New Tool (2.7): Keyboard Jammer

Renoise Tools
1

This replaces my previous tool with the same name, which didn’t really work. Hopefully this will. It seems to work so far, but keep in mind that this is a very early version, so expect to encounter some bugs (and please report them here).

This tool makes it possible to trigger different instruments on different tracks from the computer keyboard. It uses the following keys:

1 2 3 4
Q W E R
A S D F
Z X C V

Each of these keys triggers a C4 note on a different instrument/track, so it works best with drum samples or sampled phrases. You can assign the instruments and tracks to the keys in the midi input box of the instrument settings tab. Choose “Renoise OSC device”, and specify a channel and a track (see below). “Z” will trigger the instrument assigned to channel 1, “X” will trigger the instrument assigned to channel 2, and so on from left to right and from bottom to top.

Other keys that are uses by this tool:
Esc toggles edit mode.
Backslash ("") closes the tool.
Backspace undoes the last action.

All other keys will have their normal function.

Note: this tool only works when its dialog is focused (when the letters “Keyboard Jammer” are white).

Known limitations:
-the tool will only respond to key presses, not to key releases (this is not possible with the current API).
-the tool introduces some latency between the key press and the sound, which unfortunately is unavoidable.

Tip: You can assign multiple instruments to the same key, which you can use to layer drum sounds.

Have fun, and let me know what you think!

2 Likes
2

cool, will test it tonight!

3

This is cool once i figured it out but there seems to be a lag problem and sometimes notes will not trigger.

4

Dammit, I get dropped notes too. I thought I had solved this problem, but apparently not. I’ll see if I can do something about it.

Regarding the lag, I’m afraid I can’t do anything about it. I noticed some latency too, and that was expected, since the notes aren’t triggered directly by the keys, like in the pattern editor. Instead, the keys trigger an OSC message, which in turn triggers the note, so latency seems unavoidable. I was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t worse. For me it’s pretty usable for tapping out ideas, but I use quantize when recording with this.

Thanks for the feedback!

5

Nice idea!

Will certainly give this a go.

6

I had a similar problem to with the instrumentchainer tool, i thought i solved by adding a little latency (using a timer to add 0.05 secs of latency) between applying a the note command after checking if an OSC message was received.

The LUA Interpreter seems a little slower in handling this stuff very fast.
the problems should be less frequent if the notes are really divided across tracks.

7

Thanks for the tip, I think that should solve it. I was thinking of something like this, but I wasn’t sure how to do it yet. I’ll take a look at your instrument chainer.

8

I uploaded a new version, which hopefully solves the dropped notes issue.

This comes at a cost: it introduces extra latency. I had to add a delay of 2 ms (at least), which is the lowest I could go without getting dropped notes. I’d say it is still usable, but unfortunately the extra latency is definitely noticeable.

Let me know if you still experience dropped notes, if necessary I could add a valuebox for the delay, so that you can set it yourself.