How Does The Axy Command Work?

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

I asked this on the IRC channel.
mxb told me: “the arp command cycles through the notes (simulating note-offs for the previous note)”

But
F-5 A47
OFF
sound different to
F-5 C4 / A-5 (cut after x ticks)C4 (delay)55 / C-6 C4 AA

Why?

2

The arpeggio command is linked to your Ticks Per Line setting in the Song Settings panel, so if you’re working at a higher TPL setting then you’ll get a more rapid arpeggio effect.

In your example you’ve only got 3 notes on a single pattern line, so assuming that you’re using Renoise’s default setting of 12 TPL, the arpeggio command will already be running much more rapidly than your manually programmed notes. This could be one of the main differences in sound that you’re experiencing.

Apart from the timing differences, the arpeggio command produces a continuous sound while only varying the pitch/tone, and will not retrigger the instrument envelopes. On the other hand, when you manually trigger each note in the pattern you will also retrigger the envelopes (volume, pitch, etc), so you may have notes that are stopping/starting with gaps inbetween or overlapping in different ways, which could be another reason for the difference in sound.

3

Thanks for the insightful info, I like knowing the inner workings of things.
Indeed the command arp. sounds faster.
What’s the formula to calculate how many cycles, depending on the numbers of TPL, are there in a single line using the Axy command?

4

First of all, let’s define an arpeggio ‘cycle’ as playing through all 3 semitones in the command.

From 1 TPL to 8 TPL you get exactly one semitone per tick:

  • 1 TPL = 1 semitone per line = 0.333 cycles per line
  • 2 TPL = 2 semitones per line = 0.667 cycles per line
  • 3 TPL = 3 semitones per line = 1 cycle per line
  • 4 TPL = 4 semitone per line = 1.333 cycles per line
  • 5 TPL = 5 semitones per line = 1.667 cycles per line
  • 6 TPL = 6 semitones per line = 2 cycles per line
  • 7 TPL = 7 semitones per line = 2.333 cycles per line
  • 8 TPL = 8 semitones per line = 2.667 cycles per line

From 9 TPL to 16 TPL the value is halved:

  • 9 TPL = 4.5 semitones per line = 1.5 cycles per line
  • 10 TPL = 5 semitones per line = 1.667 cycles per line
  • 11 TPL = 5.5 semitones per line = 1.833 cycles per line
  • 12 TPL = 6 semitones per line = 2 cycles per line
  • 13 TPL = 6.5 semitones per line = 2.167 cycles per line
  • 14 TPL = 7 semitones per line = 2.333 cycles per line
  • 15 TPL = 7.5 semitones per line = 2.5 cycles per line
  • 16 TPL = 8 semitones per line = 2.667 cycles per line

A bit nerdy, but hopefully this helps :)

5

Finally, I was able to recreate the Axy command with other commands.
Why I do this? Because I want to fully understand the commands ^_^

F-5 A47 (3TPL, 1LPB)

The alternate way is:

(1TPL, 3LPB)
F-5
A-5 G40
C-6 G30
F-5 G70

Thanks dblue