PIANO ROLL integrated in Pattern Editor! A Advanced Pattern Editor

Raul · May 22, 2016, 6:42pm

I also think that piano roll that show all tracks side by side could be a nice advantage. I know other solutions from other DAWs where multiple note tracks are displayed at once too. The notes of different tracks of course in different colours but displaying the same notes in differnet tracks is a mess. on the other hand this note overlaps happens not very often , isn’t it?

Exact!There was barely overlapping notes.But even if there is overlap of notes, there could be a replication feature note (“Double Column Note Function”).How could it work?Doubling a column of note, even multiple times, and widening the top key the double or more graphically (oh, that does not exist!!!There may be people throwing peste on this,but still with blindfolded).

This is something I had in my head.Actually here there is no limitation, since it is a tracker, is software. Renoise can have hundreds of columns. No problem. Need not be a mirror of a real piano, or a real instrument, may be somewhat more!

They could all desired columns added.It could be solved to make it well graphically. You may want to duplicate the composer a note ever even playing live 2 times, one on top.In fact, with the tracker you can duplicate the same note 1000 times, with the same position, length and tone.

The good thing about Renoise against another DAW are all these things.

fladd · May 22, 2016, 6:44pm

Well, in case of a one shot, just make the box only for that row, but in a different colour, solved. If the user fails to set the sample as one-shot in the sample settings, but still uses it as one, then there is of course nothing you can do about it.

Oh wait, I totally forgot that one-shot mode has this bug: https://forum.renoise.com/t/new-note-columns-created-when-recording-one-shot-samples/41722. That makes things more tricky of course, as users use very long envelopes as a workaround for one-shot mode. And if this would be shown as very long notes in the pattern editor, it would again not reflect what is actually happening.

Raul · May 22, 2016, 7:08pm

Tried to script a stupid piano roll Personally I think a piano roll should be very compact and therefor something separate to the track editor. Anyway, fun and potentially useful stuff even when made this simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdRDhQheBcQ

(This tool concept can be quite handy for other stuff as well, like quickly painting blocks or using the pattern editor as a mouse driven step sequencer. Sometimes a mouse is faster than a keyboard.)

I love these comments.This tool approaches of the roll piano performance on this topic. Basically serve to:

Place the note (position / tone).
Change duration of the note (individually or together,where the value OFF is)
Of course the visual order of what is happening (The tracker is currently a chaos!)
Allows comparison between several columns (similar to the essence of the tracker, here is the objective).

Joule,I wonder if it is very difficult to create the code to color the background of the note + OFF; the background rectangle.

I also wonder if you can create a simple code to sort the notes by octave and note pitch in the Pattern Editor, and conversely, another function to do the opposite.Only with these two functions, everything about this topic would be possible. This is:

Add random notes with values OFF or not in 2 or 3 column of note.
Click on the function to create at least 12 columns of note in a track, and sort all shades of note (DO RE MI FA SOL LA SI)Ideally actually create together 10 octaves, 120 notes, and arrange them. Make the process to the beast, to see if it works.The problem is that Renoise 3.1 currently only supports 12 columns of note for each track. It is a limitation.

Perhaps most difficult is the issue of routing, which could deal with the characteristics of the group.Of course, when you press play, everything should sound the same, including the effects assigned under the Pattern Editor.

joule · May 22, 2016, 7:23pm

Short answers:

Drawing colored boxes in the pattern editor is not possible.

Converting a normal track to this kind of “roll” would be possible. Reverting it would not be possible.

I did this just for fun (actually the basic concept is meant to be used in a different application). My conclusion is that this kind of roll takes up waaay too much screen estate. Nevertheless, to me it proves that a piano roll is a highly usable tool to have, but that it should be more compact like the traditional ones. Imagine the horror of 12 note columns in 10 grouped tracks. Personally, I like some of the mock-ups of a traditional but rotated piano rolls that have been posted previously on the forums, but I wouldn’t dislike a horizontal piano roll in a detached window either.

