[done b4 & b5] Mute groups

Ideas & suggestions
41

I just noticed something:

Enabling “hold” will behave differently than when not using mute groups - I think this behavior needs to be refined a little bit…

When not using mute groups, “hold” will enable you to toggle each playing sample by triggering it’s corresponding note. Perfect.
When not using mute groups, and with “mono” mode enabled, a single sample is played, and pressing the same note while it’s playing will toggle it off. Also how I would expect it to work.

However, when using mute groups, the keyboard will now only play a single sample for certain keys, but still behaving as if you needed to toggle each sample independently
Try it out: drag any two samples into a new instrument, add them to the same mute group and enable hold mode.
You should experience that each sample will sometimes need two presses to start playing.

Instead, I would like to see that the hold mode would work like in “mono” mode, for the samples that are affected by a mute group.

42

I don’t understand that also: I thought the NNA is short for Next Note Action. According to the popup, it defines what to do when a note is followed by another one in the same column. This is a feature important for sequencing. Mute groups have nothing to do with sequencing! They define what happens if the note is played, irrespective who plays the note (keyboard, midi, sequencer…

43

Okay, tell me what is going on there!

I set up an instrument such that the kick and snare are in no mute group, and the hihats are both in mute group 00. I added an envelope, such that note offs are ignored (it is drums after all, not keys). I also had to set the NNA of the hihats to “cut” in order to make any muting work at all.
So far so good.

Problem now is that the kick and snare will also mute the hihats, even though they are in no mute group!

To reproduce, load the attached XRNI, tab (i.e. press and immediately release) the “V” key on your keyboard (this is the open hihat), followed by the “Z” key (this is the Kick). You will hear that the hihat is stopped by the kick. This is unexpected behaviour of course. I have to conclude from this, that the mute group setting does not do anything.

Attachement:
http://stuff.fladd.de/drums_mute_groups.xrni

44

Yep, there is definitely something mysterious going on…
Tried doing it like you describe, and indeed the hihat is being cut off by the kick.

I have to conclude from this, that the mute group setting does not do anything.

Not unless the notes are actually overlapping - try pressing both keys and then releasing the first? Then the mute groups work fine.
So, it seems that once a sample goes into the release stage, it is being affected by any release that comes after it?

45

What I am using this for is to build a large, realistic acoustic drum kit out of a large sample set with multiple velocity layers that can be played via MIDI. Because individual samples are from a real drum kit some of them have very long tails (especially cymbals), and when set inside an ADSR envelope with very long sustain time, playing a typical drum pattern for a few measures can result in quite a large number of drum samples playing simultaneously as each sample decays. This is desirable behavior if you want a realistic drum kit that can be played back live. Unfortunately, in the current implementation of mute groups, this natural decay of samples is not happening, and notes(samples) are being cut prematurely when the expectation is that they would continue until the sample decays.

I recommend you take a look at a VST plugin like Toontrack Ezy Drummer or XLN Audio Addictive drums and play it from the keyboard or MIDI instrument to understand how a realistic multisample drum kit should sound when played via MIDI. Then compare this to a drum kit built in Renoise. It is hard to explain exactly what is going on, but it does not sound right when played from the keyboard.

46

I think we can describe mute groups in terms of two simple scenarios:

  • The classic usage case, in which a drumkit has an open and a closed hihat. The open hihat can be triggered, and will play - with a release that determines for how long. Once the closed hihat is triggered, the open hihat will immediately stop playing, as it is essentially the same sound source, and can only be in one state at a time (open OR closed).
  • Having a bunch of loops which are grouped logically in pairs - e.g. loop 1 & 2 and loop 3 & 4. Triggering any of these loops would make the sample play indefinitely - not being released, ever. But triggering another loop in the same group will cause the new loop to play instead (also indefinitely).
    For (1), there seem to be some bug that causes the samples to be cut of when the open hihat is released before triggering the closed one. Other than that, I believe it’s working as it’s supposed to.

