New Tool (2.8) / InstrMixer

Renoise Tools
21

had it a few days. using it on a mac, seems to be working ok.

as mentioned it doesn’t follow the sampler instrument changes but
I can just close it and hit the F key I have it assigned to.

when you roll over the faders you get a distinct color change.
that distinct change would be nice for the surrounding boxes when receiving notes
or when you play a note yourself. the obvious contrast would help with quick identification.

the only thing I find myself wanting is clearer symbols for the NNA and a global switch and selector
that turns all NNA settings in all zones to any newly selected NNA setting choice.

apart from that though, this is extremely useful. you can very quickly shape sample response.
much easier than adding volume/velocity events in the pattern Editor.

Love it.

22

@eyesee:
what I said in the other topic, I guess you already read it, but anyway:
if you use the ticker for “Auto-Select Played” sample, then you can select samples/keymaps by MIDI action. For pc keyboard notes that does not work yet since renoise xrnx does not work (understandably) with passed-back keys from dialog key handler.
I will think about the idea of a ‘global switch’ for NNA or maybe different ways of operation… Know please that there is also a much simpler tool out, by me, that can work side by side with this one, called Slice Master, which makes a shortcut available to copy all sample settings from 1st sample to others. Thanks to your ideas I now have some improvement ideas on it, maybe a option dialog like KMaki’s EditStepTweak with defaults and stuff…
As to the more recognizable symbols for NNA, you’re totally right, and I’ve been searching too, so next version will have slight improvements in that department.

Thanks for the appreciation!

23

So v1.1 is now up on the tools page, as suggested by eyesee there is now a “apply to all mode” activated by Z but NB! it is not functioning perfectly like I want / would expect yet. The other thing is that it’s got a pretty good lookin legend now so you and I can instantly recognize what’s what, especially useful with the 3 identical looking sliders for pan & pitch. Yeahh :)
Oh and it’s also got slightly different symbols for NNA: one with a X symbol in ‘superscript’ indicating cut off (stop immediately), one with a Z symbol indicating note-off (aka release phase), and one much alike the loop symbol indicating continuous mode (note won’t be cut in any way by a next note only by a note off or end-of-envelope)

24

Checking this out now - nice! :walkman:

Some suggestions for improvement:

-On my keyboard, the first “column” of shortcuts are working (I/O, K/L…). The second is not. I suspect it’s my ‘swedish layout’ where the second column shortcuts read as: “P/Å, Ö/Ä”. This area of the keyboard is probably very different on several countries… Solutions for fix could include user-definable keys?, preset layouts?, a completely new scheme where one would keep within the area of the keyboard where it’s probable that keys will be the same across different layouts?.. don’t know.

-I know it’s a very special case, but I have some multisampled drums, that have so many samples on one instrument that the InstruMix-window just does not fit in my widescreen monitor. :D I counted a little over 70 samples on a specific snare. Don’t know if there’s a simple fix for this… Maybe paging? Maybe rows?

-I’d like a visual feedback on changing the selected sample. I know that the sample list updates, of course. Maybe the name of the selected sample on the GUI? Maybe just some visual clue as to what sample/slider column is currently selected?

25

In short: I’m sorry, I’m not gonna implement or support that. Long version: Well by the state of the way key handlers are to be made in Renoise right now, which is actually something I’m very content with as long as I don’t switch back to dvorak probably, I think this is impossible to program. I’m very sorry but you’ll have to modify the code a little bit, and what changes you can make could become clearer using this tool. Making keyboard shortcuts configurable like that could be out of the scope of this tool, or should be implemented with a gazillion or maybe a little over a dozen shortcuts in Renoise cluttering up that list, but more importantly, would be much more annoying to implement. Your notion of preset layouts may be a route for the future to support different keymaps.

It should not surprise you that I’m not going to support that highly extra special case, no. Get two monitors.

Yes this is what you already have, but like I said in first post, I’m looking for better panel background /(‘style’) options for the next version. Look up the ‘Body Shade’ parameter in the Graphics department of Theme under the renoise Preferences, and up that while you’re keeping InstruMix visible. You can see the difference now if all goes well! It’s kind of sad that I chose this style for the selected sample ‘channel’ but afterwards just realized it’s visibility is almost completely dependent on this body shade param which I don’t like too much for general Renoise neither… So yes I’m looking at this now.
Also, the sample name is not going to be anywhere on the GUI, just because, sample names can be short but also very long, and some instruments have 70 layers but some just have 4 or something… I don’t like the idea of the window getting adjusted to the name of my average overtune formula :). Do notice please that currently selected sample name is reported in statusbar in full.

26

Bumpy: 1.11 is now on the tools page; it’s got more visible selection indication :)
Please let me know what you think

27

I loaded the 1.10 update. was viewing (instrument setting tab) & (sample zones tab)
hit my instruMix F key & it loaded ok on a single sample instrument. then I closed it. then selected a more complex instrument.
then hit the F key again. and this dialogue came up.

‘/Users/mackblack/Library/Preferences/Renoise/V2.8.1/Scripts/Tools/nl.jeweett.InstrMixer.xrnx/main.lua’ failed in one of its notifiers.
The notifier will be disabled to prevent further errors.

