Dedicated Instrument Tracks

Ideas & suggestions
1

Hi,

One thing that sometimes irritates me, is that I loose track of my instrument when jumping from one track to another. I know there is the capture instrument option, but that only works when there’s note data. I don’t know how you guys are working, but I’m always using a single instrument per track.
Making the tracks dedicated will also improve the usability of the p-matrix.

The option could be showed as a drop-down containing all instruments per track in the new “commands”-tool bar. By default there is no dedication - to make it BWC. You can choose from the drop-down a single instrument for that specific track.

Those days with multi instruments crammed into a single track are over I guess (hope) :guitar: …

peace!

2

I agree with this option. It seems to me that it could work as assigned instrument capture where you are not limited to one track for an instrument. i.e. you could assign tracks 1-5 for a drum xrni.

Another way of approaching this altogether is to have the Sub modular meta I have proposed before. You can then have multiple instruments in the track if you like aswell:

3

Following naming conventions for track might also help out a big deal.
You can give track names you know? If you title the tracks at least similar to your instrument name, you won’t get lost that fast either.

4

To me, the ability to switch between instruments on a single track is one of renoise’s most useful features.

5

I guess that’s only desirable when all instruments have to use the same DSP-chain…? That is actually fuel for the discussion to cut the DSP-chain loose from the track.

6

I’m against making Renoise another FLS. :P Let’s not make things more complicated than they are.

Besides you can already cut the dsp chain loose, by simply creating a send channel for all of your DSPs. I’m with the users who sometimes use several instruments in one track, because sometimes it’s convenient to it that way, not necesarilly because of the DSP chain.

7

I often use more than one sample in a track (multiple hi-hat, snares, effect noise etc.)

I often use a sample in more than one track (although sometimes could be done with using multiple sends I often prefer this way.)

8

The latter thing should pose no problems, the first thing makes mixing really a hell.

9

please no dedication! i often walk through different tracks to check how a special sample sounds with dsp chains ive allready done, this is very usefull for basslines too. thats one of the best things in renoise :yeah:
there is no other so called professionel DAW where you can do this, afaik

10

Thats exactly the reason why dsp-chains taken apart from the track is a good idea. In that case you can cycle the different dsp chains to your note/instrument channel – same effect.
By doing so, a track can become a clean collection of notes of a single instrument - the same DSP chain can be shared over multiple tracks. Personally I always put each instrument in a separate track, except when they really need to share the DSP-chain.
By default, a DSP chain could be tied to a track to maintain BW compatible.

11

thats what a "sendtrack/subgroup" does. and this is already possible with renoise. sry i dont get the point, you can make your own dedication by using just one sound per track. where is the difference ?
there is nothing faster than renoise when it comes to quickcheck the existing dsp chains (excepting REAPER).
everything else depends on you and how you work, nobody forces you to set different samples to the same track.

maybe i don`t understand what you want.

12

With a tracker, since 1989.

This is the nature of Renoise, to change it is counter intuitive to the product.

I don’t see how we can do this without ignoring 20 years of history, only to be more like a MIDI sequencer?

13

I’ve thought about this alot, it’s going to seem like i’m going all over the place.

the instrument editor I believe does need an overall, lot’s of stuff sitting in there that can’t be touched from the pattern editor, metadevices & automation. My absolute favorite way of doing things right now is using pattern effects sent to metadevices to the dsp. The metadevices have removed almost all of the need for my usage of the automation lanes and have taken away a portion of my usage of pattern effects.

An example of my instrument editor usage:
At the moment I only use the instrument editor to create volume ramps, everything else provided in the instrument editor I make use of in the track dsp or by using the pattern effects commands. It’s nice this way as it is concise, keeps things generally right where I can see them, and controllable*.

The automation lanes are a great concept however not quite fully realized yet. several objectives cannot be overcome with the automation lanes currently, such as on & off of devices, global curve spanning + view & of course needing 2 points at each intersection to make sharp right and left-hand turns. However, the automation lane allows utmost precision of values when the pattern editor commands can’t get as deep into some parameters, so we must preserve the automation lane.

With that being said, more and more we are using the dsp effects and metadevices to make completely new ‘dynamic instruments’, I believe this is due to isolation the instrument editor is showing.

With this, we should also address the size of the Track DSP, as the amount of devices being chained is becoming very interestingly confusing to sort through at times, with the amount of things we are being able to do!

Since these dynamic instruments can currently only dwell within the pattern editor, track dsp & automation lanes, we will see much more demand for rethinking the instruments which to my logic should totally apply to the instrument editor.

One which provides for more of an opened up linkable ability, I think could possibly suffice in the long run.

14

Why? Five different hi-hats, all volume balanced and just subtlety different. Putting them in a track each would just be a stupid waste of screen real estate and force to use a Send track when DSPs in the normal track would work just as well. Doesn’t make mixing difficult at all and makes adding variations a million times easier as you only have to edit one track, not five. Don’t get why you think it makes mixing hard.

Maybe I should really load them all into separate sample slots of the same instrument but I personally don;t like working this way. Plus I may occasionally like to play one/some at a different pitch.

Personally I say leave it as it is.

15

what vV means is that for the case if you have to EQ one of the highhats, then you have no possiblities and splitting all the sounds to seperate tracks is a lot of work.
but i do this often the same way ;)

16

Hmm well I thought the below was possible. Seems we need a Copy button adding to the Instruments section of the Advanced Edit. The you could copy Instrument (or specific notes within instrument if recent suggestion is incorporated. important if you use instrument kits) paste it to a new track, delete instrument from original track. Or is there a way to do it with Advanced Edit I just can’t see at this time in the morning?

(If you do find you come across a situation that one of the hats doesn’t fit and can’t be solved with single level adjustments, overall eq or quick tweak to the file itself then it’s easy to create an extra track, move that one instrument across using Advanced Edit, move the DSP chain to a Send track and add Send Devices. Only takes a few minutes and when you are talking about sounds that only vary a little it’s not something I see coming up that often.)

17

this is something that comes in my mind after thinking about it the last night, afaik it`s not possible yet but would be a great idea.

18

i mean copy the selected instrument #01 from the current track to a new track, with the option that all instruments #01 are deleted from the other track.
what you mean is just for changing the current instrument number into a other one. maybe this exist already but i can`t find such a option :)

19

Wouldn’t that just copy all the instrument numbers? What you want to do is just copy Instrument 01 from a track, paste it in another track.

You can already Swap, Remap or Delete a chosen instrument, but not copy it unless I am missing something really simple. (Not actually sure what Remap does, should download the manual…)

EDIT: Yeah just as Kasmo said above me.

20

Like this, for both Instruments and Samples within Instrument.

Would maybe be nice to add it to the Mask section at the top as previously suggested (sorry I forgot to dig out thread. Let me find and edit…)

EDIT: Sorry it was Note Mask, not Sample. Although the two are often related, especially with Kits, they are also quite different and both could be utilised for different purposes.