I have spent a few days reading the tutorial and am unsure if this belongs in the ‘help & support’ thread but here goes;
The problem is that Renoise seems not to be recieving any data from my P.C keyboard.
It began and was first noticeable when I first attempted to record into the pattern editor, but then I realized that the hotkey ‘undo’ (ctrl+z) was not working either.
Please help (I hope my computer keyboard isn’t accidentally configured in some way that is causing this either).
are you sure that you have selected an instrument which actually contains some data? In such case, by pressing the “Q” key, you should hear the sound of the instrument corresponding to a C note.
if instead your problem is that you hear the sound but nothing is written on the pattern when you write on the keyboard, then probably you don’t have enabled the record mode; you can enable it by pressing the record button on the panel on the upper left corner, or by pressing the ESC key
It-Alien; Yes the symptom seems to be the whole ‘nothing happens’ upon pressing computer keyboard keys after I have loaded an instrumet into the instrument slot.
It just seems not to work.
Ctrl-Z, as a hot key, doesn’t seem to work either.
please try opening this basic test in Renoise, close the tip of the day windows if it appears, then simply press the Q key: do you hear any sound? do at least the VU meters at the top of the application animate?
if the first answer is “no” and the second is “yes”, then there is probably something wrong with the audio preferences in Renoise: is the configuration of Edit => Preferences => Audio
panel correct?
huh, do you mean that using your MIDI keyboard you hear the sound? well that’s pretty strange… does the other PC keyboard functions work?
for example, does the ESC key enable the record mode? does SPACE start the song playing?
CTRL-Z could not work because there is nothing to undo, but if for eaxmple you have moved a slider and then you press CTRL+Z, the slider should move back to the original position.
It-Alien; yeah I mean the midi keyboard triggers notes, but somehow Renoise is not recieving or acting on computer keyboard functions; ie play (space) undo (ctrl+Z) record (ESC) and musical note inputs too.
Even if I recorded some incoming midi keyboard data, using mouse arm record mode and then stop, I was unable to undo the data using Ctrl+Z.
I think there is only place left for the standard questions…
which is your operating system? In case of Windows, are you using the lastest DirectX (could be a DirectInput issue?) Are you using some special keyboard managing software? Are you using some fancy multimedia PC keyboard?
In case of P.C specifications, I have added them to my signature space (please see).
Dirext X 9 was the latest I could find and I downloaded and installed it.
Unfortunately, to no avail. Computer keyboard data still does not seem to be recieved in Renoise.
I am using a ‘flexiglow.tm’ keyboard which is running on standard 101/102/Microsoft PS/2 keyboard drivers.
The original drivers for it were ‘Win2000-specific’ (no XP drivers are supplied for it) and I installed them along
with some kind of special keyboard managing application but they were uninstalled long ago in placement for the
keyboard drivers I am using now (see above).
As to your question to whether the keyboard is ‘fancy,’ the keyboard does have a button allowing the keys to be
backlit (illuminated) and includes an array of other shorcut keys along the top row (see as per photo).
I uncluded a photo of my PC keyboard (Yes it could do with a clean!)
Uninstall and reinstall Renoise? If your keyboard is working with all your other software it seems unlikely to me to be a hardware problem but possibly something gone awry with the installation of Renoise…
I hear and see the notes, inputted from my midi keyboard.
The symptoms seem simply to be a case of the computer keyboard (making up for a large sum of Renoise’s interface and useability) being diasbled. So I am endeavouring to find a cheap P.C keyboard, (re my fancy pc keyboard).
I think that the issue with the standard keyboard drivers is they don’t cooperate with DirectX properly in combination with your keyboard.
I would not be surprised if you would have issues with that keyboard when playing games (with the generic keyboard driver!).
What i’m aiming at is a similar situation when for instance using Bome’s MIDI translator:a tool that translates MIDI messages to keyboard input. This thing does not work on Renoise because it sends plain COMMDLG Win API keyboard messages but these messages are not broadcasted forward to the DirectInput handler that Renoise does use so the keycodes never reach Renoise.
I think that your fancy keyboard somehow needs a specific driver to work with to operate properly and probably does not work properly with the native and generic keyboard driver. At least it does so for normal application but likely not for DirectX applications.
If it does work with games, then there is still some big bug in their drivers somewhere.
I have just finished testing Renoise with a second hand ‘dell’ p.c keyboard (funnily enough,
my computer is a Dell Dimension3000 [see specs updated]) which I picked up from a local
community centre (which offers computer classes for the elderly etc) for $10AU.
Results proved unsuccessful.
To this day I have never understood why the start-menu button on my P.C keyboard
doesn’t work, and I always put it down to a ‘defective button’. Having read information
posted by vV, I now think it could be otherwise.
Besides this, I understand the informtaion posted by vV as meaning that I need either
yet another computer keyboard / driver (which broadcasts uniquely in order to be
successfully recieved by the DirectInput handler, which is Renoise’s native speak,)
or there is a big bug in the drivers somewhere.
I am not entirely sure whether the aspect of successful DirectX gaming can apply
to me at this stage, as I do not play any games other than the odd 90’s adventure
games, and Zsnes (which all seem to work fine).
does your computer have an internal sound card? an idea could be to try disabling and uninstalling your Firewire card and try if using the internal audio card works: as Bantai said, your Firewire card could be conflicting with keyboard drivers in some odd way
There is indeed an internal sound card on my system. And whats more, I spent this morning and the early
afternoon engaged in the process of uninstalling my M-Audio FireWire drivers and hardware, and replacing
them in order to make all software (including Renoise) run central to my SoundMAX (internal sound card)
drivers.
If all else fails you can always try Microsoft tools to test your keyboard in the first place…
If the WinKey tool fails in one of the tests, you can be sure either the driver is failing or you have faulty hardware somewhere.
vV:I have installed WindowsDriverKit. There is an aspect of InstallWDTF.cmd that I can’t seem to get around
( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa469589.aspx ); which is that as soon as I follow the instructions
and type ‘InstallWDTF.cmd’, I get a dialogue saying:
“WDTF Installation Failed!
Error Code: -2147024703 Description:
Error Executing RegisterWDTF.exe:
“C:\WDTF\redist\RegisterWDTF.exe” is not a valid win32 application.”
Also, I thought it worth posing another question; could my issue be denying Renoise.exe the right to
‘log user activities’ on my computer, on the Zone-Alarm Security Suite dialogue, each time I load Renoise?
Renoise keyboard handling is a bit unusual for a Windows application because some of its commands are based on the heritage of old similar programs which ran under DOS environment; for example, keys such as Alt Gr, RCtrl and Caps Lock are used as standard keys instead of modifiers keys.
probably this odd behaviour triggers the spider sense of your antivirus, which thinks that Renoise is loggin the user keyboard. Please try if disabling this protection works for you.
