LFOs are awesome. Custom LFO envelopes are even more awesome, and they allow us to do some truly incredible stuff. Unfortunately, working with the LFO envelope editor can be a pain in the ass sometimes, due to its awkward small size.
My idea: let’s stop trying to cram tons of functionality into a tiny little space, and let’s instead have a full-sized editor view dedicated just to envelopes. This would give us more than enough room to comfortably fit all the editing tools in there, making the whole experience much more enjoyable, efficient, accurate, etc.
Clicking the “Edit Envelope” button on the LFO device causes this view to appear, and the LFO’s custom envelope will automatically be loaded ready for us to edit. If we need to edit another LFO, we simply do the same thing and the view will now show that LFO envelope instead. The view will remember the last envelope that was used, so that we can change views to perform other tasks in our song, and then come back to it and continue editing.
This view could potentially even replace the basic functionality of the current automation editor?
Well, as I hinted in my post, I think this could easily act as the automation editor as well, and perhaps for even more things in the future. It would be really cool to have a central envelope editor that had lots of nice, rich features to improve the workflow when using envelopes.
I’m imagining a list down the left side of the screen, probably similar to the automation screen, and the list would contain all of the devices in the current song that had used an envelope. From this central location, you could then have access to edit them all in a convenient way, with powerful selection and editing tools, etc. We could enhance it with more features that people might find using, like grid snapping when drawing points, stuff like that.
I just hate working in that tiny LFO editor, and personally, even the automation editor can feel very restrictive at times. I’d really just love to have this big workspace when I’m trying to make some precise adjustments. Whenever things need to be enhanced or improved in the Renoise GUI, it’s always a question of how much space is it gonna need? Is it gonna be too big? How do we make it work without being too big and ugly, etc. Well, I think it’s silly trying to fight to fit everything into those tiny spaces when they’re clearly not designed for it. Let’s get a nice BIG dedicated work area and make it just as strong as the others like pattern editor, mixer, sample editor, etc.
Another interesting thing to note is that currently the automation editor is hiding the track dsps so we can’t see them both together. If automations were moved to this larger editor instead, we could display track dsps below simultaneously, which would be very useful I think.
instead of a “Edit Env.” button, it could maybe be feasible to allow drag&drop of any automation curve into the main area of the application in order to open the editor.
of course, a context menu entry and a “View => Automation Editor” would be welcomed
If it’s going to go with a list I would say only currently selected track’s automations & LFOs and currently selected instrument should be listed otherwise the list is going to get huge. Not hard to change instrument or track to change where you want to insert the envelope.
If it is going to be done by this method then a tab, rather than a button, I think makes more sense.
I like the idea as well. However, I would also include other things and expand the whole thing into a “Graphical Editor”.
In addition to envelopes it would also include notes like in a Pianoroll, sample and instrument editing.
In other words, it could be an alternative and extended display of whatever you have put into focus.
Next, this, or any other window, would have to be flexible. So you can move/dock/resize it.
You can then use this to:
Preview clips (note,envelope,wave)
Preview samples or any other part of an instrument structure
a PianoRoll
Compare/multiedit of clips
Edit any pattern commands graphically
You would simply have view options like:
show/hide:
Envelopes/Automation
Sample/wave
Notes
Note events
Instrument events
Track events
Global events
So…if you for instance wanna edit a filter cutoff on track 15 spanning over 3 patterns, and compare it to a streamed long sample on track 03, you would simply select the corresponding clips in the matrix/clip arranger, or select the tracks directly in the mixer/pattern editor and you can instantly see both the filter envelope and the long sample overlaid in the Graphical Editor.
A clever view- and selection-preset system could make repeated multi-selections in the Graphical editor work slick.
It also could have different zoom options, like autozoom. Make it easily act as an instant magnifier glass too.
Then, perhaps make it possible to have several of these Graphical windows opened at once, so you can use different zoom levels at once, or to compare even more events side by side instead of an overlaid fashion.