Super-Instruments

Ideas & suggestions
1

Ola, Renoise-Developers.

What about this:

Give Renoise “Super Instruments”.

“Super Instruments” trigger a note over different loaded Instruments at once.

This is nice for layered voices, but it would be lovely to have this kind of

intrument over phrased ones.

One could do complex phrases on samples/VSTs/Whatever-s, trigger a single

note, and every instrument begins playing its phrase. This would offer quite

complex structures by a finger snap and helps saving LOTS of in-tracker tracks.

For the instrument panel: A context menu entry is made: “New Super-Instrument”.

Next step there opens a window with a list view of loadable intruments, a list view

of appliable (yes, I know … “appliable”) phrases and a preview button.

(“Appliable” could mean, to categorize phrase patterns by dividability, or the ike.)

Sex would be complete, if the user could hear ALL instruments in preview. Multi-timbral.

Please say “yes”! I assure you, I do ! ;D

Zillions of Thank Yous and countless respects for RENOISE and REDUX.

Renoise and friends is boss.

Regards,

René

2

You can already play multiple instruments at the same time if you link them to the same midi instrument and channel according to vV in this thread; (https://forum.renoise.com/t/control-multiple-instruments-via-one-instrument/38228)

It is possible, but you can’t render the output from one channel.
the best advise i can give is connect three instruments to the samemidi instrument and channeland then assign each instrument to a dedicated track.

3

Eh, yes!

I once imagined stuff like putting plugins into the keyzones instead of driving them directly

Your idea is one step further. I dreamt on:

How it would be to have a “META SUPER INSTRUMENT”

In the keyzones, instead of samples, you place other linked instruments.

In the modulation you control their macros (or vst parameters) instead of the filters vol etc.

Phrases trigger the other instruments, and ofc their phrases if they have them active. So stacking phrase layers becomes possible.

Each keyzone can get routed into inst.fx like samples, but now it is the output of the instruments that can be processed. Multi out instruments get multiple keyzones to route.

Bang!

What is the most cool about this, is the backwards compatibility. The extra instrument mode is an addition, and doesn’t have to change anything with the current behaviours.

4

yep, I desperately want to have some sort of instrument layering in Renoise.

Basically where we can map samples right now, you could map instruments as well :slight_smile:

That is one of the few things that I really want that’s missing from Renoise.

5

This, one hundred times this.

I was looking for a post I made about instrument grouping / folders a while ago, because it had a diagram in it. I’ve never been able to find it, it seems like it might have been deleted somehow? Maybe the mods are trying to tell me something.

Instrument groups confirmed for 3.2

6

err just tried it right in 3.1, if I’m reading OP correctly, you can already set this up currently using a midi controller keyboard as quoted from vV above.

Add a few vsti in the instrument list, go to the ‘plugin’ tab and in the audio routing portion on the left choose a different output track for each vsti. Now head to the ‘Midi’ tab in the instrument editor and choose the same midi channel & controller keyboard as ‘input device’.

Now play your keyboard to have all assigned vsti play at once!

Might not be as straight forward to set-up, as being able to have different vsti in one multi-instrument, being able to play at once through the computer keyboard, but still piss easy to set-up imo.

7

I’m thinking the best solution would be to make a link option for each individual instrument.

If each instrument slot is a master that could have any of the other instruments as slave, so that each instrument can have each their own link structure.

Example:

Instrument 00 is linked with 01 and 02, then instrument 01 is linked with 00 and 03, while 02 is linked with none.

If you trigger 00: 00, 01 and 02 will play

If you trigger 01: 00, 01 and 03 will play

If you trigger 02: 02 will play

Now if you just make enough instruments with phrases you could easily have a whole song playing in just a few keys.

8

The motivation behind my ideas is the ability of being able to mix, effect and such the layered instruments in the inst fx. My instruments are processing-heavy like it is a sickness already, but I feel my sound gets doper as I progress in this direction. Also defining keyzones, and blending sound sources over ranges with (mono or poly modulation) keytrackers, lots of such tricks make much more sense when everything is put to one package with other stuff getting out of the way of organisation.

I know this is also possible via track effects. But I like to use extensive parallel processing, and already do this via inst fx a lot with renoise native instruments. It is like encapsulation. I tend to build lots of complicated modulations with lots of filters and distortions and such in the inst fx from different sample sources, with the main modulations just being initial steps in the design, and the sounds becoming a big multilayered union sound this way, and would REALLY like to be able to use vsts instead of samples, or layer other (simpler) renoise instruments that already get shaped via instrument fx this way as long as cpu plays nice with.

I know I could resample, but I just like the flexibility and organic feel of the results, and being able to still modulate filters in the start of the chain in sync to steps at the end, while being able to fine tune the synced steps, for example. And trackfx/send setups clutter up the whole mixing view badly so one quickly looses overview. I like the way it already works for me with renoise native insts and the inst fx, despite all the current limitations.

Also the ability to send the results of inst fx to different tracks/outputs is already a godsent for me, like splitting main body of a sound from hi/air/width processed, from ambience and low bass channels to be able to manipulate or sidechain them more precisely in the mix/master steps after rendering all the tracks. Probably it is just my ideas of workflow I’ve built, I know what I am doing is probably overcomplicated and too much driven by perfectionism in comparison to others. But I find it logical and effective and would like to extend my ways this way.

9

I want instrument layering so I can save the multi-instruments. Not sure how that would work if they were normal instruments “linked” rather than incorporated into a single instrument.

Instrument racks and effects racks are two things Renoise can definitely steal from Ableton Live…

10

if you stick with samplebased instruments then it’s possible to (ab)use MIDI plugins for this purpose.
I’ve used it a couple of times, stacking instruments by instantiating a plugin that allows simple forwarding or MIDI-thru (this feature should be quite common).

For example

Instrument 01 : some xrni instrument + MIDI plugin forwarding to…
Instrument 02 : some xrni instrument + MIDI plugin forwarding to…
(You get the picture)

The advantage is obviously that, unlike linking of MIDI inputs, this will also work as you’re entering notes in the pattern and not just while playing/recording.

Downsides… mmm, lack of overview? (hasn’t really been a problem for me though, I just put them next to each other in the instr. list). You should be aware though that instruments receiving MIDI in this manner will not play their own phrases, only the source instruments phrases are reproduced.

Note also that this workaround permits the last instrument in your chain to be a plugin,as the slot is no longer occupied by a MIDI plugin.