restating my (perhaps a bit out there ) opinion on the matter:
give the user an option to create new note symbols (with three alphanumeric chars as it is now for example c#4) and map those to playback rates/pitches. (the editing of those maps could be done in a tool outside of renoise… no need for that in the settings)
that would give us support for microtonality with rational note names… in addition to that we could do cool stuff like drum maps with easily readable note symbols like ohh, chh, bd, sn, rs, gn, ss.
What if my custom scale does have 12 notes, such as a well temperament or Werckmeister tuning? Then it’s just like a normal Renoise instrument, except that every C# is X cents flat, every D is Y cents sharp, and so on. Tuning pattern repeats at the octave.
What if I want my 9-note scale to repeat every 12 keys? Just like above, except there would be 3 blank keys mapped in every octave.
What if I want my 9-note scale to repeat every 9 keys? Or what if my scale has 17 notes? Well, that would require a little UI change and introduce some extra options. But it’s definitely conceivable – Renoise would need to be flexible about where to repeat the tuning pattern, or in other words, how many keys until the next octave.
What if my scale does not repeat at the octave, or has a stretched octave? Then yes, the way things work now, I will have to manually edit every single note.
I am going to think up some designs for an Instrument Settings panel which would clarify these issues and present potential solutions.
I completely agree. That’s why my first suggestion is automation and effect commands. Changing the Instrument Settings panel would be a hairy issue that takes lots of care not to disrupt what people know. I do have UI ideas for this though!
Originally I thought the introduction of alternative symbols would complicate things very quickly, but I like your idea of a custom symbol field. Simple and open-ended. I’ll think about that for my next design.
Had forgotten about some alternative tuning where only a small number are different. Sure extra work for these, but a Tool could make the majority of that automatic.
I don’t get this. This is always going to be the case unless the idea my maes of being able to have your own note names can somehow be introduced, but then you are still going to be playing from the 12 note repeating design of the keyboard too. If you want a 9-note scale to repeat always starting at a C on the new octave then you will need three slices inbetween, each with the same volume set to 0, but I don’t really see why that is too much of a problem…
Thinking through the maths (eg being able to get people to define the note spacing formula and how many notes to an octave, if you want to have silent keys, etc) and then creating a Tool for generation based on this may be a good way to go.
Alright, everypeople. I just spent many hours with GIMP and canker sores to bring some new designs to the table. They contrast my original post in that they are more of a long-term, ideal solution for tuning. We should still get the FX commands and fine-tune automation I described, but what follows is what would be a permanent solution to our tuning woes.
This might be crazy, but I couldn’t help myself…
Long-term solution: Tuning panel in Instrument Editor
I have [b]set up a small webpage[/b] containing the following images (plus a couple more) and their full-sized counterparts, as well as a thorough but concise explanation of the design. You don’t have to read the text, you can just look at the pretty pictures! But the text is meant to clarify and justify the design.
Closed panel.
One of the designs. Standard 12-tone equal temperament.
looking at the site, i like the design for the small keyboard the best. if it has more notes than there is room, a scrollbar can be used.
you have forgotten one very very very important thing in your design though. can you guess what it is?
presets man, presets! so you make a totally rad tuning and you cannot save it anywhere? or you make a 2nd instrument and you want that same awesomeness of tuning contained in that as well? presets! saveable, loadable, adjustable presets!
Aha! Actually, I did not forget, I thought about it! But I was running on fumes and didn’t bother to put it in the mockups. Maybe I’ll add them later.
A presets menu such as the ones in native DSPs would be good. And if that didn’t exist, we could still depend on the (hypothetical) XRNX tool to save ‘n’ load tunings. But you’re right, why treat these settings as a second-class citizen of Renoisia?
As someone who love Asian music I would surely appreciate if 24TET, 7TET and 5TET instrument got easier to make. I am not sure how good I would be at using them though.
I am bumping this topic because I would love to see any or all of these ideas implemented. Ideally I’d like instruments to be able to have more flexible tunings, but even just the short term solutions would make me very glad. I’ve been using pitch bends to approximate microtuning and I must say it’s a major pain.
Yep! Finetuning in command would be very useful at composing music containing clean, perfect intervals and would make matching higher partials together possible. It means i.e. clean “stable” non-phasing chords et.c… Definetely my +1 for this.
yep I know, but much to my disappointment nothing happened with that code (afaik).
Interesting! But how would that work though through the envelope section, as you can’t have differentiating pitch envelopes per sample in one instrument.
I’ve been experimenting a lot with 7EDO lately so I would like to add another big +1. There is no decent DAWs for making music outside of 12EDO. Actually I’ve found that renoise even as it is not is the best for it since it is such a powerful sampler in it’s own right but it is quite tiresome to copy paste samples, tune them and then assign them on the keymapper manually. Especially with Renoise’s use of hexadecimal cents units for tuning.
No, not that, but you could allow the tool to automatically map the pitch values to the envelope for specific keys, but that ofcourse sucks if you have parallel sample layers of which only one of both samples should be tuned out of scope.
As far as i consider, the transpose and fintune values are doing just great for these purposes. The pitch envelope or LFO can perhaps only add a minor dynamic swing to it. (specially the pitch envelope)
) opinion on the matter:
