I spend a lot of time in investigating the features in renoise (1.5 beta). There are a few things i miss…
Envelopes in Automation- & Instr.-Envelopes Panel
Of course it is intuitive to draw the envelopes, but it is not very accurate to examine where a single point applies to a pattern. In case of Automation there should be a waveform or even the set of notes (in the selected pattern) in the background of the envelope to avoid some try&error. Same with Instr. Envelopes, when we have samples there should be a waveform.
This all comes to me because i’m not only using short samples
Graphical Effect Editor
OK, it is the nature of a tracker to place magic numbers in the rows. I think its more useful to have an interface to click effects in the current line. Prehearing this effect from the last note is also cool 8-).
Prehearing in Live-Sessions
We have sometimes Jam Sessions here, in such a case it is good to prehear a track. Currently this is only possible with asio and routing to an unused output channel, I think.
Imagine one internal and one usb-soundcard, one for playing and one for prehearing, thie is currently not possible. Maybe one may choose a prehearing device and when a track is muted all sound is routed to this device … or something like that.
OK, thats it , don’t kill me if renoise is able to deal with the above things and I did not find it out yet .
Oh, sorry, bad English I think 8-).
Maybe prelistening or presound is appropriate. It want to listen it in my headphones before in the master output…to check it.
There have been ideas raised about adding waveform images behind the envelopes. For automation this is practically impossible since Renoise cannot predict on-the-fly which samples and instruments you gonna use.
So this has to be prerendered to get the image in the first place which will make it an irritating feature because of the waiting time.
However,go to the pattern editor while the automation window is open (and you have activated a parameter to automate). Now scroll along the pattern and notice the yellow marker-line moving along with it.
This is your accurate single-point applicant in a pattern
I do understand you rather have a clickable list-button that draws out all effects for you in an eyesight, but you will probably loose pattern copy / paste / humanize / interpolation effects functionality along with that as selecting more than 1 list button is probably not possible.
Could you explain this prehearing part “from the last note” in a different fashion? You mean the note used in the last column or the last note used in the track?
You mean a que-service that every dual turn-table set should have so DJ’s could time/sync the next record to the current one playing, accept that you can do this between tracks internally in Renoise instead…
Well, yes, this is sort of doable by using ASIO channeling, but is very much of a hassle.
You’re better off using two computers instead
yes, but you do not have waiting time in the instr. envelopes, because calculating waveform of a single sample is done in real time.
Hmm, I do not understand. I dont want to avoid the effect-numbers I just want a more comfortable interface to populate the effect-column. With this we wont loose anything of the other functionality.
Hmm, my thoughts were not so complicated 8-).
I don not want to change the current behaviour of renoise. Just want to select different sound-cards, to toggle between an master and one only connected to my headphones. In other words, I want to route the output of a single track to another soundcard. (in order to precheck the sound)
I could not disagree more. I have dreamt of a precalculation feature ever since renoise was released.
Adobe audition does this. It precalcs every wave you drag into the multitracks. It has a really really good precalc system. I remember I could easily work with more then 32 96khz/32bit waves at once on my old P3 800 machine. Very nice workflow and almost no waiting at all.
It would be awesome if you could chose which tracks in renoise to be automatically precalculated. All this will be precalculated (rendered to .tmp files) in the background during all the idle time you have when working in general in renoise. It will prioritize the pattern you are working on first and then pattern by pattern precalcing the rest (you should have custom buffer options like the one Audition have). This is very close to other options like freeze track, which will precalc the entire track with its effects etc in the foreground (you choose when to render and then have to wait). And of course this is the same as pure ‘Audio tracks’ as well. You can play long waves from any position in the wave (you dont have to play the wave from the beginning). I cant see why this should not work smooth and nice with todays computers. It will bring a whole new dimension to renoise.
There are really lot’s of things that change more dynamically in Renoise than do in Audition.
Sure In Adobe Audition it is really cool, but i don’t see dynamic LFO devices in Audition, how would you prerender that? : constantly ever changing and lots of disk action.
There may be a slight possibility to use this feature as long as the effects are not taken into account (only the sample itself) but when using reverb or delay, it would be nice to see how long the sample would actually take to play within the pattern (as outputted in the automation window)…
So a complete go would be for:
Instantly in the background - Quick-calc (sample reflection only)
When rendering button is clicked - complete calc (including effects)
Two coloured outputs to show difference between quick and complete rendered output (and to prevent quick calc from erasing the complete rendered idea, since background rendering won’t stop)
Yes, There are lot of things changing dynamically in renoise. Thats why you should be able to choose which tracks to be precalculated. This is very usefull on every track that use long samples like loops,strings,pads and most of all longer recordings (long samples) that is more static in their nature. Also a freeze function could save you a hell of a lot cpu. Making you able to render out huge cpu hungry reverbs or heavy vsti’s etc with just a click on a button.
And yes. I ment just as you described that it will render out the track without fx in background when you insert something in a precalc track, and with fx in the foreground if the freeze button is pressed.
There will also be issues with fx behind send devices in the fx chain. So you chould also be able to choose where in the chain it will freeze.
Quickcalc and a render button with output in different colors is exactly what Audition does today. I guess ppl have to work abit in multitrackers ala Adobe Audition to really understand how usefull this way of working can be.
, don’t kill me if renoise is able to deal with the above things and I did not find it out yet 
.