Please contact the author (Cas | casmarrav@gmail.com) for assistance…

std::logic_error: ‘trying to close an already closed dialog. the object is no longer available.’
stack traceback:
[C]: in function ‘close’
main.lua:74: in function main.lua:72

Then I ok’d that dialogue and a second came up.

‘/Users/mackblack/Library/Preferences/Renoise/V2.8.1/Scripts/Tools/nl.jeweett.InstrMixer.xrnx/main.lua’ failed in one of its notifiers.
The notifier will be disabled to prevent further errors.

Please contact the author (Cas | casmarrav@gmail.com) for assistance…

main.lua:85: attempt to index field ‘?’ (a nil value)
stack traceback:
main.lua:85: in function main.lua:80

just to let you know, it seems to operate fine after that.

…

thoughts.

I think the overall behavior now is close to being as good as it can be.
I do have Auto-Select Played running and now when I change the NNA or loop mode the sample is Automatically selected, which for me
I don’t think was happening before, so that’s great! . . . so now the direction of selection is working from InstruMix (to) the instrument selections.
however, if I now press the notes on the instruments keyboard, the InstruMix is not highlighting the column sections as it seemed to do before.
it might be good if possible to drive the selection in (both) dirrections… e.g. from the keyboards moused notes as well. if possible.
I notice you were just mentioning something about bodyshade in Renoise, so the actual column contrast visibility issue maybe unsolvable.

that aside, the only main difficulty I feel as being most significant is the fact that I seem to have to drop to a New NNA selection (or) loop mode,
in order to have the selection Auto-Selected / Highlighted in the instrument itself.

a possible solution might be, If the symbols (not the drop arrow) were made not to act the same as drop arrows, and instead were used for
selectors to activate the Auto-Select highlighting of the sample instruments zones, that would be great. even just touching anything and everything
in any InstruMix column might be fine. as that is generally your intention anyhow. I guess you could have your own kind of Auto-Select button ON/OFF
button in any case. which would stop any user complaints in either case.

The graphics changes are perfectly adequate for their purpose now you have the left hand side symbols. imo, those should condition a user to understand
the operations of the unit quickly enough. thanks for the tip on the other script tools. this is all highly appreciated and it’s saving a great deal of time for me
and serving to amplify my enjoyment of Renoise even further. these kinds of tools are just fantastic. Thank ye kindly. :)

you bet me to it !!! :)

peeeerfect !!!

28

Thanks eyesee, ehm, I cannot replicate the bug or error you encountered so I’m hoping it’s fixed now in 1.11. I do unfortunately not completely understand what you are missing about reacting to changed sample. In my case here, I’m on pc though, I can switch samples with midi keyboard and still the GUI keeps up and displays sample info accordingly. I’m debugging the ‘select other instrument’ bug right now though.
The fact that I have no bugs, might have something to do with it that I use it almost purely with keyboard, so Esc or Enter key closes the window. If you close by mouse, it should not give any trouble, but who knows. Please see if you can remember these details (and check whether it still goes awry in 1.11 of course)

Thanks

Thank you so much :D I especially like this simple graphic/pixelpushing way of designing, minimalistic, trying to get this & that info in this space.

Glad I can help!

I don’t understand what you mean by anything in this part B)

29

yes I think the simplicity is very good as well.

I just meant a good place to select the individual columns. if you click on the fader to do that it jumps.
I think the speed of that reaction is worth keeping, so I was thinking of another good place to click to activate the
zone in the instrument without actually changing anything. I thought the symbols next to the arrow drop downs for the
NNA and loop modes was a good candidate. currently clicking there initiates the dropdown. it’s not a show stopper though. :)

btw, there was no allert on installing this other version. so that’s gone here.

30

OK thanks for letting me know so quickly!
I understand now :) for mouse users there should be a little area to select samples within instrument in the GUI of InstruMix, I agree.

31

it’s really good how this tool can answer a lot of questions about the state of the zones in your sampler instrument.

it does get me wondering if it’s possible to lay a single fader tool which can query large amounts of velocity switching layers,
on a single note. I suppose that would require an array of small on off indicators / like a 128 dot array. clicking on the specific
dot could activate the switching layer. when you roll over one, it might be able to tell you the layer number, the velocity switch range,
and the fader and loop / NNA modes as it does in this script. I guess if it were laid out in sets of 12 it would be like this.
If only 6 layer were used, only the first 6 dots would be colored. clicking on one would locate it in the zone.

. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

If it were note focused I guess it could be laid out like this. like octaves on a keyboard.
horizontally or vertically.

…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L…L L…L L L.
L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L L

This is supposed to be a keyboard but it isn’t formatting very well.

L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L L L
L L L L L L L
L L L
L L L L L

That would be all midi notes.

anyhow, just an Idea. I thought I should put it down as a possible simple interface for large instrument handling.
I’m not really sure how worth it this would be, as you have most of this info in the sampler instrument already.
although numbers can be easier to handle than the handles on the zone edges in the sampler instruments, maybe.

Tools working good btw Cas. :)

32

edit: wrong thread :)