How can I fade a tracks volume in and out without affecting the device chain. For example the track has:
Inserts
Compressor
Send Device > S01 (Reverb)
If I use the Pre Gain mixer as I lower the volume it affects the compressor setting.
If I insert a gainer at the end of the chain (or use the post mixer volume) the send channel keeps playing at a fixed volume.
Am I doing something wrong or is there a work around?
Thanks
Is there any other track that uses the same send-track?
If the send-track does not get any feed from any other track, it should not produce audio unless you have effects on the sendtrack that sustain the audio-feed for some reason.
You could place the gainer on the end of the sendtrack’s device chain and fade out the volume on the sendtrack but this is only workable if you don’t need to “keep source” on the feeding track and you don’t feed other tracks into the same send-track.
To make it clearer, if I add a delay on a send track, set the send device to “keep source” and then set the post fader to 0 and play the track then the output from the send is still being heard. So the mixer routing seems to return the send after the post fader. Is this how it should be?
Doing a bit more playing around, I added a gainer before the send. Now this seems to be doing what I want - keep the volumes in the effect chain the same and fades the track in line with the sends.
So what I can gather is although the mixer looks the same as other DAW’s the volume sliders don’t work in the same way.
When a send device is set to “keep source”, it routes the audio to the send track, BUT it also allows the original audio to pass through the device and remain playing on the original track. This allows you the option of routing one track to many different send tracks by daisy-chaining send devices.
You have of course ran into one of the problems of splitting the signal in this way… you now have 2 signals to control the volume of. But it’s actually very easy to get around this problem, you just have to arrange everything into logical groups that can work together.
First, set up a send track for your reverb as usual.
Now, add another send track and position it after (to the right of) the reverb track. This new track will act as the mixer.
Configure your tracks like so:
[Track 1]
Compressor
Send Device > S01 : Reverb [keep source]
Send Device > S02 : Mix [mute source]
[S01 : Reverb]
Reverb
Send Device > S02 : Mix [mute source]
[S02 : Mix]
Put a gainer here, or just use the track volume, whichever you prefer.
In this configuration, both your original audio and the effected audio are ending up in the same place, where you can easily control the volume.
It’s pretty nice to do things like this anyway, because you can set the reverb effect to be 100% wet and 0% dry, and then you can have multiple tracks routed there all sharing that one effect, but you can still vary the amount of reverb each track gets simply by adjusting the level of its send device.
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I’m getting even more 
now. Doesn’t your setup of having the extra send channel just do the same as using the gainer in this setup?
[Track 1]
Compressor
Gainer
Send Device > S01 : Reverb [keep source]
[S01 : Reverb]
Reverb
No, I think you’re going about it the wrong way there, because the gainer in that chain ultimately has no control over the output of the reverb. You can control the level of the audio going into the reverb, and the reverb effect will of course eventually fade away, but you cannot do anything precise to the output of the reverb effect itself… not from track 1 anyway.
By routing both tracks to another send as I have suggested, everything is in one place, so you can simply use the volume fader on that send track to have absolute control.
Edit:
Here is a very quick demo track to show what I mean:
http://illformed.org/temp/verbsend.xrns (Renoise 2.1 required)
Pattern 0 demonstrates my method. Here, when I automate the volume of the mix track, it is absolute and even the reverb tail gets silenced.
Pattern 1 demonstrates your method. The audio input gets cut by the gainer, that’s no problem, but the reverb tail is obviously still playing because the gainer has no effect on it. This is not really ideal if you want full control over your sound.
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Ok, thanks for the example, I understand what your getting at now. This gives you ultimate control to fade the track volume and reverb at the same time. But aren’t you limiting the send now to just one track?
No, I think you’re going about it the wrong way there, because the gainer in that chain ultimately has no control over the output of the reverb. You can control the level of the audio going into the reverb, and the reverb effect will of course eventually fade away, but you cannot do anything precise to the output of the reverb effect itself… not from track 1 anyway.
This is the way every other DAW I’ve used works. If you quickly move a track fader to 0 then you will still hear the send fade out.
The issue with Renoise (or maybe its just me) is I’ve found you can’t use the volume faders for mixing. The Pre-fader is ok for levelling the volume into the device chain, but you don’t want to touch it after that. The Post Fader does not have any effect on the return from the send so even if you set it to 0 you will still hear the send while any notes are playing. + it’s not automatable anyway.
Ah, perhaps this has been the source of confusion all along. The send device in Renoise does not return the processed audio back to the originating track - it’s just a one-way system at the moment.
The “keep source” option does allow the original audio to pass through the send device, to then be processed by the remainder of the originating track’s DSP chain, but it does not actually return the audio processed by the send track’s DSP chain. The processed audio stays with the send track, and so you must perform any further adjustments at that point.
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Yes, your right, my wording was wrong on that. If I can get my head around this a traditional mixer will have the following routing:
FX>Fader>Send
Whereas Renoise seems to be
FX>Send>Fader
Edit: Thinking about it I’ll add a post to the Ideas forum.
So what you would like is a Pre/Post button. Or the ability to add Send devices after the end of channel fader. Having Pre faders, like Renoise, has it’s advantages but so do Post faders, hence why you get both on a real mixing desk.
The thing is you can’t automate post-levels in Renoise atm, right?
No, but automating is useless once a send-device is added and the source is muted.
In the past you could use the LFO to automate the post-fader somehow, but this possibility also has been intentionally cut out: The post faders are not meant to be automated, they are meant to have a fixed position that can be manually adjusted.
I agree that the post-faders should vanish / become greyed out from the chain, once a send-device is added and set to mute the source.
Strange the post faders can’t b automated, didn’t realise this as been away from Renoise for quite some time. If you think of a physical desk the pre faders would be like the Gain pots, set up at the start and left, whereas the post faders would be like your traditional fader, which is what you would use to ride your levels. If either of them should not have automation options it should be the pre faders, although obviously I would vote for both having the capability (plus the ability to have Sends Pre or Post the final fader.)
So we would have.
Channel Gain
Pre-Fader Send Device
Channel Fader
Post-Fader Send Devices.
With the option to automate everything.
I don’t agree on this. In some cases, especially when doing a live performance, you might want to adjust the fader while the send source is muted.
Think of: