Sorry to post about this here again but the last time I posted about it was a few years ago and it didnt get fixed in the latest version.
The pattern effect commands for vibrato ( -Vxy - Set vibrato (regular pitch variation), x = speed, y = depth) and tremelo ( -Txy - Set tremolo (regular volume variation), x = speed, y = depth) produce out of time cycles.
if you set them to the slowest setting you can hear as the pattern loops round, the vibrato and tremelo cycles are out of time.
Maybe it is because there is only one digit to control speed, so it only goes up to 15, which doesnt divide well in to musical divisions of ticks in a line (2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12 etc.)…hope that makes sense.
Its a small thing but it just throws me off…I can hear its wrong / out of time when progressing to the next pattern or repeating a pattern.
heres an example at a slow BPM to highlight the problem.
Its vibrato at every setting except 0 for the first 15 patterns, then tremelo at every setting except 0 for the second 15 patterns.
Its easier to hear the timing innacuracy in the tremelo patterns, but in both, the faster the speed setting, the more difficult it is to hear.6988 V_T_example.xrns
The thing is… the timing of these commands has never been explicitly defined (as far as I’m aware) in terms of precise beats or something like that, they simply operate at a certain “speed” to achieve some kind of interesting movement within the sound.
The tremolo command didn’t exist until Renoise 2.8, but its behaviour was based on the vibrato command, and the vibrato command has been using this speed factor since the days of Renoise 1.2 — almost 14 years ago!
So, like it or not, this behaviour has been around forever, and I would guess that many people rely on it operating in a certain way… regardless of the precise timing.
I do agree that some kind of tempo-synced method would be nice, but it’s tricky to change the behaviour of these legacy commands after such a long time.
For more precise timings, have you considered using the sample modulations instead? You can really get a lot more control over things that way, but I guess it depends on what you need to do.
Using the sample modulations instead sounds like a good idea.
Thanks for giving such a detailed reply.
Possibly in a future update it would be cool to adjust the speed part of the vibrato and tremelo commands behaviour like this:
0 = 1 line
1 = 2 lines
2 = 3 lines
3 = 4 lines
4 = 5 lines
5 = 6 lines
6 = 7 lines
7 = 8 lines
8 = 9 lines
9 = 10 lines
A = 11 lines
B = 12 lines
C = 13 lines
D = 14 lines
E = 15 lines
F = 16 lines
(or half of this, 0 = 1/2 a line, 1 = 1 line…F = 8 lines)
Then sample modulations could be used for those who want vibrato / tremelo speed less than one line per cycle or more than 16 lines per cycle. There could be an option in preferences to keep the legacy vibrato / tremelo speed for backwards compatibility / songs that were written with the older version of the commands.