Stack any plugin, or provide better support for MIDI effects

I’m testing out the demo version and am trying to figure out how to handle MIDI effect plugins for things such as retuning, arpeggiators, etc. Other DAWs allow you to simply stack any plugin - midi effect, audio effect, or instrument in the order you like. I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do this in Renoise, and it may be a dealbreaker for me. If there’s something I’m missing, someone please help me out. This seems like it should be a pretty basic functionality.

For midi, each midi effect is an instrument in Renoise. So you need to load it as instrument and set a midi target. Only one target is currently possible:
image

Audio effects for VSTi’s can only applied with a Track:
image

But you can use effect chains for samples with VST effects:
image

You should check out the official tutorial videos:
https://www.youtube.com/c/renoise/videos

@toimp Thanks for the input. For the effect I’m using, I’m not getting a midi routing option. Is there a setting to make it available, or is it because I’m using the demo version?

I don’t think it should be too hard to run instruments in the regular audio effect chain in a future update, just as you can alias an audio effect as an instrument. It doesn’t make sense to have an extra instrument section even IMHO. It would be nice to see these all streamlined in the same area. Currently I use Bitwig and Reaper both of which allow for free chaining of effects, be it MIDI audio or a synth in the order you like. I love the overall format of Renoise with the control available through functions and precise per step editing, but may need to see improvement in this area to convince me to buy it.

What plugin did you try? Renoise only show this option, when the loaded plugin supports midi out. Remember, its not the midi source, its the midi target.

So, TBH, it’s one I’m working on creating. I figured out the midi configuration. If it’s considered an effect by Renoise it won’t allow for MIDI routing even if I alias it, however if I compile it as a synth, Renoise will allow for MIDI routing. The problem I’m running into now is that Renoise doesn’t allow for one plugin to send MIDI over multiple channels, or another to receive over multiple channels, something other DAWs I’ve used allow simply by allowing plugins to be stacked. I started another thread on the subject in hopes that the feature may be implemented some day.