Raul · May 22, 2016, 10:12pm

Drawing colored boxes in the pattern editor is not possible.

It appears necessary changes under the hood of Renoise to coloring in this way.

Converting a normal track to this kind of “roll” would be possible. Reverting it would not be possible.

Reverting does not involve placing the notes exactly as before.It is enough to stack the notes ordered as needed.

I did this just for fun (actually the basic concept is meant to be used in a different application). My conclusion is that this kind of roll takes up waaay too much screen estate. Nevertheless, to me it proves that a piano roll is a highly usable tool to have, but that it should be more compact like the traditional ones. Imagine the horror of 12 note columns in 10 grouped tracks. Personally, I like some of the mock-ups of a traditional but rotated piano rolls that have been posted previously on the forums, but I wouldn’t dislike a horizontal piano roll in a detached window either.

I think it’s better vertically for multiple reasons:

Renoise principal reading to see what happens is vertical.It is a very compelling reason.The main tools of reading are the Pattern Editor and the Pattern Matrix. TheAutomation below is a separate issue.It is not necessary for the principal reading.In fact, Automation below is very green.Many users do not use it, need a good revision…
Prevent separate control functions. Include a window to a horizontal or below the pattern editor pianoroll involves adding other commands, turn 90 degrees some who lian overall control, jumping the pattern editor to pianoroll.All this may involve adding keyboard commands that complicate the management group, some of them to do the same in both editors.With a vertical pianoroll like this idea include guarantees very few changes. The Pattern Editor and Pianorroll could run on the same keyboard commands. basically the biggest advantage would be the new commands for the mouse.
The Pattern Editor and pianoroll vertical are visually complementary.Boxes and notes agree on the same height of the monitor.This is no nonsense. It has its logic.
The Pattern Matrix and pianoroll vertical are visually complementary. Wide the Pattern Matrix to understand. The pianoroll acts as a zoom of the boxes inside the Pattern Matrix.
You get used to edit all in vertical.Everything about the composition (basically writing notes and trial and error), leaving aside arrangements effects, automation, etc.processes that come after and most are vertical also.
Integration.A very powerful word (Renoise is not like other known DAWs).
Avoid increasing the need for resources CPU and GPU.
That is not a huge effort for Renoise Development Team.A horizontal piano roll with the intention of being standard, is to kill Renoise.He means a substitute of the Pattern Editor.This is the only thing that can not afford in this software.

Backward compatibility. Old songs must be compatible. It involves not complicate this issue.This is a weight problem in any case, and a drag on development itself.The theme is focused on the development graphic, leaving virtually intact related to the sound.

Mark2 · May 23, 2016, 5:08am

Until joule did this tool concept I did not really think of a mouse piano roll. No joke, I kinda thought of how the piano roll worked that was in the steinberg card 32 or so. I hate using the mouse for composing. Seeing this thread going to mouse I change my thread vote to 1. (don’t take this too seriously) Err, I think bungle might be right, the whole thing might just fail either for the current user base and/or the typical FL Studio users. Apart from the core devs not talking a single word here, I think, If Renoise wanted to attract more people into using a Renoise product then they would better create another fork (Renoise + Redux + Remouse) for it’s own audience and completely replace the tracker by an average piano roll.

joule · May 23, 2016, 9:34am

Well, I’d love to see a vertical roll as well, integrated into the pattern editor (but with a slightly better design than these mock-ups). A separate type of track with the option to manually convert it to/from a track editor (don’t bother trying to integrate them).

It all seems fairly simple at first glance, but how do you visually deal with pattern boundaries? That seems like the biggest issue to me. OK, you don’t really have to deal with it, but only having the edit scope of one pattern length is extremely limited in piano roll terms.

Raul · May 23, 2016, 11:06am

Until joule did this tool concept I did not really think of a mouse piano roll. No joke, I kinda thought of how the piano roll worked that was in the steinberg card 32 or so. I hate using the mouse for composing. Seeing this thread going to mouse I change my thread vote to 1. (don’t take this too seriously) Err, I think bungle might be right, the whole thing might just fail either for the current user base and/or the typical FL Studio users.

