Back during the beta stages of Renoise, there were many discussions about whether Renoise needed its own built-in synthesizer engine. Over time, the general conclusion seemed to be that it wasn’t necessary, since there are already many excellent third-party synthesizers available. At one point, I agreed with that perspective as well.
However, after thinking about it more, I realized that what I would really like to see is not a native synthesizer engine, but deeper integration of VST instruments within Renoise’s instrument architecture.
I make extensive use of the instrument effects section because it helps keep the mixer clean and allows me to build more self-contained instruments. This led me to wonder whether a similar concept could be applied to VST instruments.
Specifically, it would be interesting to allow VST instruments to be loaded directly inside a Renoise instrument, much like effects can be loaded into instrument chains today.
This would make it possible to create complex, self-contained instruments composed of multiple instances of one or more synthesizers. For example, several instances of the same synth could be used to build a drum instrument, with individual sounds assigned to different keyzones.
Such an approach could offer several advantages:
More compact project organization.
Reduced mixer clutter.
The ability to use meta devices and internal routing at the instrument level.
Easier creation of layered and modular instruments.
Saving complete instrument setups—including VST instruments, effects, routing, and mappings—as a single Renoise instrument patch.
In my view, this would not be an attempt to replace existing synthesizers with a native Renoise synth engine. Instead, it would provide a more flexible and efficient way to organize and reuse complex instrument designs while staying within Renoise’s instrument-centric workflow.
I’d be interested to hear what others think about this idea.
Layering VSTs and putting effects directly into an XRNI is something I’ve wanted for a long time, so I’ll give my +1 here. Also, I think this feature makes even more sense now with the introduction of pattrns, which allows for all kinds of routings, delays, transposing etc. It would be super powerful for building complex instruments and re-using them between projects, which is currently where this stuff gets tricky.
It would also allow for some of the things I mention in this post:
Additionally, instrument-scoped VST hosting could be beneficial for scripting and live coding workflows. Having complete instrument structures contained within a single instrument could make it easier to generate, modify, and control complex setups programmatically, opening new possibilities for procedural sound design and real-time performance systems.
Enumerating VST parameter Names, Types and Rangevalues
Choose your wanted VST parameters (Instrument Macro Knobs for example) over checkbox VST paramname list (for instance Cutoff)
generate these Instrument Macro knobs with name and rangevalues over Renoise API
Would be cool if renoise could save then your instrument as a virtual VST instrument,
Which you can load like a normal Sample Instrument. On Loading Renoise could load needed VST (identified by name and version) and automatically your defined instrument parameters.
So you not have to automate every VST parameters again and again in new projects if you want use your VST. You only need to load your Virtual VST Instrument and you have all you need instantly.
I think there must be a way to address these VSTs using phrases, and maybe it would work the same way we can currently program in a samples number. For example, maybe the note in the phrase would be able to address each track, with the possibility of chaining a few synths in series. Actually, as of 3.5, it looks like the old ‘sample select’ box now refers to midi channels. Maybe the devs are way ahead of us…
It would be great to see at least a prototype or some kind of conceptual mockup, as I’m not entirely sure how such a feature could be implemented in practice.
Personally, I imagine it as a kind of VST adapter hosted inside a Renoise instrument. This adapter could load both VST instruments and MIDI-controllable effects, while allowing each instance to be restricted to a specific key range.
This would make it possible to build more complex instruments from multiple synthesizers distributed across different keyzones. For example, several instances of the same synth could be combined into a single drum instrument, with each sound assigned to its own note range.
I could also see this being useful for effects that can be controlled via MIDI notes. A good example would be dBlue Glitch, which allows preset switching through MIDI note triggers. In a system like this, such effects could become part of the instrument itself, alongside synthesizers, keyzones, modulation, and internal routing.
Of course, this is just one possible interpretation of the concept, which is why I’d be very interested to see how others envision such a system working.
