Man, do you have a script that triggers a fire alarm in your house every time someone mentions piano rolls in this forum?
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it’s the piano roll adblocker
No, if that happens I wanna know even if I’m not at home, of course it triggers a signal on my phone.
This is a “chat amongst friends” about different approaches of music creation, right?
Piano roll or not, the result is what matters. If one can achieve better results by using a piano roll, go for it. It’s just not the solution for me, and the picture above shows why. I think @Dr4am’s approach creating melodies is interesting. Personally I need to play live to create proper melodies.
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It can be a chat about anything. In my opinion we need a “free space”, even if a bit of levity is allowed in all discussions, we rightly need to hold back and try not to generate too much chaos for those seeking information… well, this is the space in which we can generate chaos, in a nice and non-quarrelsome way obviously. I’m more and more convinced that I should have put it off topic and maybe even expressed the underlying idea with dignity, but at that moment I had the piano roll bug in my brain… I’ve just read so many discussions here, and I’m really struggling to understand the hatred that some people (like you for example) have for piano rolls… I understand that it’s not the right approach for you or other people, but if the rest of the world has been making music this way for 20 years , how can someone (I don’t remember if you or someone else wrote this) even argue that it doesn’t make sense? it probably doesn’t make sense in the same way that algorithms don’t make sense to me…simply because I don’t understand them and I suck at math. I’m a bit sorry to notice a certain narrow-mindedness (or at least it seems so) on the part of some, I’m not suggesting anyone to use a piano roll, nor to implement it in Renoise, I’m just saying that I use it without problems. …so the other thing I don’t understand is why someone comes to me and tells me I should use a keyboard or I should do this or I should do that… I understand that you don’t like piano roll, but what is your problem if someone uses it or talks about it? 
I know that many people here have much more experience than me, so advice is welcome, but I have also developed a certain awareness of what I can do and how I can do it, so it also depends on what the advice is, the phase on doubts about whether to use the mouse or the PC keyboard or a midi keyboard I would say that I have outgrown it a few years ago…I have changed 4 midi keyboards, 6 PC keyboards and 9 mouse, I think the numbers speak for themselves, the mouse is that which I use the most, only with Renoise do I use the keyboard (PC) more for obvious reasons, and I understood that for the way I make music, a midi keyboard is literally useless to me, only the charm of owning it… What is missing on the PC keyboard are the knobs, or the faders, these are the midi controls that seriously interest me. Midimix, Beatstep, things like that…I think they haven’t invented a controller with enough knobs yet, or if it exists it costs too much for my pocket.
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Who said it doesn’t make sense? It doesn’t make sense in Renoise, but it makes sense in general or let’s say if you’re about to do certain ways of composing. It looks like you’re not familiar with the history of DAWs. You need to know that piano rolls were “invented” in the 19th century, but the first piano roll DAW called Cubase was released by german company Steinberg in 1989 on Atari ST, but you also needed hardware to be able to get any sound out of it. In contrary to that, the first real tracker SoundTracker was released by german programmer Karsten Obarski in 1986 on Amiga. As you can see trackers are older than piano roll DAWs that we know today. And I’m an early tracker user who started in 1991 on SoundTracker. So when I first tried to use a piano roll in 1994 in Cubase on Atari ST, I already experienced the joy of quick and easy editing within a tracker for years. In contrary to that editing in Cubase was an inconvenient mouse clicking orgy that lets me turn away pretty quick. I hated working that way and I still do. For someone like you who got used to piano rolls from the beginning of ones “career” and never experienced trackers, it might not be comprehensible. But if you’re used to trackers, switching to a piano roll is like switching from BMW to Fiat.
You’re not familiar with my statements, are you? If you’ve followed the forum, you should know that I don’t have problems at all with someone using a piano roll or talking about it. But of course it’s pretty annoying if someone’s ALWAYS screaming for a piano roll in Renoise, just like some certain persons did for years in this tracker forum that’s dedicated to Renoise.
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I (amongst others) said that, and I meant it specifically about Renoise.
I seriously think you should try to play everything with your keyboard first, then enter those notes into the Renoise sequencer. That’s the way I do it and probably 99% of others too. I find it so weird if I must find the right notes with a mouse. Well, that really won’t make any sense at all.
You can play notes and chords on a computer keyboard in Fruity Loops too, if I don’t remember wrong. But on there, you can’t enter them like on Renoise.
And btw, take a learn when some older and experienced Tracker user is telling you something. Those advices are pure gold. I just could dream that there was someone back in the day who taught me the secrets of trackers. There were no internet forums, YouTube, nothing. At the library, you could find a book of maybe about MIDI. Thats all.
