Hmm, if you take it into account right from the start (when beginning to code the feature) it should be simple to make vertical/horizontal an option…
I will have to scratch a hole in my monitor where the option button is going to sit then.
Like I said; I will be sick, and I can’t afford to lose the deposit on my apartment
Take a look at pxtone for the ultimate piano roll…it’s very intuitive for multiple tracks and the fact that you can view a whole tune very easily makes it super easy to write music in, especially with it’s selectable track view…
Take a look for some ideas…
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA022293/pxtone.html
Also pay close attention to it’s handling of note perameters.
I just wanted to add and voice my opinion on piano rolls. I hope it will never, ever get implemented in Renoise. It’s a terribly heavy handed tool to sequence with. Renoise is a tracker, and I’d be pretty pleased if it stayed a tracker.
Altough I’m not a programmer, here’s an idea from my limited point of view.
The piano-roll feature might in my oppinnion be easiest done by adding a “track style” for the selected track.
You could move and lenghten notes on the classical vertical renoise view aswell as before.
Some thoughts on the lay out:
A separate view for that track would open up by pressing a keycommand or by clicking with mouse. Here the track would scroll on horizontal plane. This could be done using a view sort of like the sample editing and envelopes sections are.
Some thoughs on the implementation:
Due to the tick based core of trackers and the differences with handling notes and other midi data, the stuff not possible to convert as midi should be somehow greyed out when the track would be shown in the normal context in the stracker view. And maybe, from the programmers view this “track style” of a track could be considered more of as a note player thats timed to sync with song to easen the integration?
Also if it comes to the point that the piano roll is implemented, it would help to have a little horizontal view somewhere on the screen that would show the structure of the overall song. (This does not need to be big and could be done just like for example in Cubase you can have that little view of the “whole arrange”.)
-029
P.S. edited from an earlier post on the same subject
I don’t see a need for a piano roll in Renoise either, but i wouldnt mind there being one. Don’t know if i would use it much though, but it would certanly open up renoise for a wider market. Just keeping in mind what people are used to work with in other programs. With both possibilites it’s there’s nothing that could beat renoise in terms of flexible and personalized workflows. If there was one it would probably make more people to buy the program, and they have a good one at a good price, and as well … They will be introduced to tracking in a good way and hopefully they will learn the benefits of the Pattern view instead of a Piano roll view, or use them both for certain things.
*Tracker
*Piano roll (still to come)
*Arranger (Still to come)
*Sampler
*Recording
*VST support
*ASIO Support
What program could beat the above at a decent price and that kind of quality output and performance? There’s no doubt in my mind that Renoise could grow to be a really big and flexible program to fill the need of many producers and their workflows.
I have a friend that usually don’t even use midi or any kind of sequencer, He records wav tracks directly of his keyboard and put them all together. It sounds dam good, but i told him to try out the Renoise Demo and now he can’t stop using it, and it sounds even better. Just the recording possibilities alone, and the ability to align them and put it all together probably fills the need of many people.
I don’t know what is best though. Changing the way people work, or changing the program to fit how people want or usually work. =//
Ohhh and for the EDIT … more people using and buying renoise means “richer” developers, and “richer” developers means more happy developers. and the happyer they are the more features and good stuff will prolly come back to the users 
Yeah and we don’t want the sample editor to be vertical iether I guess 
Why do we need Renoise becoming really big? Can taktik and small renoise team handle it? Do we need this forum swarming with people that have come among the piano roll and requesting other “improvements” that they are used to work with?
Because that way renoise would really be the ultimate composing tool… There is actually surprising amount of stuff that is easier to do in midi than in normal tracking.
Such as for example adjusting and varying the lengths of multiple chords simultaneously (using mouse). Editing velocities of multiple chords simultaneously. Moving and changing the places of Chords etc… And there is more, but I feel that this kinds of stuff is quite essential for making Trance for example.
