An expression is essentially a small script that behaves much like a mathematical function. You enter parameters and it outputs a value based on variables.
For example you might input things like:
Volume = time; Which would make the volume increase linearly over time.
Pan = math.sin(time); Which would make the panning oscillate over a sinus curve.
Cutoff.Filter1 = 0.5*Gain.Gainer1; Which would set the Cutoff parameter of a filter named Filter1 to half the gain value on Gainer1
It is something that is very common in animation programs such as AfterEffects, Flash and Maya. It is a both simple and powerful tool and it really eases the workflow in most of the programs that use it.
It has been suggested a several times before (Math&Scripts, Renoise Expressions) but it has been a long time since it was last discussed and Renoise have evolved a lot since then. We now have several Meta Devices and LUA support which makes implementing this feature a lot more realistic.
So! I was wondering about what the current climate is for this. I can think of a lot of instances that could be easily done with this that I am not able to do with the metadevices, but I know that for example dBlue can do more with meta devices than I would be able to with expressions, so maybe they are not so useful. But personally I would love them.
As Conner_BW is indicating at, the device already exists it just hasn’t been officially released
First thread it was mentioned publicly in dBlue made a blank (init state) preset for it so if you save this you can then load it from the DSP Chains sections of the Disk Op.
But be warned, it is really really bad! It’s only a test. I am sooo sorry T^T…
Please some fix it, it is broken, I am not good with FM synths… I don’t even know what it is!
Yep. Crashes here also. If I manually edit the Song.xml inside the .XRNS and disable the Formula devices, then the song loads normally. Once it’s loaded I can enable the Formula devices and everything is working again.
It’s clearly a bug with the Formula device anyway. We’ll try to look into it.