I personally think there is a still a lot of room for improvement when it comes down to quality of life, and especially with the sample editor section. pitch-locked time-stretching would be awesome as previously mentioned.
Ability to loop your preview selection in sample editor (would speed up workflow tons for dialing in loops, even one shots to make sure you dont pop on a transient,single cycles etc.). Super quick way of dialing in new layers for an instrument. I added this idea recently, hopefully it finds its way in.
A container with its own modulation set affecting all members in the group. For instance, when you create a kick drum by layering 3 samples, each with their own modulation, you want a quick method to change global settings of that kick drum (e.g. attack and release of the whole 3 sample creation).
Not really. You want to map velocity to sample start in order to create realistic sounding instruments. Currently this is not possible.
To come back to the original question, to me several breaktrough could still be made for Tracker- DAW :
1) Having a better song mode : when building a song by chaining patterns, in the pattern matrix it woud be nice to be able :
mute/unmute some tracks (which can be already be done)
tranpose/force to scale melodic tracks the pattern
set a tempo
set a start/end point (i.e start at line X and stop at line Y)
That would basically means being able to sequence the sequencer
2) Having concurrent tracks : each track could have :
a clock multiplier/divider
a different length
played forward/reverse/ping ping/random, or being able to play the step in any order.
3) The pattern editor could be made touchscreen friendly, like the step sequencer of Pigment for instance.
4) Midi map should be defined at the instrument level, and not only at the song level. So that we could design instruments that could be edited with hardware controller.
5) Expressivity : for renoise instrument, it would be nice to rethink the way expressivity works : normally velocity, pitch bend, aftertouch, mod wheel, should work in the same way (currently velocity is handled differently from others).
Having an âexpressivityâ section , that would make it easier to assign all these controllers to several destinations would be nice.
Renoise could be brought on par with the features of hardware samplers from 30 years ago (e.g. sample start/loop automation, zone crossfading, sample groups). Then with features of software samplers and DAWs from 15 years ago (e.g. timestretching, pitchshifting).
Totally agree, especially with the instruments of Renoise being spun out into Redux. Why anyone would use this without such features as we take for granted in every other sampler is beyond me. Honestly though I only use Renoise to drive VSTis and donât use its own instruments at all.
âSequencer/Arranger partâ:
Arranger is kind of a cop-out falling between what Renoise and all itâs predecessors had always had and Buzzâs Sequencer where patterns belong to a particular track and are independent of those that play in parallel. I get that having that feature would mean totally changing Renoiseâs concept of patterns, but it makes it much easier to write a song instead of a collection of loops.
If anything though, itâs the pattern editor & sequencer that is Renoiseâs unique selling point over ânormalâ DAWs, and itâs that that should have been spun into a seperate plug-in product. I canât imagine ever needing Redux, but would use a VST that let me sequence other plug-ins using a tracker style view.
To me, DAW software (may it be piano roll or tracker style) in terms of âhuge ideasâ are good as they are, even if I would love a hybrid of Renoise and FL Studio.
BUT itâs the small changes that make a difference to me. There are always hundreds of small things that can be perfected. I canât spend an evening with a DAW without thinking âhey, this would be much better/easier if it were that wayâ.
Fully happy with everything? Never have been. Probably never will be. But enjoying every single little update that makes the experience a little better.
[âŚ] Buzzâs Sequencer where patterns belong to a particular track and are independent of those that play in parallel. I get that having that feature would mean totally changing Renoiseâs concept of patterns, but it makes it much easier to write a song instead of a collection of loops.
Actually you can use renoise phrases as âpattern belonging to a particular instrumentâ. It is not exactly the same as a âpattern belonging to a trackâ but it can give a similar workflow. Renoise pattern can be then used as an arranger, where each line trigger different phrase across different track.
it would be cool to be able to âwidowâ and âorphanâ âchunks of patternsâ, detach and re-attach sections of patterns, to and from other patterns as wanted.
also that thing of only having a 64 line limit when step editing, that would be my personal peeve.
all of the other stuff being suggested here sounds really great. proper time stretch/pitch shift with the samples would be great.
with a piano roll, being able to work in that environment, directly and wholly from the computer keyboard; that would be intense.
ymmv
be all of that as it may, i canât imagine not having worked in renoise, now going on 10 years. Renoise is really an incredible piece of software!
