Hows About a Renoise 2.9 for Everyone Who Prefers the Old Interface

Ideas & suggestions
81

On the contrary, I love the new instrument features. Especially the new modulations are something I have been waiting for a long time and I love the phrases too. Good example why I really miss the possibility to tweak sample properties and load/replace samples directly from pattern view is the drum kit shown on the mockups. Lets say I have already recorded “bass” track (usually single sample or VST) and “sample” track (sliced recording) and now I’m building the drums. Maybe I already have the phrase in my head or I simply improvise, either way…

This is how approximately this usually goes:

  • I load the kick, set the drumkit mode and record it
  • then I load snare on the next sample slot (renoise automaps it to the next key), record it, set the volume and pitch (when using samples from different sources they are usually not in the same pitch)
  • then I load a hi-hat and record it. Ups, I have made a mistake, lets correct it in the pattern
  • darn, that snare is not good, let’s try some others, but sample track goes on my nerves, let’s mute it. And hi-hat too. Or better, let’s just pan the hat a bit to the right and lower the volume
  • snare still doesn’t sound right - let’s solo the bass track and pitch the snare again against it
  • hm, how would it sound if I put a compressor in the drum track? oh yes! just a little less volume to the kick and remove one note from the patterns which collides with the sample
  • this sounds good, but what if I try that other bass preset and a bit different bassline (let’s say bass is a VST although in mockup isn’t)? ok, mute the bass track, change the preset and play something else… no, no, change the whole VST, yes this one has good basses… I like it, record!
  • this last part of the pattern still doesn’t sound right, let’s loop it (block loop) and take a look into it… hm… ok this is good, back to the whole pattern
  • load the cymbal into the next slot…
  • etc. :)

All this goes live from the single screen configuration in 2.8 or the second mockup. But in 3.0 as it is now, I have to constantly switch between pattern, sampler and plugin screens and It’s really cumbersome in comparison.

I understand that developers would like to push certain people so build complex instruments, which is why the new sampler feels more detached from the composing environment, but I think this shouldn’t mean that very good workflow solutions available before have to be removed. People are smart, they will use new features if they are good (which new sampler definitely is). But they will use them when needed, no need to force them to do so in every case. Renoise was always very integrated composing and sample mangling environment, much more that just a sum of it’s features and with every release it build upon this paradigm and refined it. But 3.0 is the first release when this integration is much less noticeable, actually the new sampler (although very good by itself) feels more like an add on or some sort of integrated VST. More like a Redux VST :) But I feel it’s a step back for Renoise as a composing workstation.

82

Well, i still think that the only way to keep things a little more logical and only hide not really vital stuff in tabs are this three steps at least:

  1. Move Sample section of sampler back where it was for ages http://i.imgur.com/JQlwoAS.jpg coz it is very bad idea to hide beneath tab something that is so heavily used for composition workflow. It is very very logical to do so, since of course you don’t use all the time Keyzones, Modulation, Waveform and other stuff - please, hide them under other tab, but you choose samples all the time, and to see them all the time - is a must.
  2. Choosing plugin window http://i.imgur.com/j98sBIs.jpg same thing again, i won’t even say more here, it’s very obvious - plugins are instruments, and they must be presented all the time on the screen with instruments and sample windows, additional functionality - can be hidden in tabs, but not the most important.
  3. To save space, logic and not confuse people who used renoise for years i would strongly suggest to move Sampler, Plugin, MIDI tabs down, and Edit, Mix, analyser buttons higher.
    This would save precious space of single line, and will bring lot more sense i think.
    Like that: http://i.imgur.com/Bo81cD6.jpg

I would love to draw mock-up, but have to work really hard now, have 0 time between work and work, but i really care about what people doing in here…
I kinda like functionally what tha_man did, at least you can see vital stuff all the time, but visually it looks very overloaded to have left-and right orientation of important panels all at once.

83

Well frankly, i was aiming towards the smallest netbook resolution which can be 990*600.
And i personally don’t see any logical spot for the sampler near the pattern editor because it frankly does not has any relationship with the pattern editor.
The whole current structure is now neatly packed together. I can understand why people rather have a tab structure then column based expansion/collapsing areas.

84

@tha_man:

YES!

Your first mockup is what we need!

It’s what we had!

85

@vV: No problem, if it’s hideable - top and bottom panels also can not be displayed together on such resolution. About sample list/properties panel: I have explained in a reply to KURTZ why I find this extremely convenient also in the pattern view, although it’s not in direct relation. It might be just my way of working, but it was one of the things that sold me to Renoise.

Anyway, I did another quick mockup with just sample list/properties (this time full height) on the left side of the pattern editor (with advanced edit). You could easily imagine sample editor in the middle instead of a pattern, like on the first mockup.

I did this one mostly because I was interested, how would this type of interface (left+right+bottom+top panel) look in full hd resolution, which is becoming more common in desktop systems. It would look very similar with disk browser on the left and samples on the right, like I did in the first mockups:

patternnew.png1920×1058

It pretty neatly uses all that screen estate, don’t you think? I have tried 2.8 on such resolution and it uses all that space much worse, mostly because top and bottom panel are not resizeable and there is lots of empty space on the right side, except if there is huge amount of tracks. So I guess 3.0 GUI is step in the right direction, just bring back the flexibility of what we could see at the same time.

86

Considering your workflow, that is based on a constant interaction between the pattern editor tracks, and a constant drumkit redefinition, I understand better your problem with the new interface.

Here is my secret workaround for it. Okay that will not be a secret for a long time. Anyway.

How do I actually create my muli-sampled instruments and my drumkits,

b[/b] I start my tracks by selecting a bunch of samples in the disk browser, that I load in the instruments list one by one at the top right. At the begeinning there are lots of shitty sounds that I won’t keep in the end, but it’s just to make tests in realtime within the pattern editor, like you.

b [/b]Then I compose my very first beats with elements of this instrument list, at first. I immediately see and hear - like you - when a sample doesn’t make it and when I have to replace it.

b [/b]I replace every sample until I’ve got something nice and cohesive for my kit. Sometimes, I add one or two effects in the track dsps where I compose my beat. When I believe that some effects would could be applied directly on the sample, I open the sample editor and I click on the FX button : I remove the FX chain later on and save som CPU cycles.

b [/b]When a complete pattern is finished and the beat is clean : I deleted unused samples / instruments. Then, I save my song. The song is then visible (.xrns file) in the disk browser but this song can be “explored” in itself. If you click on the little triangle icon before the .xrns song name, you’ll be able to see every included samples in it.

b [/b]So, after that, I select all those included samples in the .xrns file, in the disk browser, and I drag & drop them all in the samples list windows.

b[/b] I just go into the keyzones. And click on the drumkit button : it’s nearly done. I give a name to my drumkit.

b [/b]to finish : I’ve got a pretty sounding pattern but instruments references in it are wrong : I’ve got to use my new drumkit, to replace track by track the old instrument references. I could use the advanced pattern editor for instruments numbers and some tricks to change notes. But anyway, that’s just one pattern : my next patterns will be faster to build thanx to my new drumkit.

So the trick is to use the disk browser that shows you all samples in the .xrns file song, and that allows you to drag & drop all the samples in one pass, between the disk browser and the sample list windows.

87

Totaly agree on this.

That’s why: