[done 3.1] Instruments with FX are tied to one track?

Renoise 3 supports multi-out VSTi plugins, just as previous versions have done so. Nothing has changed in this regard.

Good to know! Thanks for clearifying this dblue!
But then I don’t understand It-Alien’s comment. Routing Shortcircuit with it’s internal FX should then just work fine in Renoise. So the sampler indeed has more limitations then VSTi instruments…

That would be easily resolved if the fx chains could be routed to specific tracks and not just “the current” track the instrument is triggered in.
It would however work pretty confusing if you are triggering all sample groups from tracks where they are not playing and i suspect this would not render the output either when you render to sample.
I have tried multi-layering instruments this way and trigger all the notes from the same track, yet the audio was routed to other tracks and didn’t got rendered.
So i suspect this thing has been left out for a reason.
I would however not mind if Renoise would lock note-recording for these specific groups to the designated tracks that these samples are linked to, you get scattered notes across the pattern, but you will be ensured the whole deal is rendered to .WAV

Well, in any case it seems that instrument FX are useless for any instrument that you would record with more than one mic in the real world…except of course if you fall back to “recording it with one mic only”. I guess most will agree that you wouldn’t use only one mic on an entire drumset, though…
I still kind of hope that a solution for this can be found before Renoise 3 goes final.

I haven’t followed this topic in detail but get the problem with self contained instruments combined with routing to normal tracks.

How about this compromise:

You can add a “send device” in track fx chains that allows sending to normal tracks. These send devices won’t get saved with the instrument (or perhaps default to N/A output track and keep signal). This is an un-obtrusive way of making it possible for people to set up their own routings if they need to.

but wouldn’t it be nice if instruments just could be aliased? so they can play on another track, yet recieving every change made to the original instrument. maybe even with the possibility to add independent dsps or detach other parameters. I really like this hierarchical stuff. thought a lot about it lately. it would fit seemlessly into renoise… made a concept in the modulation thread. just add a girlfriendcheckbox :)

Well, if you take afta8’s solution, then it is the task of the instrument designer to take care that each sample (or group of samples that is supposed to used together) will have its own FX chain, if she/he intents her/his instrument to be used with multiple outputs.

I was initially also hoping that the instrument FX could help with proper parallel compression (bypassing the pre-fader send problem), but I can see that this will not happen. However, afta8’s solution would at least help a little bit and would be consistent with VSTi.

Oh and speaking of VSTi: If a VSTi has notes on two different tracks, but only puts out audio to one of them, then at least both notes are played (just on the same mixer track). In case of the sampler, only one will be played. This is another inconsistency I think which is unnecessarily confusing.

THIS should be implemented asap .
As it is now , there is no way to specify the output , the ouput will be wherever the notes are inserted in the pattern , If we have a drumkit and decide to to place our hihats on a different track , the audio will be switched/divided between all the tracks where the notes are inserted …( a it alien …this is the unexpected behaviour I was talking about on the previous page )
Renoise has always worked like this (before the new instr.design ) , the same instrument could be spread across multiple tracks, when a note of the same instrument was inserted on a different track ,this track would also output the audio stream
.Vst 's always had the option to specify the output …and we could insert notes on every track we liked … …they would all be summed at the specified output .
THIS OPTION IS VITAL FOR THE NEW INSTR.DESIGN , to just specify an output …let us users decide where we put our notes (since they will all be merged at the specified output )

I would really like to be able to make XRNI optionally mappable to specific tracks by defining a number of outputs for specified keyzones in the instrument. Outputs should be nameable for ease of use (eg Snare_Out), and include a default output that puts everything through a single track. Really very important for drumkits. This allows you run different parts of the kit through very different dsp chains and edit the settings, panning and levels for each output from the mixer view.

For example, you might want to rout the kick drum to a track with a mid-scooped eq and a lot of compression, while routing the snare to a track with eq emphasizing more mids and with less compression, while routing toms, crash cymbals, hi hats and ride (etc) each through their own output to sculpt the overall sound of the kit. Easy enough to do with drum kit VST instruments with multiple outs, can’t do it with XRNI drum kits, which is a significant limitation (along with the lack of mute groups).

sure agree .
One starts to wonder if they really thought about this stuff …
Biggest problem currently , is when making some rhytm parts , EVERYTHING has to be in the same track ( when instr.eff.are used )

Me too.

Indeed. To keep this consistent and fairly managable with developing Redux, make an additional accordion slider named “Outputs” that looks slightly different in Redux compared to Renoise. Redux will need the ability to support VSTi outputs as well anyway, right?

I also think that the message renoise shows when creating an fx chain is misleading , the message says ’ instruments with effects chans will behave like vsti’s , thus can be played on 1 track only .
The warning renoise gives you WOULD be correct if we didn’t have the option to select an output for the vst , if we place notes across multiple tracks …;these will cut each other off , ass each track will also function as an audio output .( which is currently the case with effect chain instr.)
But we do have the option to select an output for the vst , thus notes placed on different tracks will al be routed to the selected output .
PLEASE AS A QUICK FIX , let us at least have the option to select 1 output routing for the global instrument ,so we can use multiple tracks just for note data

Not sure redux will host vsti’s

Hopefully it will be a VSTi (?) and should thereby have multi-channel support.

Maybe the community can fix this (well, hack around it). We could write a script that does:

  • Split different notes into separate tracks (basically what my script does now)
  • Copy instrument as often as there are split tracks
  • Change notes in tracks such that each track is attached to one instrument copy
  • Now that there is a one-to-one relationship of instruments and tracks: strip out all unused samples (and corresponding FX chains) per instrument

The last step is the most crucial one of course, since this will save us a lot of CPU :slight_smile:

Actually, if the devs just implemented a native “strip instrument to used samples/fx chains in this track” option, I wouldn’t mind to do the copying myself…At least this way the instruments would stay distributable (I mean, who wants to distribute 10 instruments for one drumset?) and usable. So yeah, I suggest this to be added. @devs: Let me know what you think.

So people here have a difficult time understanding ’ distributing audio across multiple tracks ’ and distributing note data across multiple tracks .
The latter is fairly simple to achieve , if the developers would give us the option to select a master output ,we can use other tracks just to insert our data .

Indeed, both are intermixed in this thread, because both are needed!

The later “distributing note data across multiple tracks” should according to me work just like VSTi. The fact that it doesn’t seems rather to be a bug then a missing feature. It will thus probably be fixed in the next beta.

This leaves us (and this thread) with the former “distributing audio across multiple tracks”!

1 st issue
It is not a bug , the reason why it does not behave like a vst is because we can’t specify outputs , this has only to do with spreading note data .
In renoise 2.8 , you could spread instruments across multiple tracks because they were NOT treaded as a single instrument .
If you take any vst ( that is not multitimbral ) and YOU DO NOT give it a specific output , when you insert notes into different tracks , renoise will output audio across the multiple tracks …which is not favorable /
Now if you give DO give the vst a specific output channel , inserting notes across multiple tracks will always be routed to the selected output , that is the reason why instruments with effects chains DO NOT behave like vst’s …because we don’t have the option to specify an output …if we insert notes across multiple tracks , renoise will try to output audio trough all the tracks .
This can be fixed if we can give it a specific output ( for the global instrument ) , then we can spread notes across multiple tracks ,.but this will not solve the second issue

2 nd issue is that some users want an output channel for every instrument layer .this wil ofcourse solve the first issue .

Bottomline is…
Renoise treating its own internal instruments with FX chains more or less like it treats a multi-out VSTI unifies behavior and makes it less confusing.