When I play live instrument to a renoise track, I use one of the two shortcuts (with one hand):
Next\Prev pattern, and Queue current pattern.
It makes me stumble though, whenever the time comes for transitions, bridges etc.
That means, whenever I switch between the song parts, I usually need a transition pattern to play just once. A drum break, or a cymbal sweep whatever.
For that purpose there is a ‘follow up’ option in ableton (since Renoise seems to have a similar pattern queueing mechanism), where you can program a clip to play just once or twice or whatever.
It might be useful if ‘cycle pattern’ button could be switched to reverse logic: the patterns marked will play only once, and all the unmarked will go into loop.
This way I can just queue a bridge pattern, knowing that it will automatically skip and loop the main part.
In the last few beta’s, you’re able to schedule multiple patterns for playback by holding the shift button while clicking the arrow buttons…
So, if you want something to play just once, you just schedule that pattern, and then another one. The looping part is up to you, after all, it’s just a single shortcut away
Edit: oops, didn’t see that thing about using one hand only. That does make things a bit more difficult, since you need to hold down shift in order to schedule multiple patterns.
Yeah, that’s the whole thing about live playing - you don’t have too much time on your hands. Releasing the grip on the bass to operate laptop with both hands is way too awkward. I always just quickly press one key and go on.
Besides, it’s not so much about looping multiple patterns, as about playing the transition pattern once, before engaging in a looped part.
Yes, maybe something like “Queue and Cycle next N patterns in sequence” which can be assigned to a key, and the key is pressed while previous (not one of those N) pattern is playing.