A couple things.One of the things upgradable Renoise is precisely to compose with the mouse.Renoise is designed basically to work for commands. The mouse serves for support. But much can be enhanced to the point of being able to do the most basic things of composition, such as placing the notes and lengthen the duration, even working together.This will be added to improve Renoise.Moreover, the virtual keyboard and mouse can become a powerful tool.What happens is that the vast majority of things can be solved with keyboard commands.But as shown by the tool joule sometimes the mouse you can do wonders.

Apart from the core devs not talking a single word here, I think, If Renoise wanted to attract more people into using a Renoise product then they would better create another fork (Renoise + Redux + Remouse) for it’s own audience and completely replace the tracker by an average piano roll.

I disagree completely. “Divide and conquer” for me is a mistake.Redux is another way to expand the concept of crawler to support other users. But developing Redux what wasting time involves of Development Team “without regard to Renoise”. In other words, develop other applications involves leaving Renoise dead. The best thing for everyone is that the Renoise Team works precisely in develop Renoise. Renoise is not a perfect software. There are many improvable things: Automation Editor, Keyzones, and improve the Pattern Editor by adding more features, GUI vectorial (or something similar) to change to different sizes of the entire interface of all Renoise and dramatically improve mouse commands, etc.Indeed, the Pattern Editor is still very green, athough it does not seems, because simply limited to meet as a tracker. Open the mind.Do not worry, all these things Renoise Team knows perfectly.Up to them to pave the way.

The only major shortcoming that has Renoise is that disorder the notes , with the excuse that it is a tracker and must be compacted to display more information on screen.Work on it, improve Renoise and stop the nonsense.Do not worry. Renoise has for many more versions, 4, 5, 6 …

Incidentally, this topic is not done with the intention to attract more users. Who does not want to use Renoise simply does not matter. They will know.You enhance Renoise and users come alone!Do not forget that the development team is small. You can not ask the impossible, as compete against much Larger Teams (other DAWs) to steal followers.

Raul · May 23, 2016, 11:52am

Well, I’d love to see a vertical roll as well, integrated into the pattern editor (but with a slightly better design than these mock-ups). A separate type of track with the option to manually convert it to/from a track editor (don’t bother trying to integrate them).

The screenshots are a conceptual model.For example, the top virtual piano could be smaller in height but enough to click the mouse without problems. Even imitate keyboards MIDI Komplete Kontrol S-Series,illuminating the keys sound in an upper portion.Do the buttons above larger, etc. It’s about graphic design.In fact, the simple and attractive graphic design attracts more followers without being the intention.

It all seems fairly simple at first glance, but how do you visually deal with pattern boundaries? That seems like the biggest issue to me. OK, you don’t really have to deal with it, but only having the edit scope of one pattern length is extremely limited in piano roll terms.

Yes, here is the issue…This I have already commented on a couple of occasions in this thread.Renoise is made to work by pieces, vertical portions: the patterns.Actually the piano roll could function as the tracker.Changes betweenpattern adds value off with the alphanumeric keyboard or mouse.I think the management would not be complicated. What annoys is that Renoise carede of Vertical Zoom (that could be added in the tracker also). If it is a horizontal piano roll also need a horizontal zoom.

The ideal solution flexible enoughwould be able to show at least 3 patterns (64 rows per pattern), in the space occupied by one pattern with Vertical Zoom Tool (Operated from a keyboard command or the mouse). You cool see and work with:

The two patterns below of the selected pattern.
The two patterns aboveof the selected pattern.
One pattern below and one pattern above of the selected pattern.

