Renoise of course is a great packege with even better sound. (You know society here wants me to say this.)
In my imagination I see Renoise on a live gig. The principle would be easy. Instead of creating only one (master) pattern list there should be a way to create several pattern lists which can be rearranged in real-time (drag&drop) in a playlist. This playlist should also be able to override any set loop settings so that it’s possible to set new loops in that playlist. Such a feature would be too cool.
renoise is mainly composing tool. adding extra features for live playing like this may cause less comfort in creating music. and it will be still far from perefect/comfortable live tool.
why don’t use ableton live instead? it’s designed for playing live gigs.
please… don’t try to make renoise ‘all in one’. i know it can be also good cd dumping, vinyl restoration, filter designing tool working as vst/directx plugin… but why? who will use these features? it’s tracker…
I was thinking about this a lot, but Konrad Gmurek is right.
I came up with some thing better instead. A separate application that can play and mix several .rns files at once. It would give the user the ability to easily switch between patterns and tracks, even muting tracks and so on, but no composition control. That way the entire screen can be level meters, dsp sliders, spectrums and a big list of patterns from several files. Of course, it would be pretty processor intensive because it would be using the renoise engine doing heaps of things at once, but if you’ve got the horsepower, why shouldn’t it be a possibility?
Also the advantage of this is that it doesn’t alter the .rns files in any way, it just uses the bits. There could be a new file that this program would save to and load from which would store the paths of the currently used .rns files, values of any changed parameters, and the current mix settings.
…then we are back at the “where is the RNS-Player”-Thing
The problem here is, that somebody has to write a player that supports VST(i) and all the other renoise stuff except setting notes. You should be able to mute instruments/tracks and mix it into another rns-file.
The problem that resides here is that you might get huge performance-problems, because some RNS-Files consume 75%-90% of CPU-Speed and if you have playing another track, the CPU will get 90%-100%.
Oh and while playing 2 songs together to mix them in the deejay-style you might have several VSTi-Instances in one song and even more VSTi-instances in the other song.
The best idea might be to install BPM-studio, create some different versions of the song (with muted tracks etc) as MP3 and start mixing that way.
Ah yes, thanks, my memory is not good when it comes to previous posts. An .rns player would be just the renoise engine with the editing removed, and several instances playing at once in synchronisation. The sync and user interface would be the hardest parts, the rest is practically done.
The problem with cpu usage is very real. However, I forsee adusting parameters of only a few instruments and effects on the fly, so the rendering to sample feature would have to be used liberally to avoid overloading the cpu.
Maybe as a fix for the time being, and yes that’s a good idea (i might try it ), but an .rns player is infinitely preferable to just rendering tracks and using dj software. I mean, we want to adjust some parameters, don’t we? And playing melody/bass/rhythm lines live using renoise instruments would also be possible. It’s a step away from being a glorified record player and in the direction of ‘musician’
have two instances of renoise open
have two soundcards hooked up into a dj mixer
Swap between the two of them analog style
OR
What I do (and what I did with fruityloops) is I have one or two copies of the program running, midi/ear synced as best as possible, and a copy of ableton live running in the background.
I have X amount of samples mapped to a midi keyboard and any effects I need to control, I have mapped to a control surface (i.e. the oxygen 8’s knobs) so you don’t even need to see it. It takes up a shitload of CPU, but I ran a pretty brutal setup on a celeron 600 with 500ms of latency and there were no dropouts in the sound.
As it stands, renoise is really versitile as a live tool, but it takes a lot of patience and setup time for it to sound good!
Also a good idea. It’s good to see that there are indeed people who use Renoise live.
I’m actually doing something similar to your celeron setup, pro_xy, but use Plogue Bidule instead of live. The problem is, I only have a 12" screen on the laptop. Coupled with the fact that several instances of renoise chew my cpu (but my sound card copes- go CoreAudio!) it just seems like a natural step to have this process combined in the one program. It’s not like anyone will be actually writing patterns during a live set. Then again, if anyone does, I’d like to hear about it!
