Memorize selected tab in Instrument Editor | Drag and Drop

Ideas & suggestions
1

Hi, how are you?

Win7 64bit. R3.1b5

I mention a couple of details:

Detail 1. Steps:

  1. Run Renoise
  2. Select “Plugin Tab” or “MID Tab” in “Instrument Editor” (a left click mouse).No matter if you use a window or two windows (two monitors).
  3. Simply, select in Intrument Box a slot (a left click mouse).
  4. What occurs: Renoise change to “Sampler Tab” forever, no preserve the tab selected in Instrument Editor previously.This is a bit chaotic.Should retain the selected tab.

For example, it is very tedious to have to load different instruments VST, step by step.Could this arranged?

Detail 2. A petition relatedly:

Allow drag and drop VSTi groups in Instrument Box, only a step. For example:

  1. Select a group of VSTi in Plugin Tab, 10 instruments (left click + shift left click).
  2. Drag and drop in Instrument Box.
  3. Result: each VSTi occupies a slot (10 slots).

In brief, this will help a lot faster to load.

Could it be added?

I would be very grateful to these improvements!

Thanks!

2

Renoise will automatically switch to the editor which is used. If an instrument is using samples, it’s switching to the samples tab when changing instruments. When you are using a plugin, it will switch to the plugin tab. When using both, plugins and samples, it’s actually memorizing the last selected pane. When there is neither, it defaults to the samples tab. So this is intended.

Regarding the drag and drop: drag and dropping multiple plugin instruments or effects indeed currently isn’t possible, but then again also not really what you usually or often do?

3

Hi Taktik, how are you?

I do not see logic to change for default Sampler Tab when selecting a slotfree.If you want to load VSTi repeatedly, you become a little crazy. If you need the Sampler Tab, select it before.Look at these steps:

A possible case of multiple cases:

  1. Start with empty Instrument Box. The slot 00 is selected.
  2. Select “Plugin Tab”. The intention is load a VSTi.
  3. You decide to choose another free slot in Intrument Box to load a VSTi. Select slot 5.
  4. Oppps!!! Renoise not want to load a VSTi, Renoise want than you load samples or XRNI (because it has automatically switched to the Sampler Tab).
  5. Consequence. You have to change back to the Plugin Tab.

WhySampler Tab has priority if Sampler Tab and Plugin Tab are equally importantwhen upload?

About drag & drop VSTi (load multiple VSTi is tedious separately):

Select multiple plugins (with shift or control + clic left mouse) could be used to start a new project, for example. Or anytime.

New idea: It would also be great a new tab “Plugin Tab” along with Samples Tab and Other Tabbelow Instrument Boxand allow select and drag and drop VSTi to load.

Renoise allows:

  • Select and drag and drop multiple samples (eg. .FLAC)
  • Select and drag and drop multiple instruments (.XRNI)
  • Renoise does not allow select and drag and drop multiple VSTi. Why???

In short, you can load VSTi in a more agile way with select, and drag and drop, and memorize selected Plugin Tab using Instrument Box.

Any improvement about this would be great!

Thanks!

4

I do not see logic to change for default Sampler Tab when selecting a slotfree.If you want to load VSTi repeatedly, you become a little crazy

Have you considered opening the instr. properties panel below the instr. list?

From there, you can instantiate plugins same way as the plugin tab. But more comfortable, IMO.

5

Have you considered opening the instr. properties panel below the instr. list?

From there, you can instantiate plugins same way as the plugin tab. But more comfortable, IMO.

Hi Danoise

Yes I have considered. The problem is that the VSTi list is drop-down forever (in instr. properties & plugin tab).You must load each VSTi, step by step. Load, deploy, load, deploy, load, etc.Nor can select multiple VSTi and drag and drop. In plugin tat is still more tedious.

The issue is that load multiple VSTi is tedious. Eg. imagine the case you want to test various VSTi,to choose a particular sound.Load singly… Drag and drop VSTi would be great!

The idea is to speed up the loading of several VST. It is all the more rapid and selective process.

6

Nice Idea. But if you want load multiple instances of VST’s at once, there’s one problem: if you have a plugin, which needs a long time for starting up, and/or needs a lot of CPU during startup (e.g. Omnisphere 2, it needs up to 20 seconds for its startup on a 8-core 4GHz CPU) it can be, that you get CPU overloads or memory overloads, or your system hangs up and freezes, or your whole system crashes, Renoise crashes, or the VST’s are crashing, etc and you have to re-start Renoise/reboot your machine, etc.

There’s no DAW out there (so far i know) that can handle this feature.

7

Nice Idea. But if you want load multiple instances of a VST at once, there’s one problem: if you have a plugin, which needs a long time for starting up, and/or needs a lot of CPU during startup (e.g. Omnisphere 2, it needs up to 20 seconds for its startup on a 8-core 4GHz CPU) it can be, that you get CPU overloads or memory overloads, or your system hangs up and freezes, or your whole system crashes, Renoise crashes, or the VST’s are crashing, etc and you have to re-start Renoise/reboot your machine, etc.

…

Mastrcode,I do not agree. I thought a lot about this.The load of VSTi charging one behind other.I do not mind the duration of the load.If properly programmed, no problem.Imagine this situation, very common indeed:

  1. A XRNS project “XXX” with different VSTi, eg 15 or 20 VSTi loaded in Intrument Box, even heavy. Save the project.
  2. Close Renoise
  3. Run Renoise
  4. Load song “XXX”. Renoise load all VSTi one behind the other.And there is no problem!

