Bring Back The Protracker Vu Meter!

Not just in the mixer, but in the pattern editor!

Aww yeah!

And for enhanced usefulness, let them (both the ones in the mixer as those in the pattern) display the raw input signal (before effects) as well as the final signal, optionally of course?

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Haha, I had the same thought when I first got Renoise. I miss those!

They were Rad

hehe… i wouldnt mind this as long as it was an optional feature. i would NEVER use it :)

.x

I don’t think if the beloved ProTracker had a mixer it still supported those VU meters on the patterns. ;) Gosh, I miss those days…

just for the record, Protracker “VU” meters were totally fake ones: they just showed the current 0…40 volume range for currently playing sample on the track.

so, if you found them useful in the past, you have been cheated :)

Personally I miss them a lot, I definately would use them. I just think it makes it even more obvious what is going on and where (the track scopes are a bit disconnected if you know what I mean). When I switch to the mixer, I don’t see the pattern - that’s not even comparable.

Not entirely true, and that is why I carefully selected the screenshot…

Protracker 3.10b (May 1993): Added real VU-meters.

Yeah I agree with this completely. I would love to see them make an appearance too!

They would be useful also when you have the Diskop open and the scopes are hidden. The scopes have the problem of not showing very low level activity on a track. A colourful VU would not have this issue and would actually be much better to use.

+1

mlon

I’m with Xerxes here… Only as an option. Wouldn’t ever use it.

I understand you obviously, it would help in many ways… but there are major differences: the tracks are stereo in renoise but mono in protracker, you can have many many tracks in renoise but you have 4 in protracker, you may use many send tracks (and also send some send tracks to other send tracks) in renoise which was impossible in protracker, you can route the tracks to different devices with different properties (thus different output gain) in renoise which was impossible in protracker…and…and…
Do you still think you can use “on pattern VU meters” just like you used them in PT?

Additional features are always welcome, but I possibly wouldn’t use this one. :)

Yay! I didn’t even think of that… that just means twice as much VU meter goodness! :dribble:

You also tend to run Renoise on hardware that is 7.2 billion times faster than an Amiga… plus it would have to be optional anyway.

(as I said it would be neat if the VU meters could display the signal before the DSP chain as well as after it.)

If you send a track to a send track and have “mute source” on, the VU meter (color) showing “before DSP effects” does the funkay dance, while the VU meter (color) for “after DSP effects” simply stays quiet (while the VU meter of the send tracks obviously doesn’t). If you send one track to several send tracks, the VU meters of those send tracks simply display what is going on in those send tracks.

I don’t see the problem… just think about it this way: if renoise can send it to the sound card, it surely can display it as a VU meter.

Yes, absolutely, with all the enhanced yumminess that is Renoise.

I really liked those VU meters really.
but let’s be objective, It would be more Eyecandy instead of functional.

in the mixer view you need them, not in the track display.
may even irritate some people.

I cannot fathom how you consider the track scopes not eyecandy, but would consider VU meters as such. Isn’t that kind of upside down?

I look at my song in the pattern editor 99% of the time, and I wouldn’t just use them to make sure the levels are okay, most importantly (and as said and seconded already) they give you a very good impression for what is going on on where. While the track scopes have the advantage of showing all tracks at once, the in-pattern VU meters would have the advantage of being right there where the actual notes are played. That should count for something, a lot even.

Hey… if I had my way there would even be additional track scopes on each track, and waveforms of the sound played drawn vertically in the background of each column…

Huh? :blink: People that are irritated by things that can be turned off are best to be ignored?

I guess that there are probably a lot of things to add that are a lot more important than VU meters, but I honestly can’t see a single reason for having them as an option not being desireable at least in theory, some bright day in the future… :P

“in the mixer view you need them, not in the track display”

Hell no, perfect sense to put it in the pattern editor, like Johann said you can see whats going on where more easily then with the scopes. I don’t even care if it accurately represents the db value of the track, with long samples it’ll be easier to see where the sound ends. I found this usefull in the past, if it ever be implemented make it optional.

+1

A-f****ing-Men Jonas. I would even go so far as saying that with old Protracker style VUs on the tracks you could lose the track scopes at the top all together.

+1 (again)

Remove the scopes?
No way man! :)
I use those to see where there are activity when I can’t see all my tracks at once in the pattern editor or mixer.
And also I use the scopes to quickly focus a track (click the trackname in scopes).
But most of all I still find the scopes most useful to solo/mute tracks even when I’m in the sample-editor or instrument-editor etc.

I guess all this also depends on how many tracks you use in your projects and what you are used to.

That said I would not mind some kind of vu’s in the pattern editor. (optionally of course).
Perhaps it could be a small one on top of the track for instance?

Yeah good call on the Pattern wide audio activity. I didn’t have my thinking cap on when I thought it would be a good idea…

However…

A mixture of Protracker VU and colour coding would mean the Track Scopes would not have monopoly on how you view the info.

I agree with your post though!

EDIT…

As an improvement to the scopes, I think it would be a good idea to do away with the current way they display the signal (as a waveform) and instead just show the signal as a solid white pulse which fills each track box. This would be a solid white block at 0dB and above and would fade to black on its way down to INF.dB

In its current form you cant always see if there is any activity on a track when the volume of the audio is very low. This causes me problems sometimes.

Even implementing this as a switchable option would be excellent

Yeah…

This has been suggested before also.
The problem with scopes is that we can not currently zoom into them, so on low volumes you can hardly see any activity at all.

Another way is to be able to switch the scope view to vu-meter view instead.
Or a combination of both like suggested in this thread.

I would be more then happy with any of the suggested things.

Hah… VU meters for each note column? And yes, I say this because I just have Renoise open and am in a situation where I wish either that or “note column scopes” at the top existed, before anyone asks :P

[But I should get used to using send tracks instead of note columns instead anyway, because effect commands (9xx, Dxx) always affect all columns (dedicated effect columns for delay and offset ahh…?)]

So… a “before DSP” VU meter for each note column and an “after DSP” VU meter for each track? :panic:

You really want them back ey?

AsI stated, I really like those meters.
but if they will come back, I rather see them placed a little better as in protracker.

It would be nice to have them large like in protracker, not that the VU’s in the current mixer are bad,
but I just like watching long VU’s.

maybe we can go any further and make the Renoise background pulsate on the beat in a given color.

but in that case we maybe need a special “cristmas lighting on” switch :D