For (2), the sample’s NNA setting could be put to good use (“continue”), this could be used for triggering samples that never reach the release stage. Right now, we can do something similar for an instrument by enabling both “mono” and “hold”, but it’s too simplistic as it doesn’t involve mute groups.

For both cases, I think it’s good to have the NNA value affect the behavior - you can define a normal ADHSR for the open hihat, to make it sound realistic when played on it’s own, but the NNA can be set so that the instrument is immediately cut off when the closed version is triggered. And for the looped beats, the NNA = continue will enable endless playback without resorting to workarounds using modulation envelopes (and the mute group itself will preventing multiple loops from playing on top of each other).

As for the polyphonic limit of an instrument - this is also being discussed over here:
http://forum.renoise…g-release-times

47

This also happens with ANY OTHER SAMPLE! Every sample (Kick, Snare, what you call loops, etc.) will cut off the hihat, even if it is not in this mute group, defeating the whole purpose of the mute group feature…

So essentially there are at least two bugs in the current implementation. They might be related, though…

48

This also happens with ANY OTHER SAMPLE!

Hey - no need to shout :slight_smile:
All I’m saying is that it happens only when keys are being pressed at the same time (overlapping). So, I’m only seeing a single bug here.

Have you tried to carefully press the keys like I described? This is not how you would realistically play an instrument, nevertheless it was how I had been trying out the feature to begin with. And it does seem to function perfectly when played like that.

The remaining things I’m talking about are not bug reports, but feature finetuning. Exactly how NNA relates to mute groups, etc.

49

I also tried mute group function.

If I use the PC keyboard, it seems to work correctly (with the close and open hithat on same group, for example). I even tried with both loop on (the sample runs entirely on short key pressing) and loop OFF (the sample runs on continuous press key), and the mute group is working.

But using my MIDI controller, it doesn’t work. But my problem is that nothing mute nothing (ref. Using Renoise For Live Drums And Samples Triggering). :lol:/>/>/> Perhaps something I have to set inside controller configuration itself. (EDIT : it appears that it’s not a controller problem, see below)

I’m using renoise 64bit linux.

EDIT : I made another try, using the PC keyboard once again. Using the same drumkit, It appears that the mute group function only works when you keep pressing the key. I explain :

1st example :
open hit hat is mute group 1, loop OFF (so I have to keep the key pressed to play the entire sample)

If I continuous press openhit hat key (group 1) to play the entire sample, then (but keeping the hh open key pressed) the tom key (group none) will NOT mute the hh open sample, since they are not in the same group.

If I continuous press openhit hat key (group1) to play the entire sample, then (but keeping the hh open key pressed) the tom key (group 1) will mute the hh open sample, since they are in the same group.

[b]2nd example :

open hit hat is mute group 1, loop forward ON (so I DO NOT have to keep the key pressed to play the entire sample, it play entirely on a single shot)[/b]

If I press openhit hat key (group 1) to play the entire sample, then the tom key (group none) WILL mute the hh open sample, even if they are not in the same group.

If I press openhit hat key (group1) to play the entire sample, then the tom key (group 1) will mute the hh open sample. (this test is just for reference, since the tom key mute the LOOP ON hithat open no matter the groups).

For my needs (using a midi controller and renoise to obtain a live performance MPC-style tool), it’s important that LOOP ON mute groups works : so I can trigger (for example) some shaolin voice :lol:/>/> or long synth phrase or any long lenght sample pressing one pad, and playing live the rythm (in another group) without cutting the long lenght samples I’d use for breaks, intros, main melody, etc…

I hope my tests are clear, english is not my first language.

50

I am not entirely sure what Loop mode has to do with this? Do you really mean the loop feature? What is it set to? Forward, backward, ping pong? This shouldn’t effect the release of the instrument in the first place! Or are you talking about using an envelope? Because I have the same issues when using a volume envelope.

51

I am not entirely sure what Loop mode has to do with this?

Yep, I’m also not sure how the sample loop setting applies to this?
Normally, a looped sample behaves no differently from a very long sample - it will still stop playing when you release it.