It seems that it refers to the length of the step, that the maximum value is 64 lines. In a pattern of 512 lines, it would jump 8 times. Perhaps the reasonable value would be 128 (a pattern of 512 lines would be divided into 4 jumps).
You can get this workflow with the Piano Roll Editor tool. You only need a short period of adaptation.
Im seriously impressed by Sunvox in terms of innovation in trackers.
In some ways renoise has better features, in some ways sunvox.
The best two trackers in the world must be Sunvox and Renoise.
The others like modplug tracker arent as good, no way.
Sunvox will catch up to renoise, developer of sunvox is fast, updates are cleverly thought out.
If you compare features you will see what I mean.
For tracker innovation Id like to see more mobile trackers like Little Game Park Tracker which runs on PSP or other handheld games console. Its awesome but its so buggy, full of errors and bugsâŚIts a shame, that way of tracking is nice. Someone should fix it up so it runs perfectly.
Renoise still seems to be most professional overall though in my opinion, although its hard to say between sunvox and renoise, they are very different, each has its own amazing features.
Sunvox is innovative as fuck though, have to sayâŚso good.
To innovate in building a new type of tracker from scratch it would be breaking convention - with no hex, more like MPC1000s original numeric sequencer, it would have live features and audiotracks, native synths and effects
There is so much that can be done already. People obsess about the software features rather than writing music.
Above you can see what Im trying to describe when I say MPC1000s numeric sequencer is like a tracker without hex (it just doesnt show any empty lines without note events)
Each note is 8 ticks apart in the image above (starting with bar 2, quarter note 1)âŚthere are 96 ticks per quarter note / âbeatâ - no hexadecimal used at all and still a great system.
They are 8 ticks apart so they are triplets (if âticks per quarter noteâ is 96, multiples of 8 are triplets, multiples of 6 are straight notes).
Effects could be handled in the same way as velocity in the screenshot above (the values next to âVâ)âŚ
Thats how a non-hex tracker should be done (but it would also show empty places with no note eventâŚMPC1000 just does it as a list of events, without showing empty space).
If someone did a tracker like that which ran on some handheld device with all different ways to control (keyboard and mouse, touchscreen, gamepad, midi controller etc)âŚit would be good
automations, envelopes, LFOs etc (even Attack and decay) should all be measured in ticks - for accuracy. The patterne editor screen would probably have to be zoomable because 96 tick per beatâŚthe equivalent of a âlineâ would be a (zoomable) beatâŚthe idea is to do away with hexadecimal and counting ticks across lines. Trackers like renoise and that system are pretty much the same anyway. Automation could be drawn directly over pattern editor tracksâŚ
SunVox is so cool I find it easier to arrange and that theremin it has is brilliant!!I built the nicest ryzers with that theremin I wish Renoise had one,but Renoise has its one sweetness and more advanced feauters at the time being.It would be cool if Renoise could bring both daw worlds together but that costs money allot of money and time that the developer of Renoise doesnât have and I am ok with that.
Its true. money and time, family and commitments, wives and children and all that business, priorities, ageingâŚexcercise, healthâŚother artwork. making time.
I like the idea of Little Game Park Tracker thoughâŚI bet renoise or sunvox developers could do the same thing quickly and betterâŚits a fine ideaâŚjust tracking on a PSP in beautiful outdoor surroundings beats being hunched over a computer desk indoorsâŚsure it is slower input methodâŚbut fun and has advantagesâŚthat kind of tracker should be able to put together quite fast for professional developerâŚ
always dreamt of a synth tracker with synths of PSPSEQ and tracker interface of LittleGameParkTrackerâŚand if not PSP then any generic games emulation thing with control pad controlâŚipads are lame. Have to hold it up with one hand while sequencing with the otherâŚshit gets tiring
