Midi Instrument Grabber

Ideas & suggestions
1

maybe it’s possible to use the same way instrument grabber allready use, but with the midi instruments in combination with the audio input…

of course, this have to be real-time and you will hear what’s happening when you grab, multiples undos are going to be needed also before having a good xrni, (because of the hardware’s behavior)

… but it could be a killer feature to everyone who love to “pick and xrni-convert” their external instruments :)

i allready do this way by using slow pattern with for example c1-> hold -> note-off
c2-> hold -> note-off
c3-> hold -> note-off
etc… (while i’m recording audio imput)

and when i get all samples, i start to construct my xrni…

but if i plan to construct 48 different xrnis for a song, it soon start to become a pain in the … (copying/cutting/pasting/rooting note of samples etc…)

2

I would pay extra for this feature! Got a load of patches on my old Alpha Juno that I would like to make samples out of, this feature would make it a piece of cake.

3

if you want to pay: http://www.samplerobot.com

but I agree it would be sweet to have it build in.

4

Isn’t the current vsti instrument grabber based on a script/turned native eventually, so maybe an able scripter can create a tool which does this for audio/midi input as well?

5

This should be possible as a script.

The basic idea:

  • The user would select a MIDI send port for the data to be transmitted to
  • The user would select a MIDI program number (or disable sending this)
  • The user would select an audio in for recording
  • The user would select the audio sampling settings (sample rate, bit depth etc.)
  • The user would select lowest note, highest note, note period
  • The user would select note length
  • The tool would then connect to Renoise OSC server
  • Start sample recording and send first note on
  • After note length has elapsed, send note off and stop sample recording
  • Repeat until all samples recorded

The GUI for the above would look like a hybrid of the VSTi sample recorder and the render dialog.

6

Don’t forget tails and decay.

Doing it with X amount of Patterns (one for each Note) with a Note On on first line, Note Off somewhere (mid-way even, 3/4 probably better) then you can use BPM and pattern length to set length of note.

One that is done you can export with Save Each Pattern As Separate File, then you will know the naming structure that has been used to load these into specific note ranges of a new instrument (scripted.) Although doing one, rending selection (pattern) and adding to a new instrument as it progresses is definitely neater and possibly easier thinking about it…

7

Also, http://www.redmatica.com/Redmatica/AutoSampler.html Redmatica AutoSampler gives the same functionality.
However, Renoise could do it natively and it’d be amazing.

p.s. there’s a second thread for midi instrument grabber, which had even more talk.

8

The instrument grabber never was a script, else you would be able to modify it because it would probably have been made available.

9

I understand what you’re saying, about never being publicly released as a script. Vaguely remembered a comment from Taktik long time ago, found it in the 2.5 release notes about some new features starting out as scripts:

Somehow I linked the instrument grabber with scripting.

10

I would rather the dev team focus on renoise, rather than duplicate functionality of other applications out there. Extreme Sample Converter does this already and really should belong in any renoiser’s tool kit anyway. ESC is currently windows only but it does run in wine.

Honestly I fail to see the point of “grabbing” sounds from hardware synths. Nothing is gained and you loose any ability to automate parameters… Just bounce to disk when you’re done with your sequence.

11
  1. Renoise XRNI Cloud.
  2. Retaining of fiddly synth presets so that you can ditch the synth, i.e. work on the songs even when you’re traveling and have no access to your synths.
  3. Some presets and configurations of external gear cannot be re-created and are lost if some material is sold away, or if you change your configuration.
12
  1. experimentation, further manipulating the samples through pattern commands etcetera
13

I get it. … But why does renoise have to do this? why not use one of the apps out there that do specifically this?

14

Because of renoise being renoise.

Renoise now has ReCycle -like features as of 2.x versions. Slices, autoslicing with sensitivity, etc.
Renoise now has half of AutoSampler/etc -like features as of 2.x versions.
Renoise now has pretty advanced scripting with API functions - there will be more API functions.

Renoise is going towards more, better, improved. That is why.

Also, as Mxb stated, parts of this are scriptable, and with API updates to the Sample Recorder, all parts of it are scriptable.
He wrote a nice list of what we all know is true :)

15

You can probably use the same argument for a lot of other requested features. If this is scriptable, which I asked and mxb answered positively, the devs don’t have to lose any precious development time over it, so why not?

I don’t own any hardware synths anymore, so personally I have no use for the functionality, looking forward to a bunch of analogue synth.xrni’s from other users though ;) .

16

Well, the delete unused samples and delete unused instruments where both scripts.
And there was another pattern processor that was a script, but i don’t remember which one was that.
In 2.7 also a few things improved that started with scripts, but the wish to improve these existed longer than the scripts though.And scripts weren’t in all situations capable of handling this (realtime priority requirement)

17

I’m curious if any of you who asked for this feature have ever heard of or tried Extreme Sample Converter? It does exactly what was being asked for with ease.

ESC will convert to ANY sampler format including renoise XRNI. Only down side is that the last update came before renoise 2.7.2 so this it deals with single zone XRNI 1.0, no keygroups or velocity zones for xrnis out of ESC.

I just used it to export a few programs I’m working with on a synth the guys I’m collaborating do not have and although its obviously lost a lot of character from live MIDI expression it works as a filler to get the point across while still giving the guys I’m collaborating the possibility of editing the notes within renoise.

If anybody is working on a script for renoise it’s worth checking out the demo at least to see how ESC handles it, there are many aspects of the process to consider including MIDI device, audio record in device, pause between note triggers, sustain time, etc.

Here’s a screengrab… imo the gui/colors are pretty horrid but whatever, it does the trick. This screengrab shows one half of the process, the conversion to an xrni is a button click away in the main ESC interface, but while you can export to xrni you can also choose from a wide variety of other formats… see second screenshot.