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I used pirated FL when I first started as a teen, knew how to read music, and understood the concept of “player pianos” so I was off to the races pretty fast. I programmed some technical drum stuff with the PR but the more I got into that the more tedious it got.
Probably a year after I started with FL I saw that venetian snares video of Vasch and had to try. Probably because I was still young (impressionable) and familiar with several notation systems, renoise did not take long to pick up on (though I also simply HAD to know how it worked, so I can’t discount the significance of that teenage-drive in learning).
I have been to many corners of the musical sphere, and I have dragged my feet at times with insisting to use certain tools (traditional staff notation, midi files) for what is probably not their best task.
For instance, for someone learning about jazz but not interested in becoming a capable jazz-player, I think that conventional lead-sheet chord nomenclature is like…the absolute worst way to gain any comprehension of the medium/large-scale harmonic structure of a piece. It just takes the human eye a lot of work to start seeing ii-V’s, and then larger cadence structures, when it’s just a sea of letters and numbers. Compare that to a schenker graph – which, reciprocally, is probably the worst way you could ever learn to realize the surface-details of a composition – this is a graphical system meant to reveal medium/large-scale harmonic structure.
So anyways: I slept on the piano roll tools in renoise (I use simple piano roll when needed, at present) for a long time, until I realized that – in similar terms to my comparison above – renoise simply gives you no immediate sense of pitch-contour, because your eye sees first the pitch-class (chromatic pitch name) and then the octave (which may not even correspond to the fundamental pitch the instrument is playing, depending on instrument settings), and then your brain kind of has to reconstruct the octave-break being at C (because imho it would be easier on the human mind if it were at A, but we’re a few hundred years too deep in that hole, so).
Whatever this particular example is (and indeed I would not have an easy time trying to hum-out the melodies here without doing a lot of referring back and forth to the vertically arranged piano keys), I can see that it’s probably a reasonably good arrangement based on contour alone. One can see that there is overall good voice leading (which can matter more or less depending on style or instrumentation, granted), and beyond voice leading it’s probably a decent section of music overall, judging by the kind of climaxy-part in the middle, which is supported by a change of rhythm and melodic direction, for instance. The velocity values give me agita, but even there you can see that the overall intensity builds around that moment, to support what is happening harmonically. There’s a kind of hierarchy of information here that is very different in a tracker view, which I think most people know is truly superior in super-detailed sample manipulation work, and is often preferable for music that is more oriented towards rhythm rather than harmonic structures that go beyond verse-chorus level (nothing wrong with that). Of course, you absolutely can develop the ability to “see” these things in the tracker view, but imho it still takes conscious effort to basically reconstruct mentally what you would just be looking at in a piano roll view. And I am all about using technology to handle the mental workload, when it’s trivial.
Anyway, reason I’m throwing my 2 cents in is because going back to using piano rolls in renoise when needed has been very helpful for me when I want to take a more harmonically involved compositional approach. If something “isn’t working” hopefully my ear will be good enough to tell what is off, and it is then not hard to find the moment in the pattern-editor. However, just as one can get ear-fatigue with mixing, I think you can experience a kind of mental fatigue when working inappropriately on compositional/arrangement aspects of the music. (I say inappropriate because I think this can be avoided just as skillfully as ear-fatigue)
And for me personally, one way I get out of those unhelpful ruts-of-thought is to quickly jump to the piano roll and look at the phrase that I’m working on. Sometimes, I will see what should have been obvious, like I’m using monotonous (unpleasant) repetitions of sequences of notes that draw attention away from the overall intended movement of the line. It’s usually pretty easy to “see” bad voice leading (again, when that matters), and I don’t know any notation standard that does this as well (including standard staff-notation, because the line-weighting between different entities often does not correspond at all to their musical significance…it’s just a compromise that is probably close to optimized for composers, performers, and analysts – taken altogether. Anyway)
We can all agree (on objective reality…I hope) that the actual information (besides tracker-style pattern fx) being visualized in a (modern-daw-)tracker view and a piano roll is the same in both cases. I’m throwing this in as a means of encouraging those who would like to think of ways that you can expand your inventory of approaches. If what you do works for you, then obviously don’t fw it.
And yes, the tracker view works better within renoise, in general, because the software has been set up as a tracker from the beginning. Daps to Taktik for having integrity on the matter. I simply don’t see what a native piano roll has to offer that would not effect all sorts of things (development speed alone…most of us just don’t want a native piano roll out of a desire not to have bloat, and that’s a lot of development time for something that has always been expressly out of the scope for the project). I appreciate his clarity on the matter, and it would be nice if the conversation could be different between us users. Idk…maybe the joke is still really that funny to some of you (~16 years). You cats need to say the serenity prayer or something hahaha.
