Perfect Master Keyboard Controller For Renoise

General Discussion
1

easy folks,

im about to get myself a USB Master Keyboard Midi Controller just for Renoise.

at first i just wanted to get myself a simple 49 Keyboard because i already got a korg nanocontrol that gives me perfect access with knobs to vst instrument filters, got faders and buttons and even MMC Control to Start / Stop.

so my weapons of choice would have been either the

then i saw some other controllers that had program change buttons, blue led display a lot of knobs and stuff on the master thing itself and you know… somehow it attracted me ;)

so the other choices i’ve got now are these here:

i think the Impulse looks kinda kiddy for me, my fav would be the novation Remote 49 SL MK II or the Laboratory 49.

i don’t know how compatible the Laboratory thing really is with renoise. it got a whole lot of synths coming with it, like the moogs or jupiter and as i do like the analog synths it is said to produce a very likewise analog sound with its synths that it comes with (i guess it’s vst but i don’t really know).

so what i really need to be able to do with the master controller is

  • to change instruments in renoise with a keypress or knob and to display the number of the instrument on the led display.
  • to change the values of the selected vst instrument like filters with the knobs without the extra need of opening the vst up in renoise.
  • to redirect the faders to the channel volume faders in the master mixer.
  • change patterns (+ and - and add pattern to pattern list, move up and down in pattern list), change tracks
  • play stop record (mmc feature)

in the end i want to be able to do anything with it other than arranging the song in the end.

who can help me out and give me some information which controller would be the best compatible for renoise, which other features i could use with it and whatever comes to your mind on this topic. all response is appreciated.

thanks!

2

The Novation controllers use software installed on the PC called automap to control the LCD displays and context based controllers. However, I understand automap does not have support for Renoise, thus the LCD display will not work with Renoise.

Hopefully, someone who has actual experience of these controllers can confirm this.

3

True, in the sense that Renoise doesn’t expose it’s mixer to automap. This level of DAW integration would require extra code in Renoise itself
Automapped instruments and plugins will work fine in Renoise, though. And the whole MIDI part, obviously

I am the happy owner of a compact Remote with 25 keys, but for a master keyboard that’s probably not enough keys.

4

ok, thanks so far for the information.

so without using automap (just using it for the vst instruments), would i still be able to map other functions of renoise with the renoise own mapping feature in the preferences to the remote sl buttons or faders (midi) like i would map it to the keyboard ?

would those earlier mentioned other functions be able to map to the remote sl somehow (i would assign them only one time globally with the preferences):

  • change instruments in renoise with a keypress or knob and to display the number of the instrument on the led display.
  • assign the faders to the channel volume faders in the master mixer (or to the master volume of the tracks in the renoise dsps)
  • change patterns (+ and - and add pattern to pattern list, move up and down in pattern list), change tracks
  • play stop record (mmc feature, transport), i guess this is working…

maybe the better question would be:

what features would i NOT BE ABLE to accomplish with the remote SL and renoise ?

or is there any other master keyboard that really suits renoise better ?

can we expect to see this DAW function to be implemented in a future version of renoise like it is already available in other major DAWs, so buying the remote SL will be even more useful in the future ?