As Highlife and Renoise aren’t too friendly and the newer versions of Highlife are not loading samples properly, I really need a plugin which will suit my needs.
I use Highlife for creating my own drum kits from Wav samples and use the drum machine spread so each drum is triggered by a specific key (I also use it for vocal hooks in songs too, so I can load several samples and only use one slot to trigger them)…
I’ve tried using NI Battery but it seems that you have to load each sample in individually, instead of selecting say 20 at once and loading them in together, whilst Battery assigns each sample to a pad.
This is a killer for me as I separate my drums and hats into individual kits.
I’m not to concerned about cost but I’d like it to be simple (as Highlife is) and fit for this purpose - if I can get it to work with Renoise, then both are worthy of investment.
The problem with Highlife (other than it crashing Renoise) is as follows:
When I load one sample, instead of the whole sample form start to end, it loads half on each stereo track and plays both halves together - not a good sound.
Whereas the original version, it loads the same sampleit correctly:
Notice how the sample is loaded correctly in stereo on both tracks.
This is making samples (and percussion) impossible to work with in Renoise and the only other option I’ve found is to load the 40 or so samples into individual slots - which is a huge amount of work when entering a percussion into songs.
I can’t use version 1 in Renoise as it’s integrated into MED Sound Studio (I think - can’t find the DLL anywhere)
Any ideas?
I don’t know what kind of extra processing you might be doing to each individual hit, but have you tried simply creating a multi-sample instrument within Renoise?
Outstanding!!!
Never even thought to look within Renoise as it’s not something I expected to be available - I thought it would be a plugin only facility. Renoise continues to blow my mind!!!
Would you by any chance be Blue from a while back in the MED forums, AKA Bluejooz?
If you are (and there’s no hiding ) you will understand what I’m about to ask…
I have managed to import a MED track into Renoise which has kept the song data and the named instrument slots - I just need to reload all the VSTi and samples and fix the tempo.
I used Highlife to load in a custom drum kit (in MED) and for example, Hihat 20 is mapped to G#4 and hihat 21 to A4.
Now in Renoise, these entries are in the pattern editor but when I load the samples in (as you described above) in the same order as I used them in Highlife, they don’t map to the same keys/entries in the pattern editor - what was originally G#4 and a4 in MED are now G#6 and A6 in REnoise (something happened during the conversion).
How so I transpose the whole multi, 2 octaves higher (not the pitch but the keys which trigger the notes)to align the instruments with the pattern editor entries, to save me rewriting the percussion tracks throughout the song (it’s a 45 minute long Jesus On E’s remix with 172 blocks at 256 lines - would take some doing)?
I’ve changed the base note on VSTi’s to do this but can only seem to transpose the pitch on individual samples when loaded as a multi.
This appears to be my final stumbling block in making the switch from MED to Renoise.
As you list graphics and coding in your repertoire, maybe you can recreate the original graphics from the Amiga Jesus On E’s demo to go with my remix - total nostalgia!!
Nope, not me… but you’re actually not the first to ask me this.
In the instrument settings for the multi-sample instrument, check out the buttons for “Transpose all splits [-12] [-1] [+1] [+12]”
This will let you quickly change the base note of every sample contained there.
You can also optionally use the Advanced Edit section to easily change the octave of all notes in the song itself, but if you want to keep the original note data then you’ll need to change the sample base notes instead.
I helped a friend with a tune today actually, haha. Speaking about my own music, well I do start a lot, but I very rarely finish anything at the moment. I get bored too quickly with stuff! I’ve also got an ancient laptop that starts to explode with too many tracks and plugins, and my speakers are complete crap so I can’t hear what I’m doing. I can’t wait to upgrade to a new system with some nice monitors as soon as I have the cash!
Very recognizable, though since the pattern matrix, I have been finishing stuck tunes with a vengeance . All psychological anyway, because ones ‘work in progress’ is another ones masterpiece…or vice versa
Hmm, I’ve just tried this out of curiosity and had no problem batch-loading around ten different samples in one go. You just need to use shift / control to select multiple files? They would all need to be in the same folder though…
To be honest I haven’t used Battery 3 much since I got it, but if you’re interested in it (particulalry for velocity layers, cross-fading between samples, time-stretch and other features Renoise does not yet have) now is probably a good time as it is going for about half-price:
I tried this but it just changes the pitch of the samples (and base note of an individual sample) not which key trigers them.
Indeed you are correct - no idea what I tried to do previously… Having senior citizen moments at 37!
As some of the songdata on a couple of the percussion tracks, it’s looking more likely that I’ll need to rewrite these tracks where I’ve originally used a custom kit in highlife.
I can use the multi sample facility to do this - if for no other reason than I just love that it’s available in Renoise… Sheer genius
Oh, then I simply misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that they were playing in the wrong octave. If you want to transpose the actual note data in the patterns, then you can do this easily with Advanced Edit, as I mentioned earlier.
Open Advanced Edit and make sure “Whole Song” is selected:
Set “Apply To” to the correct instrument number, then use the Transpose options:
Now this will really help for when I import in my other modules.
I was assigning each instrument manually in the instrument editor and then setting it’s base note - took ages!!! This will speed things up no end!
) you will understand what I’m about to ask…
. All psychological anyway, because ones 
