Ok–the title got truncated It should say VST and MIDI instruments.
Sorry it’s been so long. Every time I try to make a song with Renoise, I end up giving up. Granted, I haven’t downloaded a new version in well over a year, so if this option is already here–sorry for this post.
It has been almost 3 years since I made anything significant–there are many reasons for this, but the software is one of the biggest reasons. Most of my ideas require slides. I can NOT spend more than 10 minutes on a single fake slide just so it won’t sound digital and clippy, slides should be easy and instant like they are with samples–it should be a matter of putting some numbers in the effect column (OR, there should be some sort of option that can make Renoise do a pornamento slide to pitches instead of just clipping to them). And I mean that, I CAN’T spend more than 10 minutes just perfecting a single FAKE slide–I’ll lose my song idea. It absolutely and totally destroys any chance of me having any sort of workflow if my song requires some slides. I then have to switch over to this mode where ALL my thoughts are on perfecting a “slide” (a fake slide) instead of just being able to move on with the song, and by the time I’ve perfected the slide, the song idea is gone. So, pretty much anymore, any time I’m working on an idea and it requires a slide, I close Renoise and give up on the song. Any time I have a song idea that has a slide in it, I toss it because I won’t be able to make it.
It’s happened to me on over 30 ideas now that are ideas I’ve actually created a bunch of patterns for. It’s happened to hundreds of ideas–ones I’ve just tossed because there’s just no way. Throwing song idea out after song idea is not something I enjoy doing, and I’ve basically had enough. If this isn’t a planned option at all in the future, it’s time for me to move onto another piece of software. I’ve requested it for at least 5 years (I thought for more like 8 or 9 years, but whatever)–if it’s still not something important at all, it’s just time for me to move on.
If you can’t finish a song because of one missing feature, you’re not going to be happy with any DAW software…since they all have certain missing features that will always require workarounds. Every synth I’ve ever used has a glide and pitch bend setting that works pretty well for me. I do agree this feature would be nice, but letting it keep you from finishing tunes is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
Imagine an orchestra with no smooth slides. 10 minutes per tiny little slide that should take 2 seconds? That would take an hour to create a bassline. No thank you. I’m accustomed to writing very quickly, creating the bassline for a track in a pattern in maybe 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Maybe when YOU are writing songs, you can be put on hold for a major idea for 10 minutes, but for me, sometimes 30 seconds later and it’s gone, so every second counts. If you write differently congratulations to you. I need to be able to do VERY BASIC MUSICAL FUNCTIONS QUICKLY, and a slide is one of the most basic musical functions out there.
For the 9 years I’ve used Renoise, the lack of ability to quickly create slides has proven to be something that pretty much keeps me from writing. THAT’S NINE YEARS, possibly ten. I’m tired of writing music without any slides, and that’s what I’ve pretty much had to do the whole time I’ve used this.
Again, if you write songs differently, congratulations to you.
One more thing: I’ve been thinking about trying other software for a while anyway and learning an entirely new approach, start fresh. If Renoise isn’t going to change, it’s time for ME to change. I’ve been making a lot of changes lately.
You will find the same issue with pretty much any DAW you try, in my experience Renoise is better at this than any other DAW I have tried but a lot of it will depend on the VST/Midi instrument you are using and what settings it has. The simplest solution would be to use the portamento controls as maes has pointed out, you can then automate the portamento speed controls using the ‘Instr Midi Control’ meta device to get different types of slides wherever you program them.
If your VST it doesn’t have portamento settings but supports pitchbend then you can automate the pitch bend using the ‘Instr MIDI Control’ - However this will only be smooth if you use track automation and not player commands. If you want smooth changes using player commands then you will need to control ‘Instr Midi Control’ using the Inertial slider - This is actually my preferred way of doing it, it does take a little setting up but once you have it set up, you can set up different DSP chains for each of your VST instruments and recall them whenever you need.
So in a nutshell:
The problem is inherent to MIDI/VST instruments not Renoise.
Renoise probably has the best features that allow you to work around it.
It’s been available on MED Soundstudio for quite a while now. I’ve been able to do it since the early 90s on the Amiga (with MIDI, and on the newer versions of MED Soundstudio for the PC with VSTs as well). It is NOT an inherent problem with VSTs and MIDI, it’s just that the Renoise team doesn’t want to add the controls.
On NORMAL programs, they aren’t tick based, so you can do a slide and it’s always smooth. With tracker programs, they need to have something that slowly or quickly turns the pitch up or down, depending on the numbers you have set, and then to reset it you put it back to another number. Each time it reaches a certain tick, it slides up however much the numbers are set for. That’s how it works on tracker programs that can do it.
I should be able to make a nice quick bassline without spending an hour doing it. I miss being able to just pump out a bassline, add the next part, add the next part, add the next part, next pattern, and so on, not this ridiculous game of START making the bassline, run into the snag of creating a smooth slide that takes 10-15 minutes, and then not being able to finish the bassline and trying a new pattern, then usually giving up.
