I think this is also about the lacking read ahead part of the signal followover. (for which the manual track delay figure does not seem to work always nicely because you can’t delay in amount of samples and you have to turn off PDC)
There is a lookahead option in the follower since Beta 4…
i don’t whine about not being able using real sidechain routing for some 4x4 kickdrum DUCKING effect. i can do that with a simple lfo!
but there’s also other stuff you can do with sidechaining, taktik 
for exsample, real vocoder carrier / modulator inputs and stuff like that.
Example in Reaper:
you set the number of audio channels of your Track B to e.g. 4. 2 stereo channels for the main signal and 2 stereo channels for a stereo sidechain signal (mono also possible).
In Track A you insert a send to Track B to channels 3&4. The sidechain compressor listens to channels 3&4, and compresses channels 1&2. This means: you just “abuse” channels for sidechaining, Sends are always involved.
I guess it is possible to create a Renoise VST wrapper device which can receive stereo audio signals from a send device and pass it to a “wrapped” multichannel plugin as channels 3&4. This is more modular approach and you don’t need real multi-channel support. Stereo was ok. With this solution at least real sidechaining was possible. A lot of other things like surround of course not.
Hey guys, maybe you didn’t notice but:
The SIGNAL FOLLOWER isn’t named THE SIDECHAIN COMPRESSOR and it wasn’t advertised as such.
The Signal Follower does cool shit. Hundreds of cool things (Sidechain distortion anyone? Sidechain reverb anyone? Use your imagination?) One of them happens to be “Sidechain-like compression using Renoise native effects”, maybe not up to par with the thousands of dollars you spent on all your sidechain compressor plugins (really? You paid for all those?) but for 49 Euro and where Renoise is at now (version 2.5, still a tracker, still has a completely different legacy than tools like Reaper) it’s, none the less, a rad addition to your arsenal.
Good times!
Hey Taktik, I really think that the signal follower is brilliant ! You can do endless creative things with it, I love it and I didn’t intend to critize the follower itself. I respect your devel skills and the Renoise design !
It’s just that I really would like to do things in Renoise that I can do in other DAW’s, too.
I don’t think sidechaining is overrated. In a lot of dance genres it’s an important stylistic aspect.
There are a lot of compressors which I would not describe as “compressor” more as “dynamic processors”. E.g. the Flux or Sonnox stuff. You just can’t easily rebuild their sound with Renoise native plugins. There a reasons for their prices. I don’t really care how much they cost. I’m after the possibilities and the sound and want to use Renoise as my Host. Rewire brings those two worlds together, but it’s complex and error prone, and I have higher latencies. Now, what shall I do ? I don’t think this is nitpicking.
Wait until we add plugin FX sidechain routing to Renoise. Till then, have fun with the Signal Follower or use it in Reaper?
This is a pretty limited view of compressors and dynamic control. Compressors can be simple (nothing agains it), but they can also be complex dynamic processors like e.g. http://www.fluxhome.com/products/Plug_ins/alchemist. There’s a reason for such stuff. What I mean: it’s not only the characteristic - which is pretty important BTW - also the overall features e.g. expansion of already compressed material, like we have often in sample packs. Check the Flux demos out and you’ll know what I mean.
yay 
!!! That’s good news. Didn’t know that you’ve planned it. Thaaaanks !
I assure you: I’ll have fun with the signal follower.
One question: what about the time resolution of the signal follower,
how fast (in mSecs) does it actually work ?
I was only talking about clean compression, not the other features you may find on compressors. I thought I was pretty clear on that in my post.
Well, let’s hope you get you’re real sidechaining soon, offcourse it would bring Renoise to a whole new level for a lot of users.
I’m sticking with the Signal Follower anyway.
Yup! It’s not HOW, but WHAT you make. There’s always more than a few ways of making any sound imaginable.
I pray at the altar of If It Sounds Right It Is Right. So while it’d be nice to have “the real thing”, for now this is “real enough” to me.
I also want to point out that most vocoder plugs worth their salt supports a left-carrier right-modulator setup, which is easily compatible with every form of stereo-capable setup. As someone who uses a hell of a lot of vocoders (hardware and software); a stereo vocoder carries little extra value.
I have been using vocoding problem free in Renoise since sendtracks were included.
I agree, the result is what counts, but I started this discussion to improve the result.
I questioned the signal followers sidechain compression capabilities and learned
some things during the discussion. This will hopefully help me and others to achieve better results.
It seems that there are different meanings on the topic and different needs. That’s ok.
Well, you defined in your post what a so called “clean” compressor is. I think you simplified things to much.
Is there a scientific definition of what a clean compressor actually is ? If so, please show me the reference.
And it’s not “my sidechaining”. There are just some things not implemented, yet. If everything in Renoise is already great, why upgrade and develop anymore ? In fact I love Renoise but still miss a lot of features.
Like everything, Renoise evolves. Rome wasn’t build in one day. And Rome was a lot more expensive than Renoise, I imagine. 
And Rome fell… we’d like to avoid that with Renoise if possible.
No, just the empire that build it. Rome lives on.
Indeed 
No there is no scientific definition, if I see one I’ll tell him your looking for him.
Peace everybody, it’s a new year 
It’s interesting how people react if someone questions features or the design of holy Renoise.
It seems that being system-critical is a delicate thing ?
On the other hand I made a pretty provocative statement, so maybe I have deserved it 
Anyway,
I revise my statement that sidechain compression with signal follower is a “fake”
After this discussion and further experiments I think I made wrong assumptions.
Indeed I could really achieve nice sidechain gain reduction results with the signal follower. I’d say its GOOD !
I compared some real sidechain compressors to the signal followers gain-riding solution and the differences are “subtle”.
My overall impression is that compressors are working more subtle / not so obvious as the signal follower-gainer solution. At least it was easy to create a more obvious effect with signal follower. With compressors I couldn’t achieve a similar effect that easy - even with very hard compression. The transitions between on/off are somehow “softer” with compressors. But I think it also depends on the settings made: like e.g. lookahead yes/no
Just an impression.
BTW:
I would pay much more money for more features of Renoise if that would speed up developments like e.g. WAV-Track support. No problem about that !