But this is also why I suggested that the NNA = continue is applied when using mute groups, because then we could have the functionality of the “hold” option but on a per-sample basis (without this, you wouldn’t be able to mix sounds that should release with sounds that continue playing within the same instrument).

Other than that, it seems that dem has experienced the same bug that I was reporting.

The modulation envelope workaround that fladd mentions seems like exactly that, a workaround. Even the longest release stage will not play for more than ~30 seconds

52

I’m speaking about the sample properties in sampler panel, specificaly The loop option (under the NNA option). In my examples, I set it to LOOP ON forward.

It’s not what is happening. When I modify a sample property, in my example the open hithat sample from the realdrumkit instrument, and set it to “LOOP FORWARD ON”, a quick push on the keyboard key play the open hithat (or ride, or whatever long sample I modified the properties to loop on forward) entirely.

If I set the sample properties to “LOOP OFF”, then I have to keep pushing the keyboard key to play the sample. If I stop pushing the key, the sound stops.

53

When I modify a sample property, in my example the open hithat sample from the realdrumkit instrument, and set it to “LOOP FORWARD ON”, a quick push on the keyboard key play the open hithat (or ride, or whatever long sample I modified the properties to loop on forward) entirely.

Hmm… this doesn’t happen here. The release should happen with looped as well as unlooped sounds.

But … when you say “realdrumkit instrument”, is that the “Kit-Real” from the old instrument pack? I tried with that one, and it cuts off just fine when you release the key.

Perhaps you could share the instrument with us?

54

I’m using the “kit real”, that’s right. It’s strange :huh:/>/>/>

But yes, when I set the “kit real” instrument, and select one of the samples inside it, then apply “loop forward on” (in the sampler panel/sample properties), the sample plays entirely once I push the key, even if I release it before the end of the sample lenght.

Tonight (or tommorow morning) I’ll make a video of this behaviour.

55

Really ugly video :

No sound (sorry, I did this with my old camera), but seeing the sampler screen you can understand what I mean.

I first launch renoise, on the video beginning, you can see that I just launched it. Then I select the realkit instrument.

On the beginning of the tests, I’m using loop OFF to trigger a cymbal, and you can see the sound stop when I release the key.

Then I select loop ON forward (same cymbal) sample. You can see that once loop is ON, the sample runs even if I release the key (and stop once it’s fully played).

At the end of the video, I select loop OFF again.

I’m using ubuntu 12.04lts 64bit. Renoise beta 3.0.0 beta4.

56

“This video is private”.

Please change the privacy setting to “Unlisted”, so that only people with the link can view it.

57

Oups :unsure:

I made the modification you asked, sorry ^_^

58

I think you may have slightly misunderstood a feature here?

The button next to the loop mode selector is not actually an On/Off switch for the entire loop. It actually toggles a special behaviour where, upon releasing the note, the loop will stop looping and then proceed to play the remainder of the sample. This is useful in situations where you have the body of a sound being looped, but you also want to hear the tail end of the sound when you release a note.

Here’s a very basic instrument that hopefully demonstrates this behaviour:

4545 renoise-looped-tom-with-release.xrni

Play a few notes with it, hold them down a bit, release them, etc.

In your Kit-Real example, it’s merely a coincidence that this feature also enables you to play the whole sample without needing to hold down the key. The proper approach would be to use a volume envelope instead, which prevents the sound from stopping immediately after releasing the key.

59

thanks for the explanation, even if (after testing it) I’m not sur how it explains anything related to the problem I was speaking about.

Even playing with envellope instead of using “loop forward on”, any samples still cut samples even if they are in diferent groups.

I notice that if I push the 2 keys simultaneously, then the group mute works. But if I push the keys one after the other one, it doens’t work : the new pushed key mute any other sample running, no matter I’m using (I understand it’s not done for that purpose) LOOP FORWARD ON or volume envellope settings.

And you will understand that for my needs, it’s a serious issue.

60

What? None of the NNA settings will make a sample play until the end automatically, irrespective of key release!

Workaround? Again, using an envelope is (as far as I know) THE ONLY WAY to make Renoise play a sample until the end, even when the key is released earlier! Am I missing something here?