Clip Arranger vs Trackset discussion going. They could be really powerful together, as they operate on different levels.
Why would anyone want to use 30 tracksets? Well maybe someone would, but with the pattern sequencer minimized it wouldn’t take much more space than 30 normal tracks - well a bit more.
If you want to use the same instrument in another trackset for variations you could use a send track for the fx, or apply the same fx chain to both tracks.
The Clip Arranger is a really good idea, but you can’t see the pattern editor at all while arranging clips, can you? Unless it would be intergrated vertically in the pattern editor somehow - which I think would be possible if we put our minds to it. Automation in the pattern editor has been suggested before, and I’d like that very much.
The best option IMHO, would be to intergrate the clip arranger into the
pattern editor. One drawback (perhaps the only?) would be that you’d
have to zoom out further to view the same amount of time. But then, with
vertical you can see more tracks/instruments at the same time (the tracker way). 
And the brain won’t have to switch from thinking up and down to sideways. 
Each track would have a show/hide:
Pattern note/instrument
Pattern pan
Pattern volume
Pattern commands
Clip
Automation
Audio Stream
Wave form visualization
Piano Roll ( 
)
Etc.
There would be presets to switch between prefered edit modes and
user setups. And zoom levels too.
Would be really nice to be able to edit automation, edit clips, see waves etc.
in correlation to the pattern data.
Pysj, regarding screen real-estate for the pattern sequencer: Perhaps it could be possible to make a separate page for the pattern sequencer (as with the instrument and sample editors)?
And as for track routing, what about a parent - child pattern system? This way, you have independent tracks in each pattern “family”, but child patterns inherit the number of tracks, track names and track fx of the parent. So if you want a different sequence of notes for the same instrument on a new pattern, you can make it a child of the original pattern.
The latter concept is quite rough as I only took a couple of minutes thinking about it, but with some modification it is perhaps a viable option.
None of the ideas would force you to track in a different way.
About the clip arranger…
I don’t know if it’s mentioned, would it be possible to group clips across several patterns and tracks? That would render my trackset idea totally useless. 
Why didn’t you say this at once?
Also, I know clips will be visible somehow in the pattern editor. Would I be able to copy and paste them there? And drag’n’drop? And zoom out?
That would be enough to make me very happy.
I think people wouldn’t be suggesting features like this if the controls for the current aranger wouldn’t be so unintuitive.
If the aranger had it’s own space, you could edit what you are not playing (like i’ve asked for recently), and the the keyboard focus / simple shortcuts (which IMHO is brilliant) would get implemented, this discussion wouldn’t even surface again.
You should read the first two pages of this thread again 
This is one of the key issues with a coexistence of both clip arranger and the current pattern seqeuncer. The problem was what to do with clips that crossed pattern bounderies when you for instance change pattern number. The answer is to define a home destination for the clip. In other words the clip has to ‘stick’ to a pattern. No matter how long the clip is, it belongs to the pattern it begins in (actually I can se the use of a clip belonging to a pattern that is not the one it starts in, but by default it should do this).
Now one of the few ‘problems’ left is that you can get a lot of overlapping clips if you browse through your patterns to find the right one. Maybe a dialog box should ask you to overwrite/cut/mix the clips that overlaps etc…
When I think of it, it would be great if you where able to cut endings/parts of a clip in a nondestructive way. That means that in the arranger you can remove parts of the clip without actually destroying the clip it self. So if you later input the same clip some other place in the arranger it will be the entire clip again (if you had a list of clips that is, IMO the instrument list should be expandable with tabs where you can get a list of instruments/clips/groupes of clips/patterns/fx/sample pool etc, then just drag/drop either into arranger window or pattern editor and patterns into pattern seqeuncer etc , something like on this and this picture)
Yes you will be able to see/move/copy/paste the clips in the pattern editor. I dont know about zooming out though… dont think it has been mentioned.
cheers
I know about clips being longer than the pattern, as long as there’s no limit on the length it’d be really cool. I kinda forgot about that since all examples are shorter than two patterns. Non destructive clipping would be nice, just need something to indicate that the clip is longer than what’s showing, an arrow or something.
Same with grouping several clip, it has probably been mentioned somewhere.
Ok, sorry for the brainstorming. The clip idea would solve most of my arranging problems, so a multipattern solution might not be necessary - except for loading and mixing several songs live.
Though, I just can’t shake the feeling that horisontal isn’t as good as a vertical solution where you can still see the pattern (if you wish). This seems more flexible - besides the timescale issue - which would be solved by a vertical zoom. And the hassle of switching views on each track - which a couple of user presets would solve. This way you could edit drums in normal tracker mode, and perhaps record pads with midi keyboard in the next track in clip view (like a normal midi sequencer ).
I guess it could also be convinient to predifine a clip, and auto-record only on that clip - like defining in/out points.
About vertical vs horizontal:
You also have to think of the width of each track. Now if you use lots of columns in each track you cant see more then one or two tracks at once. So somehow you have to collapse the clips into slimmer clips. This will also change the view quite a lot. And I would prefer to change the views with just a click on a button. Zoomin in and out on both axis will take just as much time, or probably more, even if you have zoom presets etc… but still the view will change quite a lot. In my brain I have no problem changing to horisontal like automation do now.
I guess its just a question of getting used to the different views. Long clips and names on the clips would benefit a horizontal clip, showing more clips in time. A vertical view will have less space for time but could get more clips showing at once. This is much more like the pattern editor itself. And in the editor you will see the clips anyway etc… So IMO you get more benefits using a horizontal. But thats just my opinion I have no problems going vertical, but either way I would difinitively prefer a separate arranger window.
I can cope with horizontal as well.
I was thinking that a preset could store the entire layout - which tracks show what and zoom level. Would be nice for a horizontal arranger as well.
A vertical track showing clips but not pattern notes, commands etc could be very slim. This would as you say change the view, but as long as the cursor remains in roughly the same place it wouldn’t be a big problem IMO. Advantage is that you could see pattern data, in the selected track or other tracks, at the same time you’re editing clips, automation etc. Or see automation and clips while editing pattern data. With horizontal, that wouldn’t be possible at all.
Of course, if pattern view is zoomed out far enough, you wouldn’t be able to make out the characters, but at least you’d see where a note is triggered.
You’re right about naming. Except in the chinese translation of Renoise.
Maybe a button to rotate the whole editor freely?
Sorry if I come across a bit anti. I just want to twist and turn the ideas throughly to get to the best possible final solution. I have no problem changing my mind when I’m proved wrong, or if I prove myself wrong.
Good idea going on here, I just wanted to share one important feature:
Please think of us keyboard shortcut junkies! The current arranger is totally controllable with just keyboard shortcuts, it’s one of the reasons I am using Renoise / a tracker. Please let the new arranger have that fine quality too!
Thanks!
A horizontal clip arranger with keyboard control would be nice.
Like for selecting the next clip on the clip track<lfshift+tab> to select previous, left and right arrows to nudge clips, + left/right arrows to nudge with a margin (i.e. a bar or something), up and down arrows to go to the next or previous clip track.
Would be like tracking with clips.
Yeah, something like that. Buzz also uses its tracker interface for arranging clips although its implementation is far from perfect (e.g. you don’t see the length of the blocks).
That’s a good point, and hopefully they’ll implement the keyboard focus feature, so the shourtcuts/controls will be simpler
Like This?
An Arranger view (visually arrange PatternSequences and Blocks)
New Feature in New Future Renoise 1.6 ?
http://www.streetvibes.us/arranger.html