My Piano Roll

Ideas & suggestions
1

Hello all

I finally found some free time and created mockup of how I do see PianoRoll in Renoise.

Here is short explanation:

When open PianoRoll tab and screen appears, only selected TRACK and their played samples will be displayed.
It means - each sample will have its color! So, for example, if in track LEAD [as in my example] you have synth sample, it will be displayed as GREEN colour. But then if have other sample played on this track [and on this displayed piano roll] - it will be [for example] Yellow colored and will spread as much as it can, until you put OFF at the end, either in track or in Piano Roll.

The only thing I didn`t have time to play with is - melody. I just put this so you can get overall idea how Pianoroll should work.

Maybe you can even create showing Waves inside the green tones. I believe drawing so many waves gfx in each tone would took lots of CPU time so you can think about drawing it asynchronously - when there is enough CPU time…

Let me know what do you think :)

All best! Nick.

And here is improved [but quicker mockup] version from top to bottom. Short explanation:

Keyboard Grid is NOT good. Some keys needs to be wider and some not, to make everything fits [I didn`t have much free time] but from this latest shot I think you will have ideas what comes to my mind when PianoRoll can be played from top to bottom.

CTRL+CLICK on the played tone might open SAMPLE VIEW [mono or stereo view, based on sample] next to played sample while
DOUBLE CLICK on the played tone might open sample editor and its instrument.

2

waste of time

3

Turn it 90° CW.
No one’s working on this anyway right?

4

Well I think it looks nice. I would vote for this simple concept, it has proven to work for many people.

5

Thanks for a detailed mock-up.

The main thing that strikes me with this implementation would be:

It seems to me a PR in renoise would be more useful if you could be select at least 2 tracks at a time if you wanted.

6

It might be. Maybe all tracks can be visible [or its visibility to be turned ON or OFF] on this Piano Roll screen as in Photoshop - deeper levels will be more transparent while top [selected] tracks will be most visible, 100% opaque… I don`t know, just a suggestion to make it as simple as possible…

7

I like the gradient even though it doesn’t start over at every bar, would be interesting to try that in the tracker editor too.

8

well done but i don’t quite understand why it’s turned the wrong way (=

one of the few reasons (imoimoimo) to implement a pianoroll in renoise would be to get it turned the right way for once lol (=

9

is anyone else seeing the piano roll as an inevitability?.

10

I somewhat approve. 90° clockwise rotation though. Good job on the keys. Bad job on the placement.

11

Did you mean to put Piano Roll to go from Top to Bottom instead Left to Right?

Would be nice if 2 display types will be possible. Click on the icon and Piano Roll will go from top to bottom. Click on the icon again and it will change from left to right :)

Too much code I guess… :]

12

Great mockup! But yeah I’d much rather see it amongst the patterndata, vertically.

Naysayers read this before shooting your mouths off:
https://forum.renoise.com/t/what-would-be-the-point-of-renoise-piano-roll/25948

13

Ahaa. I see. Lots of different but also very nice ideas! I will create other mockup, I got other ideas that can be very interesting! Why not - vertical timelines - watch this space for new images.

14

And here is improved [but quicker mockup] version from top to bottom. Short explanation:

Keyboard Grid is NOT good. Some keys needs to be wider and some not, to make everything fits [I didn`t have much free time] but from this latest shot I think you will have ideas what comes to my mind when PianoRoll can be played from top to bottom.

CTRL+CLICK on the played tone might open SAMPLE VIEW [mono or stereo view, based on sample] next to played sample while
DOUBLE CLICK on the played tone might open sample editor and its instrument.

15

My inspired mock-up from your mock-up, though my suggestion is for a Linear and Vertical Interval Column.

Pitch + Octave  
---Instrument  
------Volume  
---------Pan  
------------Delay  
---------------Linear Interval [suggestion]  
------------------Vertical Interval [suggestion]  
  
