I want both! Even I admit that there are many cases when the pattern editor is faster. It completely depends on how the notes are arranged, and what kind of operations you want to perform. When I use the tracker, I desperately miss the sequencer features, and when I use the sequencer, I miss the tracker fea… Yeah, you get the idea. Tracker+Sequencer=Flawless combo!
I want to see that to believe it. I’d say that quite a huge number of major design changes (not just additions) are required to even get anywhere near the effectiveness of the piano roll, with those operations I have in mind.
Not really. A higher resolution will most likely force you to zoom in to edit with the desired resolution, and to even see every note when many are located close to each other. With a piano roll, no zooming is needed to edit with with a high resolution. You’re right about quantizing, but finetuning several notes at once, as well as the other selection related operations, will never be quick if you can’t make selections like with the piano roll where the positions of the notes aren’t spread out like crazy, and note-on’s and off’s are attached.
Perhaps it might be possible though, if the tracker interface is more or less completely re-invented. I’ll happily be proven wrong by future versions of Renoise, and I actually do have a little glimpse of hope that this post isn’t actually completely true.
Here, my experience is somewhat different. I’ve never worked with a pianoroll that didn’t force me to zoom in and out all of the time. IMO they are quite awkward to work with, but perhaps you feel otherwise. That said, I’m +1 for the pianoroll, for the same reasons as splajn.
Have somebody mentioned exactly what the pianoroll should display? Well - notes, obviously, but originating from the currently selected track, or from multiple, visually ‘stacked’ tracks?
I’m asking, because I’ve been working (on’n’off since March:-) on a feature design for the zoomable pattern editor, and the last couple of days I’ve tried to integrate a pianoroll into it. It was meant for clip editing, but of course it’s useful for more than just that…
To me that sounds like you were mousing rather than using key shortcuts. Of course it depends what sequencer you use too, some doesn’t even have a descent set of key shortcuts, so I guess not every sequencer is that good.
Enough arguments from my side though; now I’m going to follow hseiken’s advice and see what Aero Studio is like. Chance is that I’ll stick to Energy XT2 until renoise catches up (Although energy xt is great it have always had some weird bugs, so I’m always looking for a different option).
Please just include the piano roll. I think most users know it isn’t for programming electronic music, so much as it is for adding the ability to play live. I suck at playing my midi keyboard, but I would much rather edit my performance from the higher resolution of a piano roll editor than from the event list. There may be other advantages to a piano roll, but I just like the idea of playing my instrument live. Maybe I’m the only one who struggles to get the right feel from playing live with renoise, but I never had that problem with cubase.
And no I don’t want to go back to cubase. It’s overpriced and overhyped. A good product no doubt, but with the exception of it’s poor live performance and less than stellar audio recording, I do prefer the overall layout of trackers. Renoise rocks.
It’s a bit chaotic, but the more I refine it, the easier it’ll get tracking all chords, chord progressions, scales, and modulations in the western tonal system. I hope to get everything inside one track and several columns. So far it works for me, but may not work for someone else’s work-flow. I’ll try to provide some type of audio/visual documentation in the end.
On the subject of piano lol. I’m trying to reView its concept from theoretical basics and hopefully provide a varied way of using a piano lol on Renoise’s note column design.
Imagine having a bunch of 4 note chords laid out in it, playing in a loop. Then imagine being able to select and drag notes, entire chords or notes thereof left and right to transpose / diminish / whatever.
The mockup might not be the most polished design, but the concept is sound. This would be fantastic for working on chord progressions, and if you don’t want to use it simply never press the ‘show pianoroll’ button (and stop whining! )
in my opinion this picture exactly shows where piano roll (and score) fail at attracting me: an enoumous waste of space and no info about note properties.
I agree so much. Perhaps it’s “just” the design, but if a piano roll doesn’t ADD anything to the workflow,
it’s most likely to take its toll on it. However, I do think a piano roll in a future is the way to go, as it does
allow a whole new approach to making music in Renoise. And imagine combining top to bottom with left
to right in one program… the thought alone makes my spine tickle.
It certainly gives you info about note properties, mainly where it is placed on the timeline and the relative pitch difference between several notes.
The way I look at PR is as some sort of analyzing tool and selection tool. Not that much of a ‘composing tool’ as I suspect too many ‘PR-haters’ think of. It’s like saying frequency analyzers are useless because you have scopes, or automation is useless because you have pattern commands that do the same.
PR are very good to quickly detect problem notes, also to select notes according to pitch etc… many like to resize and transpose things as well.
That’s also why I like the idea of maybe have the PR in it’s own window (like in the lower panel for instance) so you can have separate zoomlevels as you work in the pattern editor. Where both editors are showing the same data.
I also think a PR should have two modes.
One without pitch differences so that its only showing note columns. This is a very compact roll where you can easily and freely move notes visually and unquantized on the timeline.
And another mode that do take more space but also include the pitch (normal PR).
I can’t possibly see what there is to not like about that It’s extremely useful for ppl recording things live at least.
It just looks like a waste of space since the pattern is at the top of the pattern. Open and close the pianoroll editor when needed.
All the note information you need is on the left side of the pianoroll if you wish to show note, volume and pan colums the regular way as well. It’s just a tool for editing. What other ways would you use a pianoroll for? to see the notes are played? What more information do you need in the pianoroll?
seriously, as you say, the other info are all in the vol/pan/del/command columns, and I need just them.
the idea of a separate, dedicated panel for pianoroll (what Bantai suggested) is way better, because (as Pysj says) it can interesting to perform pitch-based selections, while an inside-pianoroll looks crowded as hell to my eyes.
oh well, anyway I’m so much a pianoroll hater that I rarely check this thread, so I’d better shut up, but this time I didn’t resist, sorry.
)
It’s extremely useful for ppl recording things live at least.
