New Tool [3.0] : Virtual MIDI Piano Helper

Renoise Tools
1

New Alpha, test with usual care. It enables you to use a Virtual Keyboard to view the currently playing instrument in renoise

NOTE: Do not use this tool if you set your instrument MIDI outs i.e. to external hardware, as the assignments will get reset as soon as the tool is running

ledger.scripts.VirtualMidiPianoHelper_V0.53.xrnx

Operation:

The tool has a GUI that can be found either with:

Shortcut:

Virtual MIDI Piano Helper Preferences…

Menu:

Tools:Ledger`s Scripts:Virtual MIDI Piano Helper Preferences…

Here you can enable the tool and choose the MIDI output you want the currently selected instrument to be routed to. This changes the MIDI output of whatever instrument you have selected in renoise:

You can see that the current output is set to LoopBe Internal MIDI. This is a virtual MIDI cable that routes the MIDI out from your instrument in renoise to a separate program that can receive MIDI data.

In this case “Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard”

As renoise plays you should see the current instruments notes playing on the keyboard. This can give you useful visual feedback. As you change instruments manually or renoise autocaptures them from the pattern, the tool automatically updates the MIDI outs to follow.

Playing notes into renoise though is not supported.

You can find Virtual MIDI Piano here:

http://vmpk.sourceforge.net/

If on Windows you can download the LoopBe1 driver here:

http://nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html

For reference here is a screenshot of VMPKs Preferences I use (though may be slightly outdated for most recent version). You will also need to set up its MIDI input to be LoopBe1 or whatever driver you are using. You also have a view menu in VMPK to customise it to your liking.

For advice on using other drivers, Linux and Mac please see the Virtual MIDI Piano home page linked above.

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Thanks a Lot ! :walkman:

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Wow this is very useful indeed. Thank you!

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No probs, this is something I’ve wanted to see in renoise for a long time and has been suggested as a native feature before. Couldn`t find the thread I was thinking of but found this one here:

https://forum.renoise.com/t/piano-view-status/35600

This tool is slightly hacky with the need to reset the instrument outs, but does provide half the functionality and let you ‘see’ at least what chords you`ve put into renoise. Only really practically possible before by detaching the instrument editor and moving that to another screen if you have one handy!

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:drummer: :panic: :drummer:

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Hi Kurtz,

I’ve just realised that you can use the Virtual MIDI Piano as an input aswell, you don’t need the tool for this, just set the output of Virtual Midi Piano to LoopBe (or whatever driver you’re using) and VMP input to nothing. Set one of the global renoise MIDI inputs to LoopBe and use VMP like a MIDI keyboard

I`ve just tested and you can actually have one instance of VMP as renoise input to write to the pattern and one as renoise instrument output to play back the pattern.

Clunky as hell and the octaves seemed out on first go, but got it working in concept!

Edit: scrap that, its a recipe for feedback loops, though you may be able to hack it with two different virtual MIDI drivers (or a driver with more channels/outputs)

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Also a note for people using LoopBe1. Sometimes you may get a MIDI feedback loop and the driver disables automatically. To unmute it right-click its icon in the taskbar to get its menu, unmute and all should be working again.