I suggest taking a look at Modplug Tracker. It’s a good example of nice interface. Some of the things it has which I think Renoise could use:
1.The tree at the left side. The tree shows patters, instruments, samples, soundbanks, etc. Sometimes it’s better to hide the tree, so that you can see more tracks in the screen. There’s an option to do that. You also can set a directory as Soud Bank’s directory. That allows you to navigate through this directory from the tree.
Something that terribly bothers me is that the cursor and the selection block are handled independently. It prevents me from editing the pattern with the keyboard only. The user should be able to make a selection block just by pressing “shift” and moving the cursor with the arror keys.
That’s something that’s preventing me from switching to Renoise. And I’m not one of those guys who stick to one tracker only. I used FastTracker before. Modplug’s MFC interface is the best one, and I think lots of Modplug users would switch to Renoise if it were more user friendly. Now, version 1.28 is better than 1.26 regarding this, but the features I’m proposing here are very important. There’s no question Renoise is the best tracker around. Improving the interface is the next step, I think.
Try alt+arrows, or the way I prefer: Ctrl+B to start the selection and Ctrl+E to end it. Also try selecting a track (alt+T) and the whole pattern (alt+P).
Improving the interface is the next step, I think.
Alt + arrow keys works, but you can’t mark several tracks by pressing tab as alt+tab switches windows… (ok, I don’t have a good alternative to this so maybe I should just be quiet instead! )
Hiding the top and bottom panels has been suggested before to see more of the pattern… Side panel would also be nice to be able to hide (I don’t use this often, only to add tracks and to hide/show columns now and then). Thinking of it show / hide / auto hide for each panel would be great! (Auto hide as the windows toolbar).
I just did a test by the way. Sitting at work alone on Friday afternoon you are not very productive… I started up Renoise in 1856 x 1392 on a 22" screen. This is really cool!! I can see 17 tracks with vol + fx columns! Aside from the fact that it consumes most of my CPU power and is impossible to use, two things striked me:
The vertical pattern size is now more than you really need (66 lines) and I would rather spend this space on other things. My first idea is to “pin” the automation or Track DSPs window to the bottom, so you could show i.e. automation and intrument settings at the same time (on top of each other).
Secondly the file list and sample list looks really tiny compared to the pattern now. Ideally I would like the whole top panel to be vertically stretchable. This would of course lead to some unused pointless space around the sequencer and play/stop buttons… but still it would be nice
Wooooooo!!! That’s nice! But then it brings something new: why is it with “alt” and not with “shift”. In all windws applications that’s done with shift. Respecting this standards makes the software more usable. I know that the keyboard is customizable, but it’s not the same. You have to look for what you have to change in a long list, then change it. And, the combination of jeys may be in use. Maybe there should be two basic setups: “Renoise mode keyboard” and “Windows standard mode keyboard”. Another thing that would help is that you right click on a effect column and can choose the effect from a list, and also you can set the value there. This way people only have to know by heart the effects the use most. I believe someone made a similar suggestion.
PPH’s problem about “shift instead of alt” has given me an idea:
when you enter config=>keyboard section, there could be an option which automatically selects in the dropdown list the action currently associated with the key shortcut you press.
for example:
let’s say you want to change from ALT+T to SHIFT+T:
go to config=>keyb section
press this new button
press ALT+T
the “select entire track” is automatically selected in the dropdown
It would be nice, too, if one could select the volume column alone. I noticed I can select a effects column alone, but the notes and the volume column stick together.
That’s a very good idea, It! Just a tip: As a workaround if you’re looking for a special key now, you can search the KeyboardMapping.xml in i.e. Notepad.
Talking about note, volume and panning columns I’d like to bring forward an old suggestion of mine again… A keyboard shortcut for deleting note + volume + panning (i.e. not the whole track row). Extremely useful if you enter notes with a MIDI keyboard!
Something small I miss in Renoise is the patternline numbers only have two digits, I track with dec numbers for the patternlines (yeah I know its lame…) and when you have long patterns the numbers only go to 99 then starts over at 00.
It would be nice if you added one or two digits so that there are room to show the full patternline number. like line 128…
When you are working on increasing the resolution this might be a good thing to implement…
mhh, I love hex. its based on 16, and 2 bars of 8th notes = 16 notes …
honestly, I love it and think it makes everything easier and better, I am really glad it took this turn back in the amiga days.
and I dont think there has to be a calc built in renoise, because the windows-calculator can do the same.