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It’s probably that I don’t speak English very well (the translator doesn’t always do a good job) I may have misunderstood some sentences around the forum, and I don’t even know if people actually always understand me or I send some distorted messages, so I do I also struggle to understand when people make satirical/ironic/joking statements and when they are talking seriously, I’ve read you a lot but I still don’t know you well… so maybe discussions with me take longer than necessary just due to linguistic difficulties and paranoia haha. I was born in 1995, I know that trackers have existed since before piano roll (I love those Keith303 tracks from 1997 that can be found on YouTube) and I know that Cubase was the first “modern” DAW, I certainly didn’t know all the details that you provided me! However, your thoughts are certainly clearer to me and I can absolutely share them… it’s bad when the world evolves, upsetting all your habits… for example, I hate plugins with artificial intelligence, auto equalization, auto mastering, auto this , auto that… sorry, what do I do? I fry eggs? sometimes I’m terrified that in the future there won’t be any more manual equalizers ahaha but I know that my annoyance at certain new features is only due to the fact that I was lucky enough to be born when they didn’t exist and to enjoy manual operations… if I were a 15 year old kid today, I’d probably place my nice Pro Q3 with automatic function (which I’ve never used, I don’t even understand how to activate it, I just know it has it lol). Just as you would use a piano roll and maybe you didn’t even know trackers, who knows… or on the contrary, if I was born before it was I who couldn’t understand piano rolls… I can also understand the annoyance when so many people they come to ask for something out of context…If I want meat I don’t go to the greengrocer etc… Only one thing I haven’t understood yet, pure and simple curiosity, what trouble could a piano roll in Renoise possibly give you? (yes, I like to tease haha) I mean, if in a parallel world, Renoise also had piano roll, would you switch to MilkyTracker? It would be enough not to open the piano roll and use Renoise as you have always used it… 
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Could a piano roll really flood the software? I’m not a developer but I’m quite a nerd, I imagine that it’s not a piano roll that makes Renoise a heavy DAW… but since I’m not an expert I can’t be sure. What I can say in a nutshell is:
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if I want to use a piano roll I have a lot of choice, so I don’t care if it is implemented.
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if it were to be implemented (I already know that it won’t be, I’m only thinking from imagination) I would certainly be pleased and I would use it, or perhaps I would continue to use the external ones because maybe I like them better, who knows…
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if really adding a piano roll can create all these problems in terms of software efficiency, I myself am against the piano roll…I use Renoise precisely because of its lightness.
Hopefully I am not intruding on what is meant to be a two-person dialogue, but my personal answers to your last questions:
What trouble could a native PR give?
Idk…the switch between renoise 2.x and 3.x actually took me nearly a decade to make, because there were SO many extra features, and I was used to making breakcore with a more-or-less pure tracker (not DAW) approach. Software bloat is a very real thing that people will respond to. Not having extra menu-options (or menus at all) when it can be avoided keeps one’s workflow streamlined, in general.
Regarding streamlined-workflow: we all try to find the balance between flexibility and consistency, both in our technology and our personal approaches. Naturally: the piano roll simply may work better for you right now. I agree it would be nice to have a DAW that could be a “missing link” that fills in the gaps between something like bitwig and renoise. But for now, the piano-roll tools are really quite good, and I have a hard time seeing what improvements would exist if they were native that would not also add some level of difficulty with using renoise as one currently does.
Further: streamlining one’s approach is a matter of balancing flexibility-of-technology (where you can find it) and flexibility-of-personal approach. Of course, if you know what works best for you then that’s all there is to it. I personally would encourage you to “change yourself” in order to fit your available technology, as it will almost inevitably reveal new dimensions of musicality to you (that exist in a very personal way between the technology and you specifically). I see TNT and the other old heads 
on the forum as primarily trying to encourage others to take these types of approach. Indeed, no one wants you to fry eggs!
I hope we all desire to guide each other closer to the muse, in any way that can happen!
I prefer renoise for nearly everything I do with digital music, because I’m just so used to it and I have so much personal infrastructure that I’ve built within it for my workflow. Would I personally stop using it if it had a native piano roll? No, and because I’ve started using the simple piano roll, it might be nice…
But I did personally stop using it between versions 2 and 3 because it lost its simplicity for me in a way that required me to consider if I wanted to “stay” a tracker-only musician, or if I wanted to start understanding more about contemporary audio-engineering at large, such that making use of the new-complexity available in versions 3+ was meaningfully available to me. I ended up choosing the latter, but this basically means I stopped using renoise as I had before. I am very much glad I did, because I am not the type to confine myself to one genre or style – I’m just not built for that, and I have a lot of admiration for someone like TNT for being such an expert in his chosen arena.
