External Control of Renoise
over the last few days I’ve been testing the basic MIDI MAP capabilities of Renoise. a few things are sticking out as a block to using basic devices to carry out powerful navigation and enhanced utilisation in Renoise instruments. preparing content for potential loading into Redux. I basically found 3 blocks to an enhanced use of external controllers to drive the interface.
1:
If the below two key commands were available in MIDI MAP it would make for a whole set of navigational possibilities from external controllers.
Two commands already existing under key commands: under Global / View. but are unavailable under MIDI MAP.
A: Focus Next View
B: Focus Previous View
2:
a second thing which stuck out was in the missed opportunity of the interface when working in Instruments.
it seems to me that if you have an instrument sample selected, there are two barriers to a very powerful workflow enhancement possibility.
one is that you can have sample selected in the instrument and then select for
Load Sample: this takes you to the OS disk browser. not a very interesting place to be.
Renoise own Disk Browser is much better to use and can be already looking at potential sample content.
you can even drag from the Renoise Disk Browser right onto the sample Waveform to replace the sample.
you can also do it with a Return Key when it is Focused and a sample selected in the disk Browser.
but both Focus and Disk Browser Loading are not available in MIDI MAP.
if they were available in MIDI MAP you could drive most all critical selections actions and Navigation from external midi controllers with ease.
so with these 3 commands as MIDI MAP you could do a lot more from a controller as regards an Instrument.
MIDI MAP
A: Global / View / Focus Next View
B: Global / View / Focus Previous View
C: Disk Browser / Load Selected Files
3:
a third thing which might be possible is
A: if you could have a mode where the Disk Browser shows the samples in the selected instrument
B: if a detached Instrument window could be suspended from displaying the selected instruments content.
in that condition, what you could do is load sample selections from the Disk Browser, which are referencing
any selected instrument you want to query and have those load into a different Instrument.
with the already mentioned Focus & Load Selected commands under MIDI MAP control, you are already very close to
having a way of constructing instrument content by just pressing buttons on a controller.
it’s probably better not to have to detach an instrument into it’s own window to carry out the operation.
it would be better if the normally in place Instrument window was able to be decoupled from instrument selection following behaviour.
in any case, this 3rd behaviour is probably more troublesome to implement. but it would make Renoise extremely easy to navigate without even using a QWERTY keyboard. you could carry out loads of useful Instrument tasks with ease from most any controller.
lastly: the only other thing which I found, was a desire to be able to enter a Low High note number (and) Low High velocity value, by just hitting an external drum pad or key, to automatically set these values for a Keymap instrument range. but other than these few factors nothing else really stuck out.
I’m testing all this to sell myself on obtaining Redux. I’m actually Running the Redux Demo inside Renoise as a test bed to qualify what it will be like as a sampler in any 3rd party App. Redux will likely have similar arrangement for Key commands and It looks like it has no MIDI MAP at all. I don’t see why It couldn’t also have it save for it not being so logical to share those while hosted in Renoise. but it’s on a users head what choices they make for MIDI MAP triggering. either good or bad. maybe a MIDI MAP disable could take care of that.but to reiterate the missing MIDI MAP options. they are.
MIDI MAP
A: Global / View / Focus Next View
B: Global / View / Focus Previous View
C: Disk Browser / Load Selected Files
everything else seems to be in place for other navigation and selection options and works great.
Peace!