I noticed that the way Renoise handles lfo’s is abit limiting.
Here is my suggestion on how to improve the lfo and vsti automate device.
I know there is lots of more important stuff, so this could wait, but when in the distant future you have less important things to improve you can dig this out and make this…
First the lfo’s could have a own tab/window like Inst.Envelopes or the Sample editor.
Here you could keep all your lfo’s.
And by having them on a separate window you can view and edit them and at the same time as you see the vsti/DSP effect.
Then you add a button next to each slider in the vsti/vst automate devices and track DSP device.
This button should say lfo x…
Where x is the name/number of any lfo.
By selecting the lfo from the DSP device, instead of selecting the dsp device
in the lfo. Any lfo could be used on any amount of dsp/vsti automate devices and on any track.
Without having to add new lfo’s to each one of the tracks and for each one of the parameters.
Saving space and a tiny amout of computer power
And making it clearer which lfo affects which parameter…
As the name(number of the lfo is next to the slider in the DSP/automate
device.
Also turning the lfo on/off or changing lfo is done from the the new lfo button.
Another thing to do then could be to add a slider to the lfo’s. that show the effect of the lfo.
I had an hour free time so here I made a picture to illustrate what it could look like…
i dunno where the 1.3 topic iz. but i used to use IT and the main thing i miss in renoise (which i love and think is way better than IT, kiss asses of programmers you are gods, the IT3 team are a bunch of slackers) is that big pattern editor that took up my whole field of vision which i could plunge into headfirst and totally loose myself in. it would be really cool if there was a maximize restore button/keyb shortcut, but i wouldn’t want it if it screwed the stability of the program.
i use renoise live with a band (drums, bass, geetar, turntables) and something that i used to be able to do with IT was what i call “bumping”. IT had a keyboard shortcut for changing the ‘speed’ so that if i was mixing something and the drummer shifted up or down a bpm, i could temporarily slide down/up the speed to slide us back into synch. this is really quite a pain in renoise because i have to mess around with a mouse which is way slower than just flicking ‘}{’ a couple times. could there be keyboard shortcuts to change speed and bpm?
glide to note for vsti’s is something that i haven’t been able to get to work, muss es sein?
i’ve already asked the programmers for this and they said it would mess everything up if they did it but, is IT style tremolo support possible?
Here are some feature suggestions for the successor of Renoise 1.5 from my list.
The searching for new VST-plugins.
It takes over 55 seconds of diskchewing on my P4 3ghz. Next time
i start it then it will be faster because of computer cache, but if i reboot: 55 secs agan.
Couldnt it be made an option. So at basic upstart it would rather just open/close on the .dll files in the old cache to quickly see if they exist. (to prevent hanging). If new plugins are installed one could just klick the “refresh” button.
Default velocity
Just the ability to set a default value in the volume-column. As of now it is set to “40” and it will hammer all VSTis until you adjust velocity manually. And so the “40” really screws up the the keyjazz.
Maybe this could be at the “instruments”, so the volume would associate with the individual VSTi/instrument.
Unmark selection
Just so that the selection made is not kept “hanging”. Ive tried to tweak colors to make it look “less stingy” but its a bit hard. And I rather make
a selction of Begin/End on one note to make it less noticable.
Second highlight of rows
By default every 4th row is highlighted in patterneditor.
Haveing a second highlight of every let’s say 16th row or 12th row (for waltz) would make it so much easier to navigate the pattern i bars.
Swap blocks
Mark a block and with a keystroke you change it with the one of same size at the cursor.
The way to do this NOW is by: Mark source, SelectClipboard0, Copy+Delete, mark destination , SelectClipboard1, Copy+Delete, Move cursor to source, Paste,
Move cursor to destination, SelectClipboard0, Paste
This COULD be: Mark source, Move cursor to destination, Swapkey
This function is REALLY useful for moving events in time, and is very much at the heart of the fast tweaking of the tracker-interface.
(ok, I don’t have a good alternative to this so maybe I should just be quiet instead! 
)
I started up Renoise in 1856 x 1392 on a 22" screen. This is really cool!! I can see 17 tracks with vol + fx columns! Aside from the fact that it consumes most of my CPU power and is impossible to use, two things striked me:
