I just had an interesting time trying to figure out why some samples I was rendering weren’t sounding right… until I realized that it was because when I was rendering to sample, the master track effects were being applied. This sounds like it’s the way it should be, but it made me question the logic in it… you see, my samples already HAD master effect on them, and then they were being shoved through the master effects AGAIN on playback.
After thinking about it for some time, I see very few reasons to have the master effects applied when rendering to sample. If rendering a clip to file for use in another program, you might want the master effects applied, but when composing or mixing, all it does is mess up the sound you want.
Either way, I thought I’d put a poll up, and start a discussion on the topic, as opposed to posting it as a bug. I’m sure there are people out there who rely on this feature. Please, discuss
in my opinion, this is really something which should be left to the user: if he wants the master effects to be applied, he lefts them on, otherwise he shut them down. An option for this would be… hmm… can’t find the right term for this… let me say that it would be out of the application design… I can’t express it better
Ideally I believe “render selection to sample” should do exactly what its name implies - only render exactly what you have selected. If the user wants to render track1, track3 + the master, then they should have to manually select data from all 3 of those tracks. But for this to work there would have to be some changes to the current selection function. In applications such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro, when using the selection tool it is possible to use the modifier keys shift or ctrl to edit your selection. If you have an area of the image selected already, holding down shift while selecting a new area allows you to have both areas selected at once. While holding down ctrl you can erase parts of your selection. This type of functionality in Renoise would be absolutely brilliant in my opinion. I frequently run into situations where I need to copy or render data from tracks which are not side by side. I know I can just move the tracks around if I need to, but this is counter-intuitive. I know that I can mute any tracks I don’t need, but again that’s counter-intuitive.
However, as I’m sure that it’s quite a bitch to code a better selection function, how about this (hopefully) easier solution… Why not simply have 2 functions in Renoise: “Render selection to sample with master fx” and “Render selection to sample without master fx”. These 2 options would be available from the context menu as well as in the key mapping section. I would personally keep a unique shortcut for each option, I would use both in different situations, and I would be very happy that I didn’t have to constantly enable/disable several effects in the master track which can be a real pain.
After thinking about it more, I can see where the inherent problem lies… I tried rendering just the sounds that came out of the master track, and nothing was rendered, even though there were many tracks playing at the time. I think the render to sample functionality should render the output of the track that’s selected. If the user selects the master track when track 1 and 2 are turned on, with the rest of the tracks turned off, then what should be rendered should be the combined output of both tracks pushed through the master. If, however, the user selects track 1 and 2 instead of the master, then tracks 1 and 2 should be rendered together without master effects. This way, there’s no need for separate items in the context menu, and the rendering will work as one would assume it should, much more intuitively. This way, no additional multi-selecting methods would be needed either (although they would still be a nice addition)
It would be nice to have a checkbox for this in render to sample dialog, as a reminder and a quick way to turn the whole master effects on/off.
About the default setting - I think Renoise should simply remember last selected state od the checkbox, or make it customizable in the preferences. IMHO there’s no point in forcing such things…
whoops, i voted no, but i like #3 much better.
i hardly ever render anything to sample slot, but i think #3 is best.
i havent used this in so long, is renoise rendering to sample slot using the master effects now?
Renoise did this in older versions too, but when working on a song, then rendering to sample the track effects get applied and the master effects, so the whole sample doesn’t sound like expected. I usually have 3-4 effects in the master chain and it’s annoying to disable these everytime i want to render something.
Even a quick way to turn off an entire DSP chain would be nice… that way I don’t have to disable each effect manually, and remember which ones I turned on.
This confused me too the first time I used it. I thought it was a bug.
It’s not very intuitive that you’re actually rendering the master’s output rather than the track/data you’ve actually selected.
Another no vote from here. I don’t see why it should be an option either, as the workflow seems off.
IMHO, if you want to render a section from the master, you should just select in the master track, mute any unwanted channels, and hit render. It’s definitely a corner use case anyway.
That would then be the optional “include mastertrack effects” option. Like that idea, and the best thing is that its easy to implement because no extra option/GUI is needed.
That’s the most logical solution IMO… that way, there’s a pattern to everything that makes sense. Whatever channel you select gets rendered. Also, if you select just a sendtrack, it should render the output of the sendtrack, minus master effects. But yeh… glad taktik agrees
I’m bumping this 'cause it’s been bugging me again lately… whenever I render to sample, even with the track volume and master volume at 0db, the resulting sample volume is still much lower than the track initially was. This makes for quite the pain in the neck when I’m trying to render VSTi parts to sample to reduce CPU usage, as I’ve got to guess what gain I should apply to get the same mix I previously had.
(although they would still be a nice addition)