How to get PROPER swing in Renoise, with, for example piz midiswing?

[ffx]

@keith303

do you have any example in which you could demonstrate where an instrument envelopes follows a different progression through its stages when using groove settings and when not?

Sure: https://forum.renoise.com/uploads/short-url/jfd9s7lRPTXpO2k49kO0cbwLxRh.xrns
Change the tempo, you will hear clearly how the pitch envelope changes then, even while it is in ms-mode. I think it is not that obvious for volume envelopes, but much more for pitch- and filter envs. But it will cause aliasing surely, too. I think it is like this, because even in ms-mode the env is based on the pattern ticks, which are dependent on tempo.

[Mesmerized (Spritzy)]

@keith303

what else than delaying off-beat notes relative to their on-beat notes do you expect a machine to do for you when applying shuffle? what other kind of “calcuations” would you expect to be involved?
you can delay events with a resolution of 1/256th of a line which allows for alterations way more subtle than even the most sensible persons are able to discern.

you can get a perfect reproduction of any swing heard by mankind in any song and any DAW on this planet with renoise by simply entering the appropriate delay values in the effect and/or delay column or using a higher LPB to gain enough resolution without using delays or by simply using the groove settings, which will always bring you very close to whatever swing you opt for.

apart from lazyness, i can’t really see why there should be anything more elaborate than the pretty diverse tools you already have at hand to manipulate note events in time.

Well, like I said, I am not that as technical as you very talented people are when it comes to mathematical formulas, but I have a feeling that maybe the percentage way that the fl studio swing is calculated, might be a formula with WHOLE percentages, instead of floating point percentages. If that makes any sense what so ever. Probably did not

Or what ever, I really have no idea. All I know is I just put in an order for a tiny midi keyboard so i can jam swingy rhythms into fl studio instaed.

It will be a pain in the ass, because I will have to resort to the piano roll each time I make a bad note or off note, but it will still be lightyears easier than trying to jam from my computer keyboard into it.

@keith303

@Mesmerized

Or would I have to write my own tracker?

highly recommended!

Hehehe. Humour at it’s best It would take me years. But then again, each jorney starts with one single step.

Too bad though that renoise does not support such plugins as piz midiswing.
IS THERE REALLY NO WAY to route midi from that into a plugin in Renoise? ←

Someone please answer on this one. It would be a dream come true, because it has a good swing as well, and i tried it in other daws using revisit, and all was fine untill i started adding more channels than one, then it bugged out completely and starting pouring kick drums to the left and right, hehe.

[keith303]

@ffx

I wouldn’t use global swing at all, since it influences the envelopes of the Renoise instruments, too.

here you are referring to global swing.

@ffx

Change the tempo, you will hear clearly how the pitch envelope changes then,

now you’re talking about tempo, which is a totally different story, since contrary to global groove, it will naturally take an influence on how instrument envelopes are processed.

but you recommended to not use the global swing (aka global groove) of renoise, because it would alter the way instrument envelopes are processed and that is not correct. it stays the same as long as you dont touch the BPM / tempo.

[ffx]

Ah thanks for this info. I thought groove was done using tempo change. Ok so I was wrong.

@keith303

it will naturally take an influence on how instrument envelopes are processed

Why that? In ms-mode, the envelope should sound the same with any tempo, just like a VSTi, a.k.a. sample accurate.

[keith303]

@ffx

Why that? In ms-mode, the envelope should sound the same with any tempo, just like a VSTi, a.k.a. sample accurate.

agreed. it should! at least then, when you’re syncing the envelopes to milliseconds and not to beats.

i have no idea why renoise treats instrument envelopes tempo-based under the hood when not beatsynced - i merely knew that it has always been like that, so i took it as given ever since.

should not be a problem as long as you dont change the tempo throughout your arrangement/song.

[4tey]

As a little sideline…just mention Renoise ‘Global Groove’ there is a visual calculator tool to try help with what those 4 sliders are doing → Global Groove - Documentation / How does it work? - #4 by dblue

[Jonas (Djeroek)]

Thanks^.

There is a ‘shuffle’ percentage setting in the phrase tab of the instrument editor, how does this swing option compare to the global groove? Must say that I haven’t used the shuffle option much other then testing, but always have a hard time getting something that I like with the global groove sliders, so will try shuffle for ease of use. At least it is one slider .

[4tey]

@Jonas

There is a ‘shuffle’ percentage setting in the phrase tab of the instrument editor, how does this swing option compare to the global groove?

Not sure but I assume that setting shuffle % in a phrase is like setting all 4 sliders in the global groove to that %(?)