Also it depends on the number of rows per pattern.Display 5 zoom patterns may be excessive, everything would be very small.Again, it is another matter of graphic design (regardless of whether the piano roll is vertical or horizontal).More than the zoom itself, the problem is to use commands and mouse functions between patterns, and not pigeonhole patterns one by one.Doing all these things, the Pattern Editor would become an “Advanced Pattern Editor”.Two quick conclusions:

Can sort notes in columns of note (the vertical piano roll would be an ally).This is very useful for composing melodies and understand!!!
Can workfluently between patterns in vertical (with alphanumeric keyboard and mouse).

Within these two conclusions you can add things to enhance them (such as zoom, or the virtual piano + mouse to edit in “baby mode”,that is not nonsense neither).Even if there is zoom, you can display a thick 1px box above the Pattern Matrix (marking the 3 squares vertically), locating the location.

But we must not forget that has the Pattern Matrix.If you create a value in the distant pattern below, it will be reflected in the Pattern Matrix.

danoise · May 23, 2016, 12:21pm

Tried to script a stupid piano roll

Quite clever for something stupid? Perhaps it sucks for actual composing (well, haven’t tried) but as a proof of concept it’s pretty damn good.

Also, when you are saying that a piano roll would be a one-way street (from tracker → roll), I guess that you are referring to a full-blown pianoroll with room for >120 notes - so, the limitation of 12 note columns? Because, otherwise I see no problem converting back and forth*. And to me, it would pretty essential that I didn’t have to choose a specific track type in advance - one-way streets are a killer for the creative flow.

Well, apart from - as previously talked about -the challenge of how to represent overlapping notes. Pianorolls suck for this kind of thing.

As for the talk about horizontal vs. vertical space, zooming and such… In my experience with pianorolls, the most painful navigation is along the pitch axis, I constantly need to adjust that part (“scroll the piano”) to see what I need. Time axis, past and future? Sure, but to me, what matters the most is what is happening here and now.

I know this is a debatable point - time progress along the vertical axis - but I also feel it would totally screw with my perception, having to “mentally” rotate the track.

Not a big fan of having multiple “modes” either, as suggested by Raul. The way I see it, a pianoroll should be something you can simply toggle on or off. So, if there is a need for additional controls, at least don’t show them until they are relevant (but this is GUI design details… )

So, when my imaginary pianoroll is enabled, it would (by default) attempt to “automatically fit”, showing the most relevant keyboard range (octave) based on the notes actually present in the song. A good, general purpose fit which space for multiple tracks, side-by-side. Synthesia enjoys success with their vertical interface for training and visualizing piano notes, and I like how they managed this part.

But of course, we would need access to the full keyboard range too. So, like envelope editors and such, the piano-roll could have an optional “fullscreen” mode (also a toggle), which would take up the entire middle panel. This would initially allow you to see all notes at the same time and be freely zoomable, possibly even detachable.

This combination (ability to toggle on/off, and when active, having a compact/full mode switch) would certainly satisfy my needs. The rest lies in the details (full keyboard control, selection and such).

joule · May 23, 2016, 12:43pm

Yes. Piano roll just being a visual thing would be great…

But then you move notes in the piano roll, noticing how it’s trying to autoadapt into note columns while messing up the sample fx column. That’s why I dismissed the idea of integration and thought a convert option be more realistic.

Edit: Many of the sample fx could perhaps be moved along with the note, with special case for glide (special rule to maintain consecutive notes during auto-adaptation).

Mark2 · May 23, 2016, 1:17pm

imho, imho

Raul, danoise, joule, wait wait wait… why do you guys think the reflection code would be doable or even easy?

i make a track

c-5

the delay column for it goes like:

d4

d7

d2

afaik renoise doesn’t yet clean up data that does not have any effects (doesn’t do anything)

now, what’s the piano roll representation of this renoise song? little events. visualized by some markers, that read “would delay if something stood there?”

or should renoise rather clean up every old song on import and disallow all that stuff in future? (as it cleans up superflous offs)

the point is, if the tracker songs and the pianoroll should be compatible, that “reflection code” might keep the renoise devs busy for ages. i’ve now simply swallowed the idea that it’s not worth it for trying to get users in that would no way see a better or on par piano roll than cubase, fl studio etc.

