Note length parameter

Ideas & suggestions
1

Hi everyone!

I am a new user of Renoise for a few weeks only and so far I am having lots of fun with it.

I have searched around but not found anything, sorry if this is a repeat of other discussions. What I would like is a note length parameter in the tracker.

I like to sequence MIDI and one thing I like to do is adjust the gate length of notes.

I know it can sort of be done by changing the step resolution of the pattern and inserting Off’s but that is not very convenient and can easily lead to very long patterns that are difficult to follow.

What I am proposing is a parameter similar to the Volume, Panning and Delay parameters called simply Length.

It could have a default of 00 which would behave just like it does now, i.e. the note will be cutoff by an explicit Off or next note in the same track.

If set to anything else it would just tell how long that note will play until being cutoff. For example: 80 would be half the step, 40 would be 25% of the step and so on.

What do you guys think? Could this be a useful addition? Have I missed an easier way to achieve this? Would this kill the tracker vibe/way of doing things?

Cheers all,

Ben

2

Have I missed an easier way to achieve this?

Depends. If you are looking to sequence MIDI with a gate length that continually changes, yes - the current way is to insert note off’s *
But if you are just looking for a specific length, or you’re happy about changing the note length as you are playing, the MIDI output panel has a note length parameter:
http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/MIDI#MIDI_Output

  • the tool xStream has some promise here - it could be made to transform existing notes, inserting note-offs (or Cxx commands) based on some specific criteria.
    This might be interesting too, and I’m actually looking for such “real life” applications for the tool. PM me if you’re curious :slight_smile:

Would this kill the tracker vibe/way of doing things?

In a way, yes. If you were able to specify for a note “play for the next 5 seconds”, and then continued to trigger a bunch of such notes they would actually be overlapping. But this would conflict with how note columns works, as they too have a specific purpose: any overlapping notes will make use of the NNA option(New Note Action) to determine if the note is going to continue playing, will be cut or released. Not saying it couldn’t be done, but IMO such notes would become harder to “decipher”.

3

Depends. If you are looking to sequence MIDI with a gate length that continually changes, yes - the current way is to insert note off’s *
But if you are just looking for a specific length, or you’re happy about changing the note length as you are playing, the MIDI output panel has a note length parameter:
http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/MIDI#MIDI_Output

  • the tool xStream has some promise here - it could be made to transform existing notes, inserting note-offs (or Cxx commands) based on some specific criteria.
    This might be interesting too, and I’m actually looking for such “real life” applications for the tool. PM me if you’re curious :slight_smile:

In a way, yes. If you were able to specify for a note “play for the next 5 seconds”, and then continued to trigger a bunch of such notes they would actually be overlapping. But this would conflict with how note columns works, as they too have a specific purpose: any overlapping notes will make use of the NNA option(New Note Action) to determine if the note is going to continue playing, will be cut or released. Not saying it couldn’t be done, but IMO such notes would become harder to “decipher”.

Thanks for the tip!

The note length parameter in the MIDI output would be exactly what I was looking for, it if was able to be changed per step.

First of all, I have not yet fully mastered the terms so I apologize in advance if I mix them up or get them wrong. I hope I am making any sense. :slight_smile:

I am thinking of this to be more like a step division type parameter, like the delay parameter is.

For example, consider 4 bars of 16th notes. This can be sequenced with a pattern with a length of 64 step.

As it is now it will send a MIDI Note Off at the end of each step and following that it will send a Note On when it gets to the next step.

If I want it to have a gate length of 50% for some steps I will have to double the length of the pattern, adjust the LPB and insert Off’s in between every note. If I want to have notes that are 25% or 75% I will have to double yet again and insert the Off’s.

With a length parameter you can do this with a pattern that is 64 steps long.

Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be useful for samples as well to program how long they would play per step, if you want them shorter than 1 step?

4

Ok, I have been playing around for a while and did some RTFM’ing, you obviously can never do enough of that! :wink: The Cx command on the Volume column is exactly what I was looking for.

Thanks for the tip regarding the xStream, @danoise. I will definitely check this out.