i thought about your goal to improve the midi driver model on windows.
In my option it is dissipated energy for build this thing in renoise, because Renoise is not a Midi realtime application, where there is no click count in, no quantisation or in/out points for realtime midi recordings and i think the latency for playing on all soundcard is ok now.
I don’t understand as well this cost with sight to synchronisation with other apps, because midi clock sync, how you know, is absolute unusable to make a patchwork with i.e. Cubase and Renoise in the back. The only way is to make a recording is in one time in cubase with renoise sync.
How you know, is rewire an alternative, but hard work to implement and the con, that you have no VSTs in Renoise, if you run Renoise as a Rewire slave. Cubase and Logic can only run as Rewire Master, only Live can both, and thru this have renoise to be rewire slave.
I dont know, but perhaps is the fastest way to sync 2 application or devices hard-synced to implement MTC (Midi Timecode). Thru this, you can staired up in the PRO Audio League, because you can sync 24 track Tape Recorder, Software, Movie Player, 24 Track Harddisc Recorder, big Mix-Desks with automation absolute hard-synced to every picture and millisecond.
I know, that Renoise is maybe a gap application in the musicsoftware thing and the most user use this only in the computer without stuff of periphery devices, but than its possible to get people, they wont to see every note in every row and use external devices and can use renoise as a tool for making music, like a synthesizer, not as a main recording software, where you all have to do it. Now you can record all tracks on other things and can realy arrange.
Taktik could live for the rest of his life on the Bahamas if he would make a VST of Renoise.
It would be the number one VST plug on so many other hosts and Chris Nash can quit his RevisIT project
I agree that we need some way to sync the other big sequencers to Renoise, as many people would love to use it for example as a drum instrument, but I double that MTC would be the ideal solution for this.
MTC is still MIDI, thus lacks of precision, even when instead of beats abs. time (frame time) is transfered.
Renoise as ReWire slave would be ideal, a VST as well, but unfortunately both of this is a really really huge amount of work. A VST plugin, because I don’t want to do something like a VST bridge, which simply syncs a full blown Renoise program to some other host. It should be an instrument where you could trigger patterns or instruments within Renoise via MIDI notes from the host: thats a whole new concept with a new GUI and stuff…
Let me nevertheless experiment a bit with MTC, maybe its easy to add and does its job better than MIDI clock…
violetpow: Renoise is my only and main application for music composing, creation and recording. Besides i heavily use hardware synth. So i can’t live without solid midi timing. It’s just an example. Anyway i think that Renoise becomes a PRO software for these days. And all functions of a PRO application must work firm. And moreover: solid midi timing will help to build strong connections to other applications in future.
I think my life the last few years, and from the look of things, the next few years as well, has been spent waiting for something like that.
In my super humble opinion:
1 trackers are brilliant
2 trackers are not the solution for everything
3 trackers are an important subset of music technology
4 most tracker users will at some point need to venture beyond the tracker
5 this means you often have to LEAVE tracking in itself, or jump back and forth
6 fit the tracker PEHNOMENA in a natural position for this (plugin/rewire/etc)
as it is right now, if you want proper tracking or proper sequencing you can’t have both at the same time. you can either track or you can sequence. i have no idea why someone doesn’t combine these things properly, but I am convinced the move has to come from the tracker side (by either plugin or rewire).
I seriously think this (+subtick timing) is the most important aspect of future Renoise development.
If you need cash for a Rewire license I have no problem paying a steeper price for that version and invest before it is released if you need to pay Propellerheads upfront.
The VST bridge is also a good idea and could work with the OSC protocol like Reaktor between VST and Renoise. This works also over ethernet between 2 or more computers and lokal. OSC is free and has no licence (GPL).
MTC is only the Midi implimentation of SMTPE Timecode and is a much better alternative for sync. SMPTE is used in movie synchonisation, sync between 2 24 track tape recorder etc.
SMPTE has max 30 frames/s and midiclock 24 ppqn (pulses per quater note).
I dont know the dependency of midi for the timing and which midiclock grid Renoise use, but MTC is more spreaded in bigger studios as midiclock for synchonisation. It may have a reason. I dont used MTC for everyday work situation and so i dont have any experiences.
But the benefit of MTC is, that you can then synchonised Renoise as slave to ADAT, TASCAM DA 88, 98, Mixer Automation, 24 track HD recorder etc., because they use in Midi only MTC.
I found a possible solution for the synchonisation problem, if the MTC way don’t work.
I don’t know how hard it is, but if you build a VST/AU plugin, that controls over OSC the timing of renoise.
Of course, renoise must recieve this OSC datas. That also works over Networks.
OSC used “High resolution time tags” and is a open technology.
violetpow, I think your suggestion about using the OSC protocol is interesting, to sync software to software has always been a pain. Perhaps somebody could write such a plugin, and get support from Taktik while doing it
Now, on a more personal note:
you seem to think that trackers are an “underdog” of sorts, compared to other programs. This is both true and untrue, depending on one’s perspective.
I happen to know musicians (professional ones, that is:-)) that use trackers (yeah, Renoise) because of the timing precision they get. And I get surprised all the time, the variety of people who use it - for example, read this interview on the elektron website (although Renoise isn’t mentioned by name…)
So, if you are a studio technician who has to do a lot of multitrack recordings, it is obvious that you wouldn’t use a tracker. This is where your term “gap application” really fit in - software like Renoise cover a territory that non-trackers have never occupied.
To danoise: Don’t get me wrong. In all the years i have tried the most musicsoftware sequencer (without atari) but the first thing, where i’m really lucky with all, is this tracker (not other tracker).
I realised, that is very well programmed and has a good sound and timing, but in some times in making music, i wish to record some parts as audio, to make in Renoise the way free for other parts, you know (overview and CPU power). It is more the improvising thing, that i like and the fast, precise recordings of that.
With any respect, but it don’t interessted me, who is using what. I have to find my own way and in software we all have the same taste like autechre or enduser or datachi or whatever.
If what you mean is, that we each have to find the software that helps us express ourselves creatively, I totally agree. Renoise is not the only music software I use, but the most fundamental one.
With Renoise, I have a strong focus on live/improvisational aspects of the software. Others may have another focus, which is why it is important to talk about the “nature” of the software, so we don’t end up with a kludgy thing that is neither this nor that
So, sorry if I was ranting or whatever.
BTW: I read up on the OSC protocol. It seems to created by a bunch of first-grade students, and a programmer friend of mine called the code a mess. Their website isn’t really kept up to date. I dunno, it looks to me like OSC may be the wrong choice, even if throughput is 300x that of MIDI?
The most important feature for me that renoise could do with is audio recording as tracks not samples. But as it is a tracker and not a tape machine I can fully understand why this feature doesn’t exist yet. But… if u cant record properly in renoise, you MUST be able to record in another application in sync with renoise, otherwise people who use hardware are screwed.
I’ve already suggested an audio track idea twice but nobody gives a crap for some reason. But it would just solve all my problems if there was proper sync with Logic.
I don’t see how hard it would be to create an au/vst that sends TC down a pipe to renoise…? Am I missing a complication? I’d offer to help develop such an idea if I wasn’t so busy.