sure, renoise could maybe sort notes at some more places than recording afair. it should maybe keep you informed if there migh be a sustaining note (i just placed offs and it seemed ok). and maybe zoom, but that’s quite incompatible with the timing (delay and whatever) commands, so i see why there is still no zoom, too. and as soon as the space wasting comes in: this has zero advantage. all you see is note bars taking gui space and not pleasing any additional customer.

i can’t help it, i think, until now, taktik has made an tremendous effort not doing anytihing wrong with renoise. i highly respect their decisions. and they should probably add a lot of but

not a piano roll, it the definition of it is “projecting keys onto an axis” (or wasting space between columns). this is so bad for renoise, because the user would need to move the cursor to that column with as many key strokes as the musical interval. Raul has proved why I actually would dislike it, because the only alternative to worse keyboard usage is another type of track, and that thing won’t ever be an average piano-roll.

and even in fl studio i have never really looked where those note bars stand, just listedened and corrected if a note was wrong.

so…the reason the piano roll isn’t there is probably because it’s indeed a f*cked up situation. so forget piano, forget roll.

danoise · May 23, 2016, 1:48pm

Yep, it’s once we start thinking about the pianoroll as an editor (not just a visualization) that the implementation details become hairy.

But I won’t believe for one second that it’s impossible.

Or for that matter, that Renoise needs a pianoroll to attract more people

The_Traveler · May 23, 2016, 2:34pm

Frankly, I just see a piano roll in Renoise as a simple note pitch and duration interface. A window pops up, you click and drag some notes into it and then revert back to the tracker interface for further note parameter mods in hex. To me, the concept of trying to wrap up all the possible note parameters to edit in the PR, or at least the most important ones (and THAT would spark a discussion in itself I think) is futile. Not that it can’t be done, but I wonder if the benefits of “attracting more people to tracking” outweighs the effort.

Cheers.

Fsus4 · May 24, 2016, 10:47pm

I think most people would be perfectly happy with an integrated piano roll pop-up that just let you edit note pitch and note duration. For everything else (velocity, volume, etc) you would still need toeditalphanumerically in the pattern editor. Such pianoroll editor pop-up could be limited to a selection in a single track.

Thelimited pianoroll conceptwould not onlyserve as an editor and visualisation of notes, butcould possibly also be taken further with new concepts and features to speed up the tracker workflow. For example, ifI wanted to enter aFsus4 chord in the pattern editor I’d just select it from a user definied list of “note entering macros”.

My original point in suggesting that a Renoise with basic pianoroll features would attract more producers into tracking was that newcomers would have something familiar to start with. Having a limited pianoroll (as described above) would get people gradually going into "tracker-mode"as they could see directly how theireditingof notes in “pianoroll mode” correlated to the alphanumerical version in the pattern editor.

However, if this is too much to ask and if it’s such a difficult and time-consuming task for taktik or dblue or any other coder involved in Renoise development, then I’dagree it’s notworth the effort. We might just as well try to convince other DAWbuilders to implement a tracker pattern editor to complement their pianorolls instead.

4tey · May 25, 2016, 6:13am

In fact if you were to add a simple up/down/left/right mouse movement to one selected note in one column (notes shown in white) in MiniRoll

Attachment 6750 not found.

Yes it is restrictive than a standard piano roll. At that point what you have is a different GUI interface (where users can select a note in a column and restrictively drag it around a grid) to the pattern editor. To me that’s the stage you got to get to, before you try adding more advanced things.

Maybe programmers have weighed up the amount of programming involved (face it, it is heavy on the user interface/graphics side) to how useful even a simple restrictive ‘Renoise tracker roll’ would be

Raul · May 25, 2016, 12:30pm

I’m thinking all the time how to implement this idea without consuming many resources.The interesting thing about this idea is not only easy editing, you basically need to place notes, time stretch and to edit several notes at once, similar to the tool joule.The ideal is to compare several tracks at a glance, while allowing compose “understanding the melody” (this is very very important for the composer).What can happen, and maybe that’s why the pianoroll has detractors, is many do not require a "classification notes tool,perhaps by the style of music, no complicated melodies and stuff.What is indisputable is that this idea would be very useful for serious composers.