If you use many heavy VSTi, I advise you to use a powerful computer.Renoise be a powerful software. It should not be limited to slower computers.Just as there are heavy VSTi, there are very light hundreds.

Besides, if a VST crashes because it is not well programmed, Renoise should not crash. Renoise should return an error window, only. But he should not lose his job. The VSTi depend of AudioPluginServer32.exe orAudioPluginServer64.exe, not of Renoise.exe.

Indeed, the load of VSTi not only depends of the CPU and RAM. When the time is very long, it is because a hard disk (slow speed read) is used instead of an SSD or M.2 unit (high speed read). Omnisphere 2 is not a heavy VSTi, yes your libraries.

…

There’s no DAW out there (so far i know) that can handle this feature.

It seems so, but in reality is not thereby.When you load a song with many VSTi,already is doing.It is not programmed, does not mean that can not be…

8

If you use many heavy VSTi, I advise you to use a powerful computer.Renoise be a powerful software. It should not be limited to slower computers.Just as there are heavy VSTi, there are very light hundreds.

A 8-core 4 GHz CPU is powerful enough. I’m running a lot VST’s in my projects. And until now i never had CPU loads over 30% for the whole project. But it doesn’t depend just on the CPU when using VST’s, i know that. It depends on the whole system you have. CPU, but also a good fast big RAM (e.g. for your romplers), a good cooperation of your board’s north- and southbridge, how good/fast your harddik is, it also depends on how good your audio interface and it’s ASIO (Windows) or Core Audio (Mac) drivers (especially the buffers) are. All that is important for a good performance for making music with a lot of VST’s. My machine is especially built with optimized hardware for music making. And on that machine runs just my music production stuff. nothing else. No games, no internet, no visual effects of the OS, etc. For all other things i have a second machine. But not everyone can spend money for a 4000€+ machine. Or a 7500€+ Mac for making music. And i never said that Renoise isn’t a powerful software. I love it, and yes, it is very powerful and i never had issues with it. But the most problems come from the VST’s self and how good or not so good they were programmed. I have experiences in DSP programming in Delphi (Borland/Pascal) and C++ (I’m also developing my own VST’s). And the VST interface has a lot vulnerabilities, but it’s the common industry standard. And every programming language has its advantages but also its disadvantages. So there’re also limitations in the programming language which was used for Renoise.

Or let’s think about another possible reason: Maybe there are even limitations in the OS, because VST’s are plugins. Let’s say a kind of extensions which where implemented into a software environment. So there also could be limitations in the OS where these programs are running…

There’s another software. I don’t call it’s name, but most people know it. It’s one of the most stable programs out there that i know. It has it’s own plugin format for the instrument and effect devices. And it has no VST support. And the most users of this software want VST support. But it will never happen. Because of one reason: because the developers know, this feature will kill the excellent stability of this program. I’m also a long time user of this software and never had just one crash in more than 10 years. But with all other software i use with VST’s (Renoise excluded) i have multiple crashes in every single project And the crashes just happen, when VST’s were used. For me this shows, how bad the VST format in reality is.

Omnisphere 2 is not a heavy VSTi, yes your libraries.

…and initializing a 50+ GB library during startup of Omnisphere needs it’s time. Fast harddisk or not.

9

…and the one or other user sure has just a slow or mid range system and maybe needs to disable bridging and /or sandboxing for better performance. And then the risk automatically is higher for crashes, freezes, etc…

But let’s put all this blabla away for a moment: who really needs loading multiple VST instances at once? You have either way to tweak your VST’s and their tracks one after another.

And if you want a special project with pre-loaded multiple instances of VST’s, you can do it, load all your vst’s you want in a slot, save the project as template. So you can start Renoise with all the multiple instances already loaded.

10

Mastrcode, I think we are diverting the topic.All this that you comment is fine. ButI commented an idea to improve the load VST to compose faster, be more selective, advance. It’s very simple.I still think there is no problem in implementing this idea.Another thing is that developers do not want to implement it.But you have to open your mind.

There is no problem loading a VST after another, and Renoise do it automatically after one drag an drop selected, because Renoise is already able to do it (the operation load multiple VST automatically).

…

…and initializing a 50+ GB library during startup of Omnisphere needs it’s time. Fast harddisk or not.

Omnisphere not load 50GB, only the sounds selected (only are 8 buses or channels). Load Omnisphere in a free slot first only takes 4 seconds in a fast computer. After load each patch (of variable size, 8 patch in total, 8 buses).Never load an entire library of 50GB.

…You have either way to tweak your VST’s and their tracks one after another.

This is the problem! Load various different VST is tedious.This is to make things go faster while you compose.The problem is not that the VST takes time to load.The problem is that the user takes to load.You have to do various steps to load a single VSTi!

Creating a template makes no sense. You’re missing the same time and no good. The issue is to load multiple VST, and delete, and load, and delete, and load again for proving.And if you can do as a group or more groups, it’s better!

If you do not want to use it, do not use it. Others could use. It would be a more function, it does not bother to nobody.And people do not use it because it is not programmed.Do it, and people use it.

However, this will not be added in this version 3.1 and I doubt it done in the future. “The Detail 1” has been ignored (memorize selected tab (plugin tab) in Instrument Editor). Therefore, the “Detail 2” (drag and drop VSTi in Instrument Box), is ignored also. It is not a priority issue like many in these forums.