C-300 .. .. -- .. 01 C#300 .. .. -- .. ..   
C#300 .. .. -- 01 02 D#300 .. .. -- 02 ..   
D#300 .. .. -- 02 03 F#300 .. .. -- 03 ..   
F#300 .. .. -- 03 04 A#300 .. .. -- 04 ..   
A#300 .. .. -- 04 05 D#300 .. .. -- 05 ..   
D#300 .. .. -- 05 06 A-400 .. .. -- 06 ..   
A-400 .. .. -- 06 07 E-500 .. .. -- 07 ..   
E-500 .. .. -- 07 08 C-500 .. .. -- 08 ..   
C-600 .. .. -- 08 09 A-600 .. .. -- 09 ..   
A-600 .. .. -- 09 0A G-700 .. .. -- 0A ..   
G-700 .. .. -- 0A 0B F#800 .. .. -- 0B ..   
F#800 .. .. -- 0B 0C F#900 .. .. -- 0C ..   
C-400 .. .. -- 60 06 F#900 .. .. -- xx ..   
C-500 .. .. -- 0C xx F#900 .. .. -- xx ..   
C-600 .. .. -- 0C xx F#900 .. .. -- xx ..   
C-700 .. .. -- 0C xx F#900 .. .. -- xx ..   
C-800 .. .. -- 0C .. off00 .. .. -- .. ..   
C-900 .. .. -- 0C ..   
  
Reading a Linear Interval Column  
  
.. = first note (no interval information)  
03 = 3 notes up  
30 = 3 notes down  
0A = 10 notes up  
A0 = 10 notes down  
0B = 11 notes up  
B0 = 11 notes down  
0C = octave up  
C0 = octave down  
xx = repeated tone or interval, not counting octaves  
  
F#9 ..  
C-4 60  
  
F#9th octave to C4th octave is read 6 notes down because octave info is already shown  
  
Reading a Vertical Interval Column reads like a Linear Interval Column, except its stacked,   
Example in a minor chord along with 2 inversions...  
  
C minor chord  
C-300 .. .. -- .. 04 E-300 .. .. -- .. 03 G-300 .. .. -- .. ..   
  
1st inversion  
E-300 .. .. -- .. 03 G-300 .. .. -- .. 05 C-400 .. .. -- .. ..  
  
2nd inversion  
G-300 .. .. -- .. 05 C-400 .. .. -- .. 04 E-400 .. .. -- .. ..  
  
Because my suggestion is sort of a reader or counter, meaning, as soon as I type a second note, it'll read how ever many intervals apart it is,  
issues might occur if pattern effects are included or we could choose to not let pattern effects affect the Linear and Vertical Interval Column.
16

Per track piano roll is just ridiculous. The whole point of a piano roll in Renoise would be making it easier to see the big picture. If you can’t see the relationship of different instruments it’s useless.

(other point would be easy adjustment of sub-tick notes and note offs, but I don’t think we need piano roll for that, but a visual representation and mouse editing of note length)

17

Um, you seems to be right… No point to have it in track but in whole song… I`ll have to think better gfx then :)

18

I imagined every track would have a ‘view mode’ switch. So you could have any number of tracks as piano rolls alongside tracks as pattern data.

19

Here’s another log in the fire…check out the very bottom of the page where various composers and colored piano views are listed.
musanim.com

There’s an immediate visual impression on:

The frequency contours of each instrument
…if that’s what those different colors are suppose to be.

The highest and lowest note of each instrument
…I believe its called Climax and Nadir classical terms.

The style of the rhythm patterns
…short notes vs long notes.

20

no no no, a vertical piano roll is utterly stupid IMHO.

if you’re going to have a piano roll, it should be the normal way up (scroll horizontal).

the main reason for this is that it is analogous to notes on a stave in traditional musical notation, where you read left to right and vertical height is an indication of pitch.

the reason for the tracker to go downwards in the timeline is not a stylistic or aesthetic choice, it is because of necessity; how else could you practically organise strings of hex? the fact it is necessary for the tracker to go downwards is absolutely no reason to make a piano roll go vertically. horizontal makes much more sense; for one thing this feature is mainly going to appeal to people who are already familiar with the piano roll in its normal form. there is no reason to change it - itd be equivilent to writing left handed (if you’re not)… you’d have to completely retrain your brain for a vertical piano roll to be in any way useful.

the only conceivable reason would be to have it line up with the usual hex… but this is unecessary, some horizontal indication of the timeline position should be perfectly sufficient. i think the first mockup was pretty close to the mark.

also, if you have all tracks visible on the piano roll, it is also going to be seriously confusing… especially because perhaps its only me, but all samples that don’t need pitching get played at C4. Therefore if everything is on one piano-roll, it will be one big mass of overlapping C4. one track at a time should be fine.

/end rant