The Mode 1 & 2 is essentially the same way and at the same time the tracker (but sorting out the notes).You could call tracker mode.The other could be called piano mode:

" Tracker Mode" (which I called "Mode 1 & “Mode 2”).
" Piano Mode" (which I called “Mode 3”, with the rectangles).

The idea must transmit at all times the visual ease of jumping of the Tracker Mode to Piano Mode and vice versa. The tracker Mode are the capacibility of compress and decompress the notes inside the track. The Piano Modecould compliance with this idea (insert in vertical inside each track).However, he could add a floating window, as Danoise says.This floating window could take another monitor or even 2 showing only one track or more, through an option.This will compare the eye tracker with the view of pianoroll, also.It should work fine with the issue of graphics resources.The performance is critical, a matter of weight that should not be taken lightly.

I insist on the primordial idea. It is neat for see the notes. Renoise lacks this and is the “main problem” of serious composer (you would like to see what is composing ordered for modifying tints).It is not add pianoroll wildly, but basically a simple tool to display the sorted notes in few octaves on the screen, and can easily edit without changing the essence of Renoise, integrated.Naturally, to implement no conceptual problem to add a zoom or add a piano expandable to 10 octaves.Everything is possible.

It is even exciting to imagine how far could Renoise with all these things.I’m pretty busy. If I have time will make more catches with the updated concept,just to see enjoy and discuss.This will show the beginning of the idea and its evolution.

Raul · May 25, 2016, 1:01pm

I think most people would be perfectly happy with an integrated piano roll pop-up that just let you edit note pitch and note duration. For everything else (velocity, volume, etc) you would still need toeditalphanumerically in the pattern editor. Such pianoroll editor pop-up could be limited to a selection in a single track.

Thelimited pianoroll conceptwould not onlyserve as an editor and visualisation of notes, butcould possibly also be taken further with new concepts and features to speed up the tracker workflow. For example, ifI wanted to enter aFsus4 chord in the pattern editor I’d just select it from a user definied list of “note entering macros”.

…

It is gratifying to see that some users understand this idea or issue.I think it is worth the effortprogramming and serious graphics editing to make easier the life of the composer who loves Renoise, and realizes that it can grow and improve.It is understandable that developers, after 14 years are tired of Renoise (or not).But in the history of humanity, it would be very sad that Renoise not continue to evolve.He is a tracker, yes, but the Pattern Editor could be much more advanced, dragging on the way to other utilities (per example the Automation Editor) to be a more complete DAW.

TheBellows · May 25, 2016, 3:15pm

I think they have more than enough ideas and suggestions to pick from besides piano roll, i don’t think you should worry about Renoise not evolving.

Personally i don’t see any reason why i would want to use a piano roll, so i at least hope it won’t get in the way of the traditional way of tracking.

Instead of a piano roll i wish for a simple visual representation of the audio in a track while editing its pattern. It could take place of the track scopes/spectrum, simply showing the amplitude of the whole track with a grid line every beat or line depending on the size of the pattern.

Bungle · May 26, 2016, 6:53am

I think they have more than enough ideas and suggestions to pick from besides piano roll, i don’t think you should worry about Renoise not evolving.

Personally i don’t see any reason why i would want to use a piano roll, so i at least hope it won’t get in the way of the traditional way of tracking.

Instead of a piano roll i wish for a simple visual representation of the audio in a track while editing its pattern. It could take place of the track scopes/spectrum, simply showing the amplitude of the whole track with a grid line every beat or line depending on the size of the pattern.

OK, has that got a beats and bar ruler above it, and add snapped/unsnapped select/copy/paste with mouse that is one shit hot idea !!!