Well in that case we shouldn’t really introduce any new things to Renoise because it might introduce bugs?
I don’t think that is a argument for not suggesting a new feature…
Anyway I think its a really nice idea, it could also have other uses, like making different versions of the same song, or using the other patternbanks to test ideas which you then copy into the main song.
If I understand you right it could just be a small patternbank nr, that swiches between different patternbanks.
I’m glad that my suggestion started a discussion. Personaly I like the idea of an external rms player. Writing one should not be much of a problem for the programmers because I’m sure they produce very clean code (like all programmers do, of course ). This means the engine and all is there. They just need to REMOVE what’s not needed and recompile.
I’m also using a pile of keyboards/snyths to improvise on patterns. I used to play totaly live in bands. An app like Renoise would be something new and interesting for me on a live gig.
El
BTW: Not every new feature introduces new bugs. If it was so one should never start to write a program at all.
And replace the pattern editor with the patternbank selector and a simple timeline/counter that shows what line the play counter is up to.
Sort of like (here’s some ascii-art for y’all, I’ll knock up an image soon)
|---- ---^ ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----|
``` would show the play counter at line 07 for example.
It would be ideal to have several of these, one for each currently playing pattern, with the ability to queue in another pattern by simply dragging it in or pressing a hotkey.
well, i’m definitely planning to perform live with renoise and this is how i plan to do it.
bought a pentium 4 laptop and upgraded to 1.5 Gig of ram so there’s no hiccups. have an outboard ASIO soundcard that allows me to assign renoise tracks to a 4-track DJ mixer.
this allows me to cut/cue/and mix tracks live. all tracks will be rendered of course to save the CPU a bit. and i’ve even been considering a midi controller for more hands on control of certain effects. BPM and beat matching are the 2 biggest problems. but not if you create all the songs at the same BPM…
that’s the master plan. any thoughts/ideas/suggestions?
will have to let you all know how it goes when i get it all set up and done…
Nice. My setup is similar, except it’s a mac laptop
Anyway, yes an external midi knob box is quite useful. I’m using the Evolution X-session which has a cool crossfader, although I use that mainly for other things, like my insta-jungle plug (I’ll post it one day for you guys, just let me get the bugs out of it).
As far as bpm matching goes… I don’t know a way of doing it aside from having bpm changes coded into the tracks ala F0xx and just playing them one after the other. This is one of the things that would kick some arse in the hypothetical player- Midi CC controlled bpm. I’m not sure how it could be pulled off, perhaps one cc for each hex digit.
e.g. 6E
where
-> 0-F
-> 0-F
It wouldn’t make it easy for tempo slides though. I’m getting side-tracked here, sorry.
If there is a way of piping midi internally in windows, then just run two instances of renoise and slave one version to the other. Not sure how they’d share the soundcard though- ASIO tends to only allow one app to use it at a time.
There is a hidden Playlist feature build in. Please tell it noone, its really more a messy ugly workaround than a feature
Put a textfile called “PlayList.txt” into your song directory. Assume the original Song folder of the Installation is your Songs folder, then you could fill it with:
To load the next track within the list, you also need to add a stop command somewhere in the songs (“f000”).
Yes, ugly, thats why its not official, but maybe it can nevertheless help someone.
Another hidden unofficial option (ok, thats enough for today then : ) :
On stage you also dont want to mess around with “Save changes to XYZ” dialogs. Open the config.xml file and search for an entry and set this to “0” and they wont get on your nerves.
but why? who will use these features? it’s tracker…
), but an .rns player is infinitely preferable to just rendering tracks and using dj software. I mean, we want to adjust 
). This means the engine and all is there. They just need to REMOVE what’s not needed and recompile.
Phwoar! Thanks Taktik! That just 0wned all over my prevoius method of putting everything in the one .rns file (which was HEAPS uglier)