The main point that I’m trying to leave is: Taktik said no! He said no ~18 years ago and he said no last week! (and I know you know this, so no condescension intended)
Is there any relevance to the conversation of a native (non-tool) piano rool within renoise because of this? I would say no. Whether it has its place in another (perhaps not yet developed DAW) tracker, well, that’s a discussion for another community I think. But there just won’t be a native renoise PR, it seems. So why worry about it (in a public space)?
Can we talk about more interesting things? (like how to build a better tool version, even)
I don’t mean to diminish your imagination Dr4am, I think I’m only looking to say I don’t think this is the shape or place in which such imaginings can take their most exciting flight (and I hope my english is not too idiomatic to be helpful).
I am glad that you share your thoughts, I hope that’s clear <3
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Funny, that’s about the same statement that @jampsu said about himself in another thread. Personally I probably wouldn’t create music if a piano roll would be the only option. Time is short. I mean, I also refuse to use hardware, because I hate tangled cables and I need a “control center” for all the stuff. And I could get some hardware for free if I’d be interested, just like an original 303. But I prefer using Renoise and some 303 emulator VSTs instead.
Well, that quesion proves that you’re not familiar with my statements. As I said in another piano roll discussion thread, it would be ok if Renoise would have an OPTIONAL piano roll that could be activated by clicking on a button, so that no one like me has to look at it. BUT the problem is a limited amount of ressources, and those ressources should better be used for developing stuff that really matters in Renoise. And a piano roll clearly doesn’t matter in a tracker, that’s why there are other DAWs.
Yes, in certain cases seeing what’s going on is advantageous for sure. Personally I prefer listening though. Nevertheless I think that you can also see in a tracker what’s going on. It just looks different.
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All musicians should recognize that there is at least a loose hierarchy to the way we experience music.
The ear and the voice and body in general will always be the best tools one can use to “comprehend” musicality. If any of these are deficient, the eye can supplement at times. But ultimately it is no substitute for the ear!
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No interference, on the contrary, you made two very beautiful interventions, and even though I’m 29, reading you makes me feel a bit sixteen! ahah we can definitely change the subject and I imagine you are all tired of discussing the piano roll, being a curious person I just needed to better understand some thoughts on the matter and I managed to do so, as far as I’m concerned we can go further but I don’t think I’m capable to discuss how to improve Renoise since I still have to understand the more advanced aspects… Usually I just read those discussions because you often talk about things I don’t know haha, my first post here in the forum was the request for a feature which in reality was already there but I hadn’t found it yet, so it’s better if I keep out of certain discussions and let those who really know how the software could improve speak. At most I could say what I would like, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s useful… (piano roll?? I’m joking, I’ll stop I swear hahaha) I honestly have no ideas, because at least until now everything works as it should and if something doesn’t work, I’m simply the one who doesn’t understand it 100%
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spectacular. And yes please, I do not by any means wish to say your voice is not welcome or desired in any area. Totally the opposite. I appreciate your candor and viewpoint 
I can certainly guarantee that would look like a complete nightmare in a track. And it also looks like it is maxing out what a single track in Renoise could even handle. 
TLDR
Please summarize all this content in three sentences. Is there any essence or can this be deleted?
(I took some help…)
In a world where music production debates rage like pineapple on pizza, the Renoise forums light up with a comedic opera over the age-old battle of piano rolls versus trackers. Picture a motley crew of music makers, passionately defending their workflows with the fervor of knights jousting over CPU usage, as they navigate the treacherous waters of tradition versus innovation. The punchline? Despite the cacophony, everyone’s in harmony about wanting the best tools for their art, even if they can’t agree on what those look like.
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I was really hoping someone would do this
To be fair, the concept of a piano roll dates back to the 19th century with player pianos, actually the “roll” part never even made it to software.
Somewhat long and only loosely related but I enjoyed this video about the history of music notation, although annoyingly, it doesn’t mention trackers at all IIRC.
Personally, I am really interested in some new way to represent music in software, because evidently both piano rolls and trackers have shortcomings, that we might be able to solve if we keep an open mind. I guess the power of software has always been the dynamic nature, so dynamic notation that can morph the representation depending on how you look at it might be the answer. In this sense having both the tracker view and a piano roll is a good step, but it’s a bit too binary I think.
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