hi, i’m new to using the forum, but been using renoise a while now- i haven’t had chance to look over every post on this thread so i’m sure i’ll be covering some old ground here (possibly all old ground)
i generally find with renoise as it is there’s a workround for most things you might want to do (although just today i was surprised by the lack of control with tempo…)
nevertheless, the things i would love to see in renoise are - if anything here is already implemented and i’m too stupid to realize it, please let me know;
-modular instrument editing (i have seen the posts on this, and i agree it would be great - i don’t even care if it’s a nightmare to use, as long as it’s stable i’ll use it)
-drag & drop (mainly for sample loading)
-tempo automation (controllable through automation and meta devices over the full range)
-built in synth (only very basic, like octamed used to have would be cool)
-midi output to another software host (i have so far not managed to sync renoise succesfully with any other application, and although i know it is possible, what i really want is just the ability to send note and controller information to logic- and get some use out of those instruments i paid loads of money for)
-alternative edit spacing mode (octamed, my original sequencer, locked you into the edit spacing more strictly - meaning the up and down arrows would jump to the next edit space division of the pattern - i found this a quicker way to edit under certain circumstances. This would also serve as a crude but useful note record quantize when you want to play parts in)
-better filters (i have never got on with the renoise filters, they seem to only partially filter the sound - stupid as that sounds, eg. highpass with threshold at highest point will allow a quiet full band signal through - if someone knows where i’m going wrong please tell me)
-compatibility with more formats (eg. i have loads of .caf samples from fcp studio with a few usable sounds in there - it’s a small inconvenience to convert them for renoise)
-octave up/down in the sample editor (again for convenience)
-full song text export (this is a weird one i know, but i would like to use this for visuals in live situations - people who don’t know renoise are usually pretty impressed with the look of it, i would love to be able to make more of that and build some visuals out of it - this would save me hours of work with screen grabs etc.)
-automation of more parameters (automation of instrument parameters would be very useful to me, not just vst instruments - things like sample loop start/end/length…)
-if not full modular editing, then the option to add track dsps to instruments
-video export of trackscopes / masterscopes
-alternative pitch commands (sometimes, depending on the song speed/sample pitch, the pitch bend/portamento commands don’t have enough range on them… alternative commands that cover a wider range would come in handy)
-more flexible envelopes in instruments (like zomg said, obviously this could link to the suggestion of dsps within instruments - meaning things like delay lengths, distrortion drive amount, ring mod freq, etc. - i realise in real life these envelopes can probably only be triggered by the last played note - or the lowest… i suppose standard legato rules apply, but need only apply to the specific envelopes, not the entire instrument)
-real BPM readout (regardless of what speed bpm you use to actually set how fast your track plays- i would just like to type in the number of lines i want to equal 1beat or 1bar and be told what real-world bpm i am playing at. I use patterns of 192 or 384 lines usually as that gives me control over normal and triplet notes pretty much equally without having to use line offset commands, but the only speed setting i can use if i need to translate to bpm is 2. coupled with the fact that you have no dynamic control over “bpm” above 255 this is probably my biggest problem with renoise)
i’m sorry that turned out longer than i expected - i should point out renoise is an amazing program which would have to endure some serious design destruction before i stopped using it as my main sequencer
That’s a long list… not all Renoise Instrument specific related (that’s what this thread is about)
Drag and Drop for sample loading i guess you mean from external explorer to Renoise as drag and drop from the diskbrowser is already supported.
If you want to export video of the scopes, there are so many desktop recording tools out there that can do this job for you…
Why would you need this?
This speed thing is indeed rather limiting but it sounds like you cannot use any other speed than 2 to get a proper bpm?
Real bpm is always same as customizable bpm with speeds 1, 2, 3, 6, 12 (If you have Renoise 1.8 or higher)
Which version of Renoise are you actually using?
sorry- i was wondering what rni meant, now i know…
drag and drop- yes i was meaning from the finder (i’m on mac)
video export- i’m not saying this is a particularly important feature (afterall, it’s nothing to do with creating music), and you’re right but there are frame-rate issues with capture software, with a dedicated export in theory you could create a flawless hires, hi framerate movie file…
i am using the latest version of renoise (1.9.1), that is not the problem- i am trying to think of the best way to explain… in most of my tracks, the basic quaver/crotchet edit step is 3 or 6 or 12 etc lines, rather than 2 or 4 or 8 etc lines … i do this because i use triplets fairly often and prefer not to fiddle with note delay colums - pattern lengths of 192/384 give almost equal potential for 3 or 4 time rhythms (i think most graphic sequencers work with these kind of numbers so they can reliably handle triplet timings)
therefore, if i write a track which uses 192 lines as the pattern length and therefore 64 lines bar length, at speed 3, BPM 124, then i write another track with pattern/bar length 128 lines using the same speed/BPM settings- they cannot both be playing at real world 124bpm - that is the best way i can think of to explain my problem - and why i need a way to calculate the real bpm in my tracks.
It makes sense somehow, but you incorrectly link BPM and pattern sizes as if they set the real bpm which is incorrect.
Using 192 lines in one song and 128 in the other you just have a different timing (and probably groove) schedule but both songs would play 124bpm. Not 124.3 or 123.8 or otherwise because this type of bpm is the “Real BPM” (Tempo) value that appears in the song properties if you use speed values like 4 or 5 or 7 or 8, 9 etc.
If you create a shorter pattern, the pattern just ends up earlier. It is just a block with 64 rows by default, you can enlarge it or lower it.
If you need to have a higher “resolution” you could change speed 3 to speed 6 and multiply the BPM value by 2. If you use 124 bpm you would need to raise it to 248.
In that case you have a BPM value that is not exactly 248 BPM, but just 124 BPM with a precision factor of 6 sublines.
in effect you are saying that actual bpm is simply the technical conditions under which the music is made, and nothing to do with the musical phrases, rhythm etc. that it is made up of…
with this thinking you could pick any piece of music and claim it was made at any bpm - noone would have grounds to argue otherwise unless they were there when it was made
for the sake of argument, lets say i want to make music with a steady beat and i want to represent that over 192 lines (therefore patterns of that length), at the simplest level i would put one kick every 12 lines… resulting in 16 kicks per pattern (ie. 4 bars per pattern). If 10 patterns take a minute to play, according to my logic this makes the track 160bpm. This will only work within renoise with the speed set at 2 …
i’ve just found in trying this out that speeds of 1,4,8,16 etc. will get multiples of the bpm which is useful to know… in trying to explain my situation to you i’ve found the solution to my problem. This is something i’ve tried before without success, i’m assuming the renoise update you mentioned before is the reason.
OK, not such a problem for me anymore - thanks for trying to help though
and i hope i made myself clear on the real-world bpm side of things
thanks to a suggestion from cbit this one can be taken off the list too- again i was foiled by my ability to try something once and then not check again later to see if it is fixed…
it’s actually apple who fixed it in this case- with the IAC midi driver it’s totally possible to send midi note etc. info from renoise to logic… even automate logic parameters and effects from renoise through the midi cc device combined with the learn controller function in logic
The idea to route MIDI to another host requires a driver anyway.
Once a MIDI driver is confiscated by a host, it usually won’t let any other host get access to it (at least that’s how it works in Windows) at least most MIDI drivers for audio cards are written that way. Software cables (Like MIDI-Yoke) work different and offer sufficient solutions to this problem.
Whatever connects hosts with eachother, it is always a driver that does it (And Renoise supports most, except ReWire):