2.5 beta provides exactly what I found missing after playing initially starting to play with renoise (not too far ago, v2.0). I eventually felt that the patterns were holding me back from really building up a song and not just taking the same variation and changing it a little at a time.
With the pattern matrix, I can suddenly build up variations and quickly and efficiently move them around (especially interesting: more patterns at a time), and suddenly I feel productive again! I’m falling a love with renoise all over again!
I spent some time away from tracking, and instead trying out separate softsynths and midi sequencers (rosegarden) that gave me a piano roll and a pattern view, but something didnt feel right. I didnt have the same integrated effects, the effect tracks, the keyboard shortcuts, the well thought-out design combination that is renoise!
I have one single suggestion though, how about letting the patterns in the pattern matrix be individually colored, possibly even automatically using the “visualize repeating slots” functionality that is already there? I just feel the infinity symbol is a little hard to see sometimes.
In summary, I just want to say thanks for renoise, the wait was definitely worth it!
(wow, 3 of 4 paragraphs end with an exclamation mark)
The colours in the pattern matrix are related to the tracks, the infinity sign is to tell you that the track from the previous pattern is being used / duped / repeated and the gradient coloring is to give you a better visual cue of how large the repetition of that track in the other patterns is.
The only thing left to colour regarding patterns are the sequencer blocks then i guess.
Also, track coloring can be toggled in the pattern editor and in the mixer.
