I’m having a problem with Renoise and a few software instruments (VST and AU in OS X) when I have them running in monophonic mode. Basically I’ve got a mono bass in Tassman and it only triggers the first note unless I put note-offs after each note. It took me a while but I figured out that Renoise isn’t sending the note-offs before the start of each note but a little bit afterwards (so the melody is played legato). If you have a pattern with a repeated note it basically sounds like one long sustained note.
Is there any preference where the note-off timing can be fine-tuned so this doesn’t happen?
there is no such preference, but I’d say that the way you described is exactly how it should work when the plugin is in legato mode. I don’t have Tassman, but maybe there is a way to switch legato mode off on it? Many synths have this switch, for example Native Instruments Pro-53, so give a look at the Tassman manual
It’s not just a matter of setting turning off legato–this happens with multiple plug-ins, including Arturia Moog Modular and Arp 2600. I’ve tried changing the legato setting on those last two with no success. And Arturia Minimoog doesn’t do legato unless you use the two-lane portamento trick that’s somewhere on the Renoise website, so I think notes aren’t supposed to overlap on the same lane and this is in fact a real issue.
I’m slightly on the fence about this issue. I use some VSTi’s which trigger new notes even without manually using a note-off command, and others which perform in the legato mode described here, and there have been times when I’ve needed both types of functionality (as well as times where I’ve been annoyed by both types).
But it makes me wonder… should we have a basic NNA (New Note Action) setting for VSTi as well? Seems like the behaviors for “continue” and “note off” could be implemented very easily? Maybe this would keep everyone happy.
This sounds quite familiar, so I think it’s been mentioned before somewhere on the forums.
.
would be good to find a faulty VST plugin we both have could you please name all the plugins with which you have this issue? However, I have read about other people using Minimoog and ARP 2600 with Renoise and never complained about this, so if any user of these two plugin is reading, please share your tricks
The only plug-ins that have this problem are the ones I mentioned. They just happen to be the ones I’ve paid for
Minimoog actually works okay, although you have to use two note lanes to get legato, it’s something I only use sparingly so it’s not a big deal.
The easiest way Renoise could fix this would be to have another instrument setting (per-instrument, preferably) for some sort of VST/AU Note Length offset: You could add or subtract a fixed amount to ALL notes played by that instrument. Even if that didn’t fix my problem it’d still be a useful feature for anybody who uses Renoise.
Many VST’s pick a cut command on the pan/vol column as a note-off (Fx where x is the offset in ticks). In that way you can send a note-off on the same line where the note starts before the next line starts.
This is only useful if you cannot turn off legato mode.
Fx worked great! Only problem: if I want to use the Ex command–is there a way to apply an early note cut for each of the repeated notes?
This still qualifies as an “issue” (if not a “bug”) that warrants a VST Instrument note-length offset parameter. That said, Fx is easy enough to do. I imagine a lot of people have the same problem I did and don’t even mention it (or just move on to another program), so this issue should be addressed for the benefit of people who don’t have the patience or initiative to ask for help.
Thanks to everyone who helped troubleshoot this with me!
Ex is not really the best command to perform such complex tasks (I assume that cutting each note of a retrigging note group is complex).
If I was you, I would expand the pattern, or the section of the pattern where you want to apply such kind of effects, or in general use an higher LPB (Lines Per Beat) value in the song, to achieve more control over the single notes.
An LPB value of 12 would let you easily control note groups of 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6 each.