Outboard Gear, Latency, Outboard Drums + Vst Drums

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

hi. ok , here’s my problem. my head did this :panic: .

well, for years i’ve had this problem, with every single software i’ve tried to accomplish it with. now with renoise. so here goes.

my soundcard is at 20ms latency.
i load up renoise. configure midichannel1 to send to midi-out-port 1 – to cut the story short, i make an outboard synth play a drumkit.
this comes in, with the line-in receiving machine, that i can then hear.
so i sent a midi note, to outboard gear, it responded, and the sound came out of renoise.
i didnt mess around with latency or midi delays or anything like that, in renoise – why? because i have no freakin idea what im doing. its all a total mess to me.
so could someone please tell me:
if i have, on track1, row 00, a midinote going to an outboard gear that plays a bassdrum, and on track2, row00, a vst playing a bassdrum, or anything like that - what EXACTLY am i supposed to do, to make the sounds line up?
to add to that, sometimes i also bump gear into wavefiles, and then im trying to align outboard midi, outboard midi as wav, vst, and samples, and suddenly theres this loose groove that i just dont know how to tighten, at all.

so, what exactly could i do?, please.
how could i finally learn this, cos its doing my face in, in so many ways, with so many programs.
what do you guys favor, sending midi notes out at a midilatency of -20 or something, or +20, or, i mean, how would YOU fix this problem - and how would you teach it to someone so they’d finally be able to trust themselves to do it right?

thank you VERY much in advance.

2

You can add delay to the track that causes the delay.

Method 1:
If your midi track1 has a delay of 100ms, add 100ms to the track, all the other tracks will then be compensated by 100ms so that those line up to track1.

Method 2:
If you midi instrument or hardware has 50ms or less delay, you can change the delay in the midi instrument properties (-50 or +50 delay).

The problem with method 2 is that usually, the delay with internal synths is larger than 50ms, so you have to compensate the track itself.

The percussion instruments may have a delay as well, it depends on wether the delay is reported (properly) to Renoise.

Best thing to do , is turn on the metronome function ([`] key) and then compare the output of your delay instrument to the timing of the metronome.
The metronome is always pure and has no delay and is the only basic reference sound that you can relay on in Renoise. (At least if you want to have it 100% secured, with ordinary samples you can also relay on them if they have no silence in the beginning)

So synchronise each instrument to the metronome, either using the delay feeder in the MIDI instrument panel or delay the whole track.

That’s it.

3

thanks vV, im not sure why that midi delay in the midi instrument never occurred to me before. i’ll try -20ms on the midi-instrument midi-delay and see wot happens.
i still wish there was “some way” to just grab 8 channels of input audio into 8 samples that are the length of the pattern (render selection to sample), but maybe thats just beyond what renoise can do, for now.
i can’t imagine there’s that many people around who use renoise to control multitimbral racksynths…

4

Use the track delays in the mixer. Set them to negative amounts. In your case ~(-20ms). Try that. Works for me. But my latency is a lot shorter.

I DO!!! I am so bored with soft synths! You can get some great shite off of ebay these days. Just in the past 3 months I picked up a TX81z (yamaha dx synth), FB-01 (another yamaha dx), XD-5 (kawai drum synth), REV-100 (yamaha reverb), REX-50 (yamaha multi FX). All the shit I been into lately is from the 80s.

Also got a Sequencial Circuits Six-Trak (midi analog), Kawai K5000 (additive) bunch more rack effects, simmonds sds-5, korg poly-800… Gear rules. Soft synths, not so much.

5

I use Renoise only as a MIDI sequencer to sequence my hardware so I’m not really bothered by the latency. If I use a sample I’ll paste some silence before the starting point of the sample so it will work fine with the hardware.

PS.
Totally dig your vinyl on U-cover. ;)