Custom Mixer Channelstrip

EDIT: As there seems to be some confusion as to what I’m actually suggesting, please read thuroughly first before replying. Basically: I am not suggesting people having to spend viewport if they don’t want to, but an optional channelstrip-like group as seen in most mixers.

Looking at other DAWs, some of them has equipped their mixer with a channel strip, often modelled after some commercial analogue gear. I believe something like this should be included with Renoise sooner or later. But…

How about being able to design your own mixer channel strip (using any DSP/VST, hydra et c)? This would also kind of double as a “default track dsp chain”.

The basic functions in renoise are already there. It would only require a good enough “channel strip designer”, preferrably with some neatos like rotarys et c.

Ugly mockup example:

You can already do this by right-clicking a DSP and choosing which parameters you want to be visible.

That’s a different thing though. This is meant to act as a channel strip and not normal dsp inserts.

Perhaps not many die hard trackers are familiar with the concept but it’s a common feature on mixers.

Like the idea of a standard DSP chain which is included every time you add a new Track. Mine would likely just be a LPF, HPF and EQ10 as that’s usually what I add with new tracks…

But channel strips as such, not quite so sure if I feel it really suits Renoise.

This is the SSL mixer strip in Reason as an example.

Here it is in Sonar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PL0CB57B9228B354E5&v=OrfDmFawdOE#!

why?

Because it’s the way mixers are usually designed, and a design many people are comfortable interacting with. In the case of Renoise it would also be a better option than cluttering the dsp chain with a default dsp template.

save a template song with yer favorite eq’a, channelstrip config etc?

Jonas, That’s not an improvement to the mixer though.

i think it would be a great feature but on the other hand you can still use vst for your mixing need and i would prefer to have improvement on the sampler side of renoise so i think this channel strip would be a great feature but no the one most needed for now

Channelstrips only add clutter. I don’t know the real reason why they are not implemented but you can take a fairly good guess. I recall having a discussion with Taktik back in 2002 (somewhere before i decided to register Renoise) regarding this in Skale tracker. It is a bit vague in memory because the discussion ended up in facting up majority of stuff in Skale not working even though the buttons exists.
Being able to hide or show parameters that you want to change imho fits a lot better than just having an amount of knobs present all the time while they are only getting in your way most of the time.

Lets postpone it further then, and let the mixer be crap a few years more :)

As I see it, a mixer should try to feel and act like a mixer, regardless of the experience trackers have.

the mixer is actually a good mixer. better than the reason crap… it sure can be made better in some of the features (especially rms metering) but still it is compact and require only the parameters you need on each strip: i don’t want to see stuff like gazillions of eq knobs if i don’t need them. it’s software and should be configurable, it’s not my mackie vlz…

With dsp chains and template song you can already get the channel strip setup

For me Renoise is great because it has that “less is more” approach that doesn’t force you to use more cpu than you need

I just find it a fundamental part of a mixer. I think the mixer in Reaper is the only one i’ve seen that doesn’t have it. Of course it should be selectable.

The problem I have with the mixer today is that it’s quite unusable except for level metering. It’s just a bunch of sliders displayed in an unorganized way. It’s not something that i would use extensively.

Of course, the better solution might be if this was scriptable, basically just requiring grouped dsps and more options when it comes to customizing the mixer graphically. It would be possible making today, but without the level metering. Well. I could script an overlay window replacing the current dsp part of the mixer view, which is basically what is bad. But then there is the problem of not being able to save custom song settings (slider settings like when to use rotary) in lua.

in any case check this Mixer Utilities tool

I think kRAkEn/gORe made a good point about the mixer:

are you trying to be funny or just patronizing?

Nope. The reason mixer is state of the art SSL modelled.

The strange thing is that the current mixer view is very non-configurable and that features like the one I suggested makes it more configurable. What you can do today is basically select what sliders to show in a primitive gui - that’s about it.

Neither. I suggested to read what a mixer usually is, since I suspect some people here don’t know very much about it.

I think with ‘configurable’ it is meant that there isn’t any cpu overhead with a forced channelstrip set-up on every channel, but you can choose to save your own template song which has your favorite eq’s/compressors etc set-up / choose which particular sliders to show.

I don’t mind (optionally) having knobs instead of sliders in the mixer for certain devices if that would improve functionality, but I think this would be more of a visual/eye-candy thing, make it look more pro, than have any other impact.

Yeah. That’s exactly what i mean.

Basically:

  • More configurable mixer gui.

  • Possibility to display a default dsp as a conventional channel strip, if you want to.