[Mesmerized (Spritzy)]

According to some pictures on this the link provided earlier in this thread: Global Groove - Documentation / How does it work? - #6 by fladd - renoise never hits exactly 58% of a drum machine swing, but a floating point percentage near it? Might this be the reason I don’t like the swing in renoise fully? And if it never hits that exactly, it most likely never hits most anything in exact percentages either?

[4tey]

And (to clarify) further down that thread you’ve taken into account this(?)

@dblue

Aside from the academic argument, I wouldn’t worry too much about the effect of this rounding error on your actual music. At a typical tempo of 120 BPM and 4 LPB, the difference between a note delay of 0xAA and 0xAB (ie. the duration of 1/256th of a pattern line) is a mere 0.488 milliseconds. I think we can safely consider this difference to be completely insignificant from a musical groove point of view, can’t we? I defy anyone to actually be able to hear that difference in a blind test anyway :]

[Mesmerized (Spritzy)]

After closer examination of all these programs:

FL Studio’s swing
Renoise differnet swing types
Reaper’s own swing

and

Reaper with a script called Hacky Tracky (that I stumpled upon during a visit on this forum) that I then run trough piz midi swing vst…

…I’ve come to realize… They’ve all got their own type of swing it seems. And the oddball is in fact FL Studio. It is VERY different from all the others. It “takes out the curves” a lot more than the rest of the bunch on every other 16th note. And I LOVE it.

I thought I’d be in heaven with “proper” swing (if there now is such a thing) once I got piz midi swing going, because it had so many sliders to shape the swing. BUT NO; it does not swing the way to make my body and brain happy like FL Studio does.

I said earlier in this post that Reaper had better swing than Renoise, but I take that back.

Too bad Hacky Tracky is a script and not a vst, because then I could’ve loaded it into FL Studio.

[Mesmerized (Spritzy)]

I’ve come to accept that Renoise and other Daws do not have FL studio swing, and started messing about with a delay value of 62, which to me is the sweet spot of a swing

So I won’t get the sexy FL studio swing, but hey, it kinda rocks anyway once you stop nitpicking, hehe.

Btw; is there a tool to alter already entered delay column values more easily? So I can have a different swing on each track? Would be great.

[gentleclockdivider]

We all know renoise envelope are far from sample accurate , ;not even millisecond accurate
It’s the only thing I hope they fix sooner or later

[4tey]

I’ll just say that with the example that Spritzy gave with FLStudio at 58%, for all intent and purpose I can’t tell any major difference or magic with the example. I selected a delay column value of 2B. Or use global groove at 25%.

My test xrns:
flswingtest.xrns (512.7 KB)

[4tey]

A little thinking out loud over something I noticed…

While I was doing a little research with ‘groove’ in Renoise I came across a post by @taktik here → Groove/Shuffle Question - #24 by taktik In that post I quote:

There are also strange things happening when using other LPB than 4, which are very hard to explain, but maybe easier to demonstrate and edit this way.

I’m sure people can understand the ‘very hard to explain’ because let’s face it, it is. IDK if taktik fixed the ‘strange things’ since then.

I quickly looked at the groove setting with all 4 sliders set at 100%. Then I went through the first 8 lpb’s. To my hearing (not very scientific I know) lpb’s 1,2,3,4,5 and 7 produce a set groove pattern. But the two lpb’s 6 and 8 produce another different groove pattern.

It says in the manual not to get all into the technical details of the Renoise groove sliders. Maybe that’s sound advice(?)

[fladd]

One thing I would like to add to the discussion is that “swing”, as known from drum machines, works a bit differently, besides the seemingly same range of values.

I found in my notes the following formulas I once wrote down to convert between the two:

def rns2swing(x):
    return (1.0 / 3) * x + 50

def swing2rns(x):
    return 3 * x -150

So, for instance, to get a “swing” of 58, you would need to set the sliders in Renoise to 24.

[4tey]

I don’t own FLStudio myself so I can’t do tests. I find that (from the given 58% example above) it corresponds better with a 25% slider in Renoise. Of course you probably can’t hit it completely sample accurate as for rounding and slightly different calculation reasons. You can’t input 38.143% in Renoise for example. A 100% 1/16 standard shuffle in Bitwig translates to about 74-75% in Renoise.

Not sure about your (python) function above fladd. I assume ‘x’ is a percentage parameter. Sure if I put ‘x’ as 58 into your swing2rns function I get 24. But if I put 100 into the function I get 150, which is tricky to input as a Renoise slider value(?)

[fladd]

@4tey

But if I put 100 into the function I get 150, which is tricky to input as a Renoise slider value(?)

Correct. Which is why you cannot achieve a “swing” of 100 in Renoise. At least not with the global groove control.

[4tey]

Oh I see, you mean your formula(s) are for your drum machine the Novation and Roland products

[fladd]

I don’t have a drum machine, but the formulas are for the “swing” I have found on Novation and Roland products.