It would be nice for pattern editing to get some long-waited attention:
Editing octave number column separately from the note itself (faster than keyboard shortcuts or “advanced edit” plus more fun because tracking instead of mousing around)
Fine-grained selection (only selecting the columns/fields one explicitly selects instead of using “advanced edit” to cull the selection afterwards - good for quickly copy-pasting wanted column data only)
Uncentered pattern view (view scrolls only when cursor moves beyound visible area - good for overview)
edit:
4. Jump into next similar pattern data. A button next to edit step to enable jumping into next similar data point in a column after input. If it was a note under cursor, jump into next note. If it was note-off, jump into next note-off. If it was pitch slide down, jump into next pitch slide down. If it was value 0x80, jump into next 0x80 (value jump may not be that useful though). And so forth.
I haven’t seen this in a tracker before. Should you have to go into a special mode for editing only the octave number? Or else what happens when you add new notes? This seems difficult to implement interface wise.
2 and 3 have been suggested before and I’d really like if those were happening. A non-scrolling pattern with moving editline is much less distracting to me.
Octave number editing is how Impulse Tracker and related trackers do it (IT had very fast tracking workflow). To my great sorrow Renoise is based on Fast Tracker tradition.
But in reality nothing special needs to changed here, just allow cursor movement and numerical input into octave column. It is very useful for quick, selective transposing like in acid basslines or for compositional tryouts. I personally prefer straight editing instead of buttons.
Agree with 2 & 3 as useful additions. The first one, however…
IMHO this is too fine grained to be useful. You can very quickly select something and transpose by single semitones or full octaves using the corresponding keyboard shortcuts. I do agree that we can improve on the ability to select individual columns more precisely, though.
Actually i agree about entering numbers directly in the octave column. Impulse Tracker works like this, and it can be very useful, not just for transposing a whole block.
Also very useful would be (again like Impulse Tracker) an option to link/split the effect letter to the effect value - ie. whether the cursor goes DOWN when entering an effect command, or goes to the RIGHT on the same line. In Renoise, this same option could also link the two digits of the fx value.
While I could select single note and transpose it, it’s not nearly as fast as simply typing 3 4 2 4 3 4 2 4 - and doing that with edit step settings. Octave edit is for single note stuff, not for blocks of data.
And I can not see why there should be a fine grain limit with trackers: everything one sees in pattern should be editable right away. That’s the idea of trackers, no?
One more wish:
4. Option/button next to edit step to enable jumping into next similar data point in a column after input. If it was a note under cursor, jump into next note. If it was note-off, jump into next note-off. If it was pitch slide down, jump into next pitch slide down. If it was value 0x80, jump into next 0x80 (value jump may not be that useful though). And so forth.
This would be nice for changing all the effect values for particular effect without adding new ones and for changing all the notes quickly without changing rhythm or pausing for note-offs and the like.
edit: added quote for clarity, edit2: noticed bad logic, amended
the octave thing would work well as a shortcut, like alt (option) + O ? it could be a toggle? i’d only really find it useful changing a lot of notes at once. but it’s also useful when working with key mapped samples.
I think it wouldn’t need a shortcut nor toggle as octave column already is there. I would only like to edit it directly
Uncentered pattern view (“scroll lock”?) should be a toggle button next to “pattern wrap mode” button. Jumping into matching data after entry (“Match step”?) would be a toggle button too.
Not a fan of octave column. Octave transposes with the keybioard are pretty fast once you get used to it.
However, some aspects of the pattern editor really are too inefficient though. For example, with multiple effect columns, there’s no assignable shortcut to jump to the next effect column. The best I can do is jump to the next track and press the left key multiple times. This isn’t an obscure use case either - you have to have multiple effect columns if you’re doing a lot of within-pattern effect automation. An obvious solution would be to treat effect columns as columns, but I’ll take anything.
The pattern editor is at the heart of tracker functionality. For such a keyboard centric program, the core of it should be fluid, efficient navigation in the pattern editor. I always wish that renoise or any tracker would take navigation cues from vi, but It probably won’t happen for the foreseeable future.
