I have used trackers a long time, but when I started experimenting with MIDI, I used Cakewalk quite a lot. Having used that for a while, stepping back to Renoise isn’t easy.
Most of this is due to the fact that the MIDI part of Renoise is kind of unintuitive. I wanted to change the default volume of my MIDI channel. Unfortunately I couldn’t use a volume slider in the mixer or instrument settings. Also, setting default panning is a pain in the ***. To change these settings, you’d have to use a CC device, which is somewhat annoying.
Okay, lengthy intro, let’s get to the point. What I would like is to control the global volume and panning for a MIDI track/instrument. This should work in the main mixer, and also in the instrument settings screen.
Internally, this could probably be built as an automatic MIDI CC device that’s inserted when you create a MIDI instrument, and links the volume/panning slides to the MIDI controller. I’d really make things easier when working with MIDI; at the moment the way MIDI works is too different from the rest.
Not completely true…
You can also send a MIDI CC command through the pattern effect command though this may seem a little complex as well:
MIDI / VSTI commands in panning column
**90 - Send CC Change, value in the effect-column (XXYY, XX = controller, YY = value)
Nevertheless using the midiCC device is a bit less ackward if you want to change the default value in different patterns, it is just simply go to the row where you want to change it then right click the valueslider, keep it rightclicked and slide to the value you want it to.
It will either be recorded into the automation frame or into the pattern editor.
There are ways to work around it, but it would be so much more convenient if you could just use the volume and panning controls in the mixer for MIDI instruments as well. Now, it only works for samples/VSTIs…
Indeed.
The plan is to have DSP chain also inside the instrument itself.
Then I would assume you only have to move the Line-In device into this instrument DSP chain instead of having it in a track DSP chain.
So when you change track and use the midi instrument there , the line-in devices will follow your instrument to the very same track.
Okay, I see some difficulty here… and also that I didn’t put the idea simply enough. Implementing behaviour so that MIDI instrument == VSTi instrument == sample instrument is tricky.
But why not go for the simple, helpful and useable option in stead? Add 2 extra sliders to the MIDI instrument box, one for instrument volume, and one for instrument panning. Just like other instruments.
So, the following box:
Will feature the 2 extra sliders in this box, namely amplify and panning:
It would be a matter of adding the 2 sliders, and linking them to the proper MIDI CC commands (resp. 7 and 10). Should be easy to do and really helpful for MIDI sequencing. At least it’s in other sequencers
Biggest challenge would be to make it fit in such a small dialog. Personally I don’t use (or need) the delay and duration sliders, so they could take up that space (unless people use those sliders, of course)
