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.
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 (=
is anyone else seeing the piano roll as an inevitability?.
I somewhat approve. 90° clockwise rotation though. Good job on the keys. Bad job on the placement.
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… :]
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
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.
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.
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.
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)
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
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.
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.
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
I’m neutral on the piano-roll issue, its just interesting to see different methods.
I usually notate —> that way, on the go, on my PSP text editor.
More stuff…
Klavar notation via wiki “notation”.
Rondo “…horizontal live playing keyboard and visual track filtering…” The “piano” can be also moved up or down.
Reason I would prefer per-track piano roll is that I could both separate chord work from percussion/plain noise AND still see big picture of note relations WHILE still having everything in vertical context in single timeline. Separated automation is already pain in the ass to edit, forcing constant checks of numbers to see if changes happen at correct notes. I wouldn’t wish similar timing problems with piano roll. What I would like to see is track option to view it as either piano roll or tracker and having option to view and edit automation curves overlaid on note data or placed just right of them.
And single track vertical piano roll could show notes from other tracks ghosted/dimmed with their their track color (it could jump tracks with click on such note).
Whoah!!! I like Horizontal live playing keyboard a lot!!! This could solve all problems?
Imagine those horizontal tracks to be double-clickable and each track will open its own pattern editor [with that instrument only OR a classical pattern [with its name on the top].
Anyway - image talks more than words:
these vertical piano rolls are heresy and you will all be burned at the stake for this witchcraft… 
I think this is quite arguable:
-
Why would you care for a horizontal flow similar to traditional sheet music when you’re used to a tracker in which you edit, read and play music in a vertical fashion ?
-
A tracker is somehow an evolution of a barrel organ or an automatic piano (pianola?) where notes are played vertically, be it with perforated paper or real piano rolls.
As for your arguments regarding sheet music, I think this is as legitimate a reason to display it vertically. -
A vertical piano roll view in Renoise could be displayed next to its track view to make it easier to spot problems.
-
A vertical piano roll means a horizontal keyboard display, similar to the view you have when you play a real keyboard (well, traditionally at least
)
So, while I’m used to horizontal piano rolls in other DAWs I think it would be counterproductive in Renoise as it would force users to continually switch between horizontal and vertical thinking.
That said, I’m not sure I’m actually missing a piano roll
Den
welcome to the forum!
now on with the debate…
okay… i’ve thought about this, its actually a little more complicated than i first thought to explain why. but its definitely more of a functional thing than a notion of tradition for the sake of it:
firstly, although i’m used to the vertical flow of time in a tracker, pitch is only expressed by numbers and characters (c4 etc.) so in fact the concept of pitch is not currently expressed in a vertical or horizontal fashion, in the main tracker window. only time is. i have nothing against a vertical flow of time (obviously, or i wouldn’t be using a tracker), it is the idea of pitch being expressed on a horizontal left-right axis where left is lower pitch and right is higher pitch that bothers me.
the reason for this is that it seems more logical to me to express a lower pitch on a vertical axis where the bottom is a low note and the top is a higher note, than it does for left to be a lower note and right to be a higher note. now this may indeed be only due to previous exposure to stuff like sheet music, guitar tab, other piano rolls. but nonetheless down is low and up is high in my mind, and lower notes are a lower frequency (not a more leftward frequency), and higher notes are a higher frequency (not a more rightward frequency). you move up and down the neck of a guitar, or up and down the piano (even though its left-right in orientation). it just seems more logical for pitch to be described on an up-down axis to me.
i would also point out that there is already horizontally scrolling stuff in renoise: the automation, the instrument editor envelopes, the sample editor. i think all these things would be much more confusing if they were turned at 90 degrees for the same reason: filter cutoff values make more sense expressed as down the axis=lower value, up the axis=higher value. usually, unless circumstances of design prevent it, you want to move sliders vertically up and down to control volume on a mixer. a left-right axis is usually reserved for situations where it makes sense - you twist a dial left or right to control panning for example. or a dj moves a crossfader left or right because one turntable is on his/her left, the other on the right. up and down is better for high-low scenarios, not left-right. i think its for this reasons that a piano roll should be horizontal scrolling, where pitch is expressed on a vertical axis, because pitch is fundamentally low-high more than it is left-right.
well i guess this is a good arguement. however a piano roll is in some ways more useful for pitching notes visually than it is for timing them. i don’t see having an indication of bars/ticks etc. horizontally with the piano roll as particularly restrictive. timing of notes can still be assessed vertically in the normal way. if there is an option to view multiple tracks in the piano roll it makes no odds if its horizontal or vertical anyway to spot problems.
yes, i know, this makes it much harder to argue my case 
. however i still think the piano roll should be vertical for the reasons i’ve already described.
i think not, because like i already said, automation, instrument and sample editor already use time horizontally. its not that big a deal to have time horizontal for the piano roll too. i think its preferable to forcing people to think of pitch horizontally rather than vertically.
and thats the other key thing i think - piano roll is mainly going to have an appeal for people inputing more complex melodic note information, perhaps with chords and so forth. if you’re not doing more complicated stuff with lots of different simultaneously pitched notes, complex chords and stuff, or your already so familiar with tracking that you can do this stuff anyway you really don’t need a piano roll… but otherwise you might find it useful. my guess would be that a real pianist would be more likely to have use for a piano roll than someone who programmes beats and melodically simple basslines. and in that situation the pianist is more likely to be used to reading sheet music or similar which goes left to right in time and up-down in pitch. even if that is only because its the way it is in 99% of music notation… i still think thats a good enough reason.
after all that analysis, i think i could probably get used to a vertical scrolling piano-roll… i’m just not sure i should have to, or that even if i did there would be any real benefits.