I think I’m ready for an entirely new approach, with entirely new problems.
The only difference with Octamed if I recall correctly is that it has a dedicated player command that allows midi pitchbend control, with Renoise you have the added step of inserting a Instr Midi Control device, but other than that I don’t see the difference. Maybe I have misunderstood what you are after?
It would indeed be wonderful if you could use the 0Uxx 0Dxx commands on VSTi instruments.
Why was it that it can’t transmit directly to the pitchbend CC?
With MED I can just put some commands in the effects column–the SAME ones used to do pitch bends on samples. 1 goes up, 2 goes down, the numbers you have after them determine how fast or slow the slide is. With Renoise, you can only clip to pitches, there is NO actual slide, you can go through and try to increase the resolution of the clipping-pitches-slide (with a graph thingy to draw the clippy-sounding slide with), but it will never be completely smooth unless the song is playing at an incredible speed. Honestly, I think the last time I actually tried going through with it, it wasn’t 10 minutes, it was like 2 hours and I just threw my hands in the air because it STILL never really sounded quite right, just CLOSE to sounding smooth.
Ok I see what you mean, what I meant by the problem inherent in midi is that even with MED the commands are sending out MIDI pitch bend data. How that data is interpreted is down to the receiving synth and restricted by what parameters it allows for.
Anyway as long as your midi/vst supports a pitchbend where you can set the range of the pitch bend, you can do what you want but you have to do it in a different way. Try the approach I suggested with the inertial slider, I do it all the time. I think it is more powerful than what MED offers as I can set a target pitch and set the rate at which it slides to that pitch, all with player commands, it’s really easy once it is set up and doesn’t take 10 mins for every slide.
I will post you a video to show you how if you can’t work it out
Yeah, I don’t understand AT ALL, not even in the slightest. I think I’ll have to see the video. I’ve never seen anything that could allow a control to “set the rate at which it slides to that pitch”, I’ve never seen ANYTHING even slightly related to sliding in any way, I’ve just seen these stupid hacks and supposed workarounds people tell me about that hardly give me any more resolution than just clipping to the pitch via the effect commands.
Out of my frustration, I forgot to thank you for your help and input. I really didn’t think there were any more options than what I had been told about before. Maybe there still aren’t, but the fact there’s a possibility of it changes things quite a bit for me. Honestly, before I saw that post, I had already downloaded and installed Ableton Live 9 Trial to see what it was going to do, but I may not even have to mess with it if there is indeed a way to get Renoise to easily do smooth pitch bends/slides.
Remember that stuff like VST’s and external midi devices do not have strict standards of how value in ranges supposed to be interpreted. The range of values are given, but how they should be dealt with is the full freedom of the VST or midi device designer. It is not something that DAW software can really anticipate on.
When such stuff can be done using midi, you are better off using the Midi control device having a finer integrity level of control than the pattern effect column but then you have this problem of affecting everything currently playing besides just one note.
Certain plugins and midi devices allow you to set a slide range that will scale the slide commands to. I usually use a range where one semitone is slid to at max. This allows me to have a higher level of integrity with the limited value range from pattern effect commands. if i need more values in the same time-span:i’ll raise the LPB.
I am fond of plugins that perform automatic smooth tone-portamento effects when you switch from one key to another.
I would like it if Renoise would allow us to configure such plugin event where we can define for any instrument that two key-notes in chord structure would be translated to a smooth tone portamento in the background (without using pattern effect commands, just Renoise sending the interpolated table of commands with a high PPQ rate) but then we have to let renoise know what the the slide range is between the start and end note for that particular plugin. This would just mean a checkbox to enable tone portamento and a box with a percentage value. This could probably a good solution, but won’t work flawlessly with all external components because the interpretation of values still remain a concern, but a lot less when you can also scale values on the Renoise side.
So here is a video of how I do it, I’ve attached an ‘insert inertial slider’ tool I use to make it easier to get the formula device inserted to a track. I’ve also attached a .pdf of the command values you need to use when setting the destination pitches. I also use Ableton and honestly, it can’t touch something like this
I don’t understand what I’m looking at at all. Not even in the slightest. Ok, YouTube is being decent and finally showing it to me in a higher resolution. I still don’t know what I’m looking at… looking at the files now…
So, in a nutshell, what are you saying here? Renoise can’t do it “just because”, or what? Other programs can do it because…and renoise can’t because… ?? Or you’re saying Renoise CAN do it but you want to say a lot of words? I don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re trying to say other than you’re trying very hard to be helpful and I DO appreciate it.
I don’t understand the whole “meta” thing. It goes RIGHT over my head, completely and absolutely. I feel like a child trying to work on a car engine. I don’t understand it at all.
You just double click the file or drop it into the renoise window, it will tell you the tool has successfully been installed.
I have added some annotations to the youtube video, which should help explain it a bit better (they don’t seem to display properly when the video is embedded so watch the vid on the youtube site).
Also try watching the video in 720p on youtube, it should be clearer.
Hope that helps.
It should say VST and MIDI instruments.
