There’s a great VST plugin called BlueARP which allows designing note sequences that can be played by other VST instruments when BlueARP is set to route its MIDI data for the other VST instruments. With a regular MIDI keyboard, it is possible to record note data directly inside Renoise’s pattern editor. In a similar fashion, is there a way to record MIDI data from BlueARP directly to Renoise’s pattern editor?
BlueARP is great for prototyping cool note sequences, but trying to organize a complete song consisting of many sequences created with BlueARP is very clumsy. I think it would be much more pleasant to design the sequences with BlueARP, record them to Renoise’s pattern editor as direct MIDI data and then use the recorded notes to control VST instruments.
Seems BlueARP would need to support MIDI Out, not sure if it does or not though.
Perhaps worth a mention; I’m using a Keystep 37 to input notes on occasion, it has MIDI Out.
But Keystep 37 is a physical MIDI device I assume? I know Renoise can record MIDI notes from physical devices, but can it record them from virtual instruments? That’s what I would like to figure out.
I tried to get this to work this morning and was able to record notes from BlueARP into Renoise.
The key was to use a MIDI Loopback, I used a hardware one, but seems there are software ones too.
Sorry im very new to Renoise and not a VST user, but have been tracking for quite a long time;
so there most likely is a better way, this seems very tedious…
Steps taken:
Insert the VST plugin into instrument slot 0
Go to the plugin tab and set ‘MIDI Routing’ to instrument slot 1
Go to the MIDI tab for instrument slot 1 and set output to your MIDI Loopback
–A) In my case it was my EMX-1 on Channel 2 (2nd synth part).
Press ‘Record’ on the EMX-1, Record the steps then press ‘Stop’ on Renoise.
Go to MIDI tab for instrument slot 2 and set input to the ‘MIDI Loopback’ device
Delete instruments on slot 0 and 1.
Press ‘play’ on EMX-1 then press ‘record’ on Renoise
Press ‘stop’ on Renoise once you get the arp pattern
Thanks for experimenting (and finding one solution I guess!). I am not exactly sure what you mean with MIDI loopback? Does it mean a MIDI device that will receive MIDI inputs, and outputs them directly as they were received?
I can imagine this working for a physical device (or just a MIDI device in OS terms) that has MIDI loopback support since Renoise is willing to record MIDI notes that originate from devices. In a sense BlueARP acts just like your EMX-1 when it relays the received notes back at Renoise, BlueARP just generates the notes itself. I think the issue is really with the fact that Renoise can only record notes that are coming from MIDI devices, not plugins. So as you suggested, using a physical device as MIDI loopback seems to work. In addition, if a software or driver exists that is able to act as a MIDI device on OS level and would be able to receive MIDI inputs and output them immediately as they were received, that might work. Do you know any such drivers or software?
Still, all of this seems unnecessarily complicated. Oh well, I’ll try to explore the solutions for this one later.
I have try it some months ago. There is no simply way to do this. In reaper there is a Action for this, its very simple. In bitwig it works too. Renoise need a option to record the sequence into patern editor
This is indeed a solution. Using a virtual MIDI port does work, but it does require some complexity with routing, as it requires three chained instruments like so:
This video was literally created yesterday by the wonderful folks at r/renoise over on Reddit. This is a great community here, but I just want to shout out the folks over there as well. So glad there are supportive folks out there. I feel a lot less daunted by continuing to learn — my last experience with trackers was over 30 years ago, and I’m so excited that I get to have a full-blown VST with Renoise.
With the supportive community, I can totally tolerate quirky challenges like this. Hope this conversation has helped someone in the future!
This is great, and exactly what I was looking for! Together with the Auto Clone Patterns tool, this should make it possible to record the extended output from any VST sequencer, making Renoise a really good option for generative pieces.
Trying this over the last few days, it appears that there is a delay in the recording of the returning notes from LoopBe - in other words, the notes don’t begin recording immediately. Has anyone else experienced this?