note: the following only applies to ReNoise 1.5.1 and above
In this little example, we will see how “ghost instrument” works.
This is a feature which main 2nd generation trackers (FT2, IT2) had.
Basically, it lets you avoid envelope retrigging at each new note.
1] pick an instrument which has at least an envelope (volume envelope, for example). It’s better if you choose an instrument with a long envelope for this example.
2] put a note for this instrument on a column
C-4 01
3] put another note on the same column
C-4 01 E-4 01
4] put the cursor over the instrument number of the second note
C-4 01
E-4 01
5] press del (the instrument number will disappear)
C-4 01
E-4
6] play the pattern: you will notice that the second note will start without restarting the envelope
With this feature, we can achieve very interesting results, expecially when using filter+cutoff envelopes, because we can let that envelopes “flow” through a whole bassline, without ever retrigging them from beginning: just remove all the instrument numbers from the notes of the bassline, except the first, and you have done!
silly example(look at the pattern during first play, then look at the envelope) more clever example(look how a filtered sweep can be easily built without using any track DSP nor any complex automation)
(*) Complete song example (came 3rd at Buenzli demoparty)
this indeed looks to be very promising
after i started brainstorming on the next things i want to experiment with, i started to wonder if this is compatible with vsti instruments?
i haven’t worked with the renoise instruments all that much so i have not tried it yet. during the brainstorming i also posed the question of whether or not vsti instruments could be controlled with the instrument envelopes?
i was however messing around with the instrument envelopes last week for an hour or so, and i was really wondering if those envelopes can be controlled by anything like automation? being able to automate those envelope parameters would be a really nice addition if its not already possible.
for the ones who don’t know what Lxx did in FT2: it set the “envelope cursor” position to the xxth tick, even when used without a note
I asked for its implementation in the past, but looks like there is a party who dislike to add new commands, because we already have filled the 00-FF range for the first two command column digits, and they want to avoid the confusion which using 0Gxx, OHxx, … which are not hexadecimal, may lead to beginners.
I don’t believe this is a problem at all, though, but I’m in minority.
anyway, a problem with Lxx on ReNoise arises: which envelopes should be affected by it? and how? I mean: in FT2, you had only pan and volume envelopes, and Lxx (if I remember well) acted on volume only, while it would be cool to act on volume, pitch, pan, cutoff and resonance separately, for example by using Lxyy, where x specifies the envelope type, and yy the offset. However, this would limit the possible offset to 255 ticks.
A good replacement for this command would be the ability to use the same samples in more than one instrument, which could let use define more than one envelope for the same sample. Something which could be part of the new RNI format.
We can ofcourse go to the same panning commands used to trick with the MIDI commands, but in that case the 9x commands combined with an Lyy command would the x value be the envelope tab (vol/pan/pitch/cutoff/reso).
I personally would not mind changing the hexadecimal scheme to an alphabetical, it’s just that i have to change some parts of the documentation.
And i don’t mind that either.
I don’t know if we would get a lot of beginners questions about those…
I think making a couple of more good video tutorials on that case may work out better.