But I still feel tracking is the best method for most of the stuff… there’s just some things tracking propably is not meant to 
how about a pianoroll that opens like a vst (with fullsize option) and that can convert, the notes you draw, into a pattern ? (and patterns to notes)
that might be the solution… If the renoise posse manages to change the speed concept to something more accurate then that would actually be quite a good option. A little pop-up window like the EnergyXT VSTi maybe… It would just show the same data from a bit different point of view…
Wow! I havent seen these images before. Excellent explanation and idea & very well drawn! If this could be possible, this would be really fantastic and even more ppl from Cubase-like world would be attracted. Also I wouldnt mind using piano roll too. It might be easier to work in some cases.
One small thing / idea I would like to add is - would be great if you`ll be able to see waves of the samples and ability to continue playing song and actually hear samples [especially long ones] from any part of the pattern.
Seems like a lots of coding here? (:
I am actually really surprised and saddened by the way that quite a few people behave like in the arranger/pianoroll-discussion on this board, refusing to simply to discuss this but instead painting pictures of armageddon on the horizon and behaving like little kids.
A horizontal editing view has it’s benefits, that’s why the majority of the software aviable is using it, personally I would like to just have the option of editing my music the way I see fit and I think a sequencer-like editor would be a great addition to renoise. There is a certain “something” about moving and scaling large coloured blocks representing musical data which is not possible in a pattern-view. And I think it is agreed upon that a PR is an option which won’t change anything in renoise, which won’t replace the pattern as it is and which you can use or not use (basically it would be enough to switch between pattern/PR, no need to have both on the screen at the same time.)
But thats my view and I understand that quite a few people are simply not interested in this, but then just say “I am not interested”. Acting like a child in berzerk-mode in this matter is really a shame. I honestly lost my respect for a few people here in the months this has been discussed.
Those are my 5 cents and I will just avoid this discussion in the future, especially because after all it’s up to one person, taktik, if this gets implemented.
Yeah, personally I have difficulties understanding why so many users of Renoise ultimately seem to want it self-contained in every respect. I would say that if just .MID-export was added to Renoise, a lot of issues could be solved by exporting the pattern data into other music softwares (and thereby getting piano-roll benefits and graphic overviews of channels for example).
Yeah, it seems really quite strange why some people do not want Renoise to expand on this field Maybe they just haven’t been able to experience the benefits of horizontal editing…
Coming back to the topic:
I today thought a little more about this… Energy XT is actually quite good example on how this is simply and well put… All tha major keycommand stuff is there but it still does not get too complicated for a newbie. I think it would need to be quite simplified when (/if?) implemented to renoise.
hmmh Must totally disagree… That would lead to such cases that for example… if you wanted to play a chord (as I usually do when making music) you’d have to export the audio from renoise and continue adding the chords on another piece of software… but then… let’s say hey the kick is out of tune… how do you change that from the audiofile you’ve opened into cubase so that you could re-pitch it while the chords are playing?
I actually have done this quite lot, and our track dreamer which you can hear on our myspace profile has a beat composed just this way - using renoise…
Sadly the workflow allways stops if you want to make anything besides the beat… tracker is so intuitive to making beats, but when you have to export audio between softwares back and forth to insert some chords as simple as 2 bars long that really kills the feel to compose. Surely you can record the chords to renoise, but after that when it comes to editing you really really must have an alternative to the tracking method…
hi forums!
i’m not a very active renoise user, because i cannot make music in this pattern style.
i know a lot about renoise’s advantages and i must say i love all of the software except the pattern.
If Renoise would have a good Piano-roll Editor, many more people would be able to use it.
I can understand that the “vertical” 
people dont want their software to become big and “crowdpleasing” and mainstream. Because almost all software that tries to suit it all, is bloated with features…
So all i wanna say is:
Please add a good Piano-Roll!!! 
… or release the sampler as a vst 
bye
jojo
For the glory of Renoise and vertical tracking, from now on let’s all rotate our wide monitors and HDTVs 90 degrees clockwise!!!
Pianoroll: NO! Renoise is a tracker. And let her be tracker forever…
Renoise is a music program. And let her be music program.