Hello! I have used Renoise a few days and have been fiddling mostly with VSTs. I stumbled upon a statement in documentation that made me a bit worried, since I have done it “my way” all along. Here is the statement:
“NOTE : One single VST instrument can only be used simultaneously on one track, you can use more subtracks for this VST instrument in that particular track, -->> but dividing the instrument across several separate scope-tracks may cause undesired behaviour <<–. Specifically, DSP effects can go beserk.”
The thing is, I have successfully used multiple outputs (with NI Battery) sent to different tracks with different effects with only one VST instrument – and have not had a single problem yet. For example: Bassdrum on Track 1, with bass-maximizer. Hihat on track2 with delay and flanger effects. And other samples on other tracks, with yet more effects, and so on, all on this one Battery instance (with no aliases). So I wonder, before I do all my songs the “wrong way”: is this really true? Am I lucky that I havn’t got any problems yet, or do I misunderstand the statement?
if you use a multioutput VST, you can send each output to a different track with no issues, so the way you are doing is correct. Maybe the phrase you quoted should be improved to clarify this
If you would have quoted the whole note you would also have quoted:
Not all plugins support multiple out routing e.g.:a lot of synth plugins don’t have separate audio busses, yet in Renoise we do not limit usage of a particular instrument to just one main track at the same time.
So multi-out plugins work on more tracks than one (if aliassed and each alias has a dedicated track!).
The problem still persists if you would try to use an alias across multiple tracks simultaneously and apply different sets of effects on it.
I think i should illustrate the concept with an image displaying how the processing works.
Quoting that really doesn’t make a difference IMO. The plugin (Battery) supports multiple out routing, and I have managed to make it work without creating aliases – Which contradicts also that statement (if I have understood it correctly).
Edit: Don’t mean to sound blunt. I’m just confused and want to make sure “my” way of working (without aliases) is OK.
mumble… reading your message again, I’m not sure anymore… how did you manage to make this using no aliases? are you really sure that each effect is really applied to each track only?
as far as I know, with your method only the effects which are applied to Track1 in your example should be actually be working, and they should be applied to all the other tracks where the instrument is being played.
Yes, I’m sure. More detail: (Setup from my head, I’m sure it’s pretty accurate)
One VST on one instrument: Battery.
1/2: Bassdrum with bass maximizer effect, track 1
3/4: Open hihat1 no effects, track 2
3/4: Open hihat2, also no effects, track 3
5/6: Closed hihat, flanger and delay effects, track 4
7/8: SFX-sample, delay effect, track 5
I did for a moment have an incident where the samples routed through the “main” (open hihat1 and 2) got the effects of other outputs (closed hihat, 5/6), but as soon as I stayed clear of the “main” output, and routed everything through 1/2, 3/4, 5/6 etc, I had no problem. This really does work. But that incident, and the quotes, made me think that I am actually lucky and it could blow any minute, and should go the aliasing way.
huh, ok. well then it works, on my second read I thought you haven’t set up the routing. Better reading only once next time
it works for you because you only need to use one instrument (the drumkit) inside your VST instance, but you will still need aliases when you need to control more than one instrument on the same VSTi, through different MIDI channels, and group them into the same output.
for example, I use an orchestral library where I group sections of instruments under the same output:
on 1/2 go all the strings, which are more than one instrument, on 3/4 all the brasses, and so on.
Yes you can assign your output to specific tracks without needing to alias. Aliasing is only required when you want to send specific note data to a specific instrument in your VST host.
Assigning the audio-busses to specific tracks is needed to prevent cross-processing of the effect-chains
I’m busy clarifying how audio bus processing works and how aliassing works.
You are right that the current information is not clear enough, but it is hard to make that stuff clear without illustrations.
