One thing I’m finding that I’m really missing is the ability to have multiple songs open at the same time. Like, I know you can just open a second instance of Renoise, but if you’re using ASIO drivers then the second instance has to use direct sound, and your midi controllers might not work. There’s been several times I’ve been working on a song and I want to include a melody fragment or something from another project that I never finished but I think will work well with the current song I’m working on, and while I can find work arounds to get what I need done, it could go quite a bit more smoothly if I could just have multiple songs open in one instance of Renoise.
OpenMPT can get away with it, but for Renoise this may be a problem depending on how large your project is.
Average projects can be real memory hoggs, so this can only be safely done if DirectFromDisk is supported and this only works for internal instruments, VST plugins cannot be controlled this way.
Might want to look into what Hitori Tori does, though his instances of Renoise and its xrns files are made with his live controller in mind.
Hmm well then how about something else: a clipboard that you can export and import that will save patterns in no particular order, and what can be on the clipboard can’t exceed a certain limit of plugins? Not only would this allow an easier way to get bits of one project into another, but it’d give a workspace for patterns you made that you like and want to use but maybe not right away in that particular part of the song you’re working on.
edit: It occurs to me there might be a tool for this already, going to scour the tool list to see.