Dont know if anyone has suggested this before, But as someone that has only recently come to use a tracker like renoise, that the one thing that I would love to be able to do is flip the sequencer to go from left to right instead of down. This would be better for me than any piano roll and would allow stuff like audio tracks to be implemented.
anyway heres a quik pic of what Im talking about!!!
what would be the reason for using a tracker rather than a pianoroll sequencer then?
What do you mean?
that it would behave exactly like a tracker, just optionally from left to right (right to left, bottom to top) instead of only from the top to the bottom?
yes this is what I ment!
But this is essentially a piano roll with exception that you’d be able to represent the note with actual letters and numbers rather than graphical bars. Also, you wouldn’t have to concern yourself with whole, quarter notes, etc.
I see the advantages of having the ability to line up a waveform file parallel to the actual track so I don’t feel the premise should be easily dismissed.
Not to add another cook in the kitchen, but it may be useful to keep the traditional vertical alignment of the tracker format, yet have the waveform line up vertically instead of adjust everything horizontally.
I would draft up a visual but I’m at work
Any thoughts?
I think orientation and display the waveform are two separate things. (and yes, display a waveform has been requested a few times, I’d like to think that should we get track freezing, it might be near trivial to add a waveform display, too)
I have no idea how much work that would be, but renoise could simply have something like a variable called “forward[y]”…
right now it’s [0][+1], horizontal would be [+1][0] or [-1][0] for right to left, and [0][-1] for bottom to top. Then in the code you just say
x += forward * steps
y += forward[y] * steps
if it’s done like that in all relevant places, Renoise wouldn’t really have to care about the orientation used.
It would be no more like a piano roll than how it is now. All that’s happening is that the tracks are optionally going from the traditional tracker vertical style to horizontal cubase etc style. The way of writing a tune would not change just the way that it’s viewed. For me anyway looking at a sequencer that goes from left to right instead of up to down is more logical!!
Also the automation is left to right so it would make it easier to see it more clearly in relation to the tracker channel!!
I’d like everything to be vertical, including automation and the future arranger. 
Edit: Doh!! I meant vertical, not horizontal… of course since I’m used to trackers.
Its currently just like a piano roll in the traditional “punched holes in paper” sense. 
Just posting to make that stupid point…I dont really want this change.
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Wouldn’t you rather have it… flexible?
That’d be fine too, but wouldn’t make any difference to me since i’d set up everything vertically side by side with the traditional pattern view anyways.
The ability to see the sampler and the pattern editor at the same time would solve a lot of problems in this area.
You could watch the position line move across your sample in the sample editor at the same time as watching the pattern scroll down. You could track your samples a lot better that way.
I like the idea and with this way I think Renoise will attract many Cubase users. For example, Reason should be perfect for work IF it will have Cubase-like sample[r] display. But they will never implement it as it will kill Cubase…
You know, when I look at that picture… oh noes I will get flamed for this… I can’t help to think how SWEET it would be to be able to align stuff visually. You know, like an “up to sample accurate” offset. Using this to move samples backwards in time would break realtime playback, that is, it would require automatic track freezing in the background (drools)…
… but you know how super most awesome it would be in the case of shakers and stuff, anything something that has sound leading up to the hit… VST instruments… ??? No more putting something on the previous pattern (which never made sense to me in a way, I’ve been dreaming about this since FT2 :/) and fiddling around with DXX which is never accurate, and if it is by chance - how do you know?! I do trust my ears before anyone asks, but I’d rather have the same result in much, much less time.
Just open your mind reeeeally wide for a sec… it would not have to take anything away from conventional tracking! Just optional display of waveforms (+ toggleable zoom), and optional change of orientation, and having the option (which you don’t need to use) to set a pixel perfect offset, which you then can set as the default offset for that instrument/sample if you so wish… SIGH somebody just say yes, we’ll do that, and I’ll see if I can get frozen for a few years… I can SEE it, the beauty of it breaks my heart, and the desire is killing me.
(how’s that for “+1” 
)
Sorry but playing the tracker from left to right is not an improvement its the oposite.
Perhaps you could invert it to play things from down to up but playing things from left to right why?
Also why do you need to look at samples from left to right? Because we read that way. Its not a better way than to look at a sample from up to down, its just another way to see things.
In china they read from up to down?
In a tracker there is a very good reason for not playing like that. There are only one reasons for playing samples from left to right rather than showing them from up to down, that is that monitors tend to be able to display more information horizontal than vertical.
But in fact a stero sample would be more correct to show up to down. Then you would se the right channel to the right and the left to the left.
Anyway The big reason for playing a tracker from up to down is information.
One tracker row with commands is much wider than it is high. This means that you can see many more lines when playing them up-down than you would playing them left to right…Unless we wrote the tracks like in chinese from up to down.
Like this:
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Personally I would not care if an arranger was vertical or horizontal.
However, if you gonna zoom out a lot then it’s easier to put names on the clips horizontal.
In the arranger the tracks can be a lot slimmer too.
Reading from top to bottom might work using Chinese characters, but it’s quite hard for everyone else.
We don’t get lot of complains about the horizontal automation window either…
In my mind there is a clear difference between arranging stuff and making the different parts from scratch in the pattern editor. Thats why I would not mind a horizontal arranger at all.
But in the pattern editor everything would of course be vertical. Also audio clips etc.
Has anyone ever tried Goattracker? it has vertical tracking and horisontal arranging and it works just fine trust me. Also the great thing about it is the way you sequence parts into a song. Instead of patterns everything is about channels/tracks and you need to group tracks together to form up a sequence. Although you most often edit the patterns like in any regular tracker. But lets say I have bunkered up a bunch of drumtracks then I can just go in with a buttonclick and change any part of the song.
Despite Goattracker only has 3 channels this kind of arranging really is what I prefer.
I guess I think the magic with trackers lies in the bottom-up structure. I do not really need to have an idea to come up with killer patterns.
However to arrange patterns into a song I DO need ideas and therefore some of us need a more advanced Arranger.
And I dont see why the the old sequencer cant be there as well for the ones hesitating. Multifunctions are great! Like in Cubase I can edit midisequences in traditional score if I want.
I NEVER use it!!! On the other hand it does not bother me that the feature exists.
I would love this so muchhhhhh