well, this topic isn’t that important for me since i don’t use renoise in live environments (for now…)
nevertheless i think we need to clean up the gui as much as possible, making space for other things.
i’d rather have a dedicated “unmute all” button than some obsolete buttons wasting much space while the functionality is accessible somehow else as easily.
example (this reveals kind of bug in the current version):
The auto-solo function (1) is good and should be kept. There’s no other ‘one-click-way’ to do this other than assigning a keyboard-shortcut.
The buttons S and M are obsolete, because you can easily access the green “play” (3) in the patterns view. LMB click on it mutes the track, the button M in (1) is updated then. RMB click on it makes the track go solo, here comes the bug: he button S in (1) is not updated then.
I’m not that power-user of renoise to know all the tricks… but I actually can’t think of a situation where you need the buttons S and M as it always implies that your pattern edit cursor is on the track you want to mute/unmute/solo therefore also making it visible in the pattern view where you could use the “play” then.
And there are still many other ways to mute/unmute/solo tracks like clicking on the track scopes (2) or the buttons in the mixer view. So, why not kill those to buttons and add some mute-all / unmute-all button?
Oh and don’t forget to make it assignable via midi
i already mentioned that above…but yes, it’s a fact! there are 3 different ways to do that within the program.
important thing is that the button should keep the same unique function as in 1.9.1, “unmute all” only. i can’t imagine a purpose for a button like “mute all”, as for that you already have the slider of the master channel on the mixer, that can be assigned via midi too.
If the mute button would get in… how many more features does Renoise lack to make it a decent Live audio application?
Currently a lot.
There are lots of things on the todo list. This idea might or might not get onto it. But when added a generic combination of all that stuff is being put into one release to give a whole bunch of features meaning.
Adding one button now doesn’t really make much sense in the whole concept when so many other stuff that is still lacking attracts more live feature requests at which folks are right.
‘decent’ is not the right word. 1.9.1 is already ‘decent’ for live purposes, i’ve used it on some of europe’s main clubs and stages.
don’t really know how many times i’ll have to say this, but here it goes again…it’s not adding, it’s keeping it! It was already there, why taking it out? specially if you’re leaving a blank space…not just space wise, but function wise. this is such a basic feature that i don’t know why you are making such a big deal from this.
you have plenty of requests? fine…it’s natural…also a good sign. but an “unmute all” feature is a basic audio function on all programs…no matter if they’re trackers or sequencers.
somehow i’m getting the feeling that the more i insist, the more some people in charge feel like not keeping the button, like if this was becoming a personal issue towards my persistence. i’d like to remind that when i got my renoise version i was asked to not hesitate whenever i felt some feature should be added or removed considering my professional experience. i don’t consider myself more or less than any other renoise user, but for my expertise i’d say if you’re really concerned about improving the “live” section of the program, removing “unmute all” from midi mapping range is a huge mistake and a step back.
But it was never in there? No buttons can be assigned to midi yet. Only sliders.
No one is arguing against you in particular. It’s more a general view that not every function can have a button, even if the function is there as a shortcut or through context menus etc.
You may have very good reasons for have the un-mute button there. But we have to figure out how important it really is compared to all other functions, and all other users as well.
As said, a button will not solve your midi assignment wish. Thats a feature missing in renoise for now.
So all I and other did was to suggest a more universal solution to for instance make it possible to assign any shortcut (just add a midi mapping to that shortcut list). Or to rightclick one of the existing buttons or some other solution. And the discussion made you come up with some good suggestions yourself.
Here is another suggestion: When it is possible to map anything to midi, it should also be possible to map directly to a function by pressing the shortcut. So you press Ctrl+M Then you either press a button or slider, or you press a shortcut. Thats it. No need to see actual buttons to assign them fast to midi.
Perhaps it could be interesting to make a poll to get an indication of how many ppl used to use the “unmute all” button?
PERFECT!!! it doesn’t have to be a button, i said it before. Any solution that allows you to map midi to “unmute all” is welcome! So the shortcuts & Ctrl+M is alright. This would be a great step forward in making renoise more suitable with “live acting”, not just for that function in particular, but for many others. Is it doable for 2.0?
hmmm, perhaps i didn’t explain myself correctly about it. I’ve been saying to keep the button as i thought it would be much easier for the programmers to link it with midi, and also for those who don’t use a midi controller to have it at the distance of a mouse click. However, i left quite clear in many replies that the important thing is to have a solution that allows this particular function to be assignable to a midi controller (controllers always have a few buttons -not knobs- that are precisely for these parameters). That’s why the proposal of Pysj sounds so good. (shortcuts → midi mapping)
Here’s a small list of basic functions that should be midi mappable and represent great additions for “live” acting and producing:
Unmute All (unmute only, not mute-unmute)
Play
Stop
Loop pattern (on/off)
Mute (one per channel)
Solo (one per channel)
BPM
I’m not a programmer, but i don’t think it would be so hard to make it happen in 2.0…
vV…the concept of “more useful things” is quite subjective, and i guess there is no discussion about it.
I consider that, despite my lack of knowledge programming wise, midi mapping the functions i mentioned above, shouldn’t be too hard considering the class of the renoise mentors. it would certainly be a very valuable addition for v2.0, and the right way to start focus on live acting.
It is a very useful idea, i also would like to have some more MIDI control on currently unsupported options like transport control (start/stop) buttons so that i don’t need two hands on two different keyboards at the same time.
If the unmute all behavior worked with the button in the previous version which has been removed, i agree it was probably not a good choice to leave it out. But such matters always keep coming back as a reminder anyway, like when the keyjazz was removed, a lot of resistance against the new behavior took care that it came back.
Btw: When allowing the keyboard functions to be MIDI mapped, we also have the problem that you would want to have this stored as preferences - that you don’t want to do this again and again for every new song.
If you then load up a song which already uses MIDI mappings as we have now, what should happen then? Should Renoise automatically fix all conflicting mappings? Should both mappings be executed?
Also having all keyboard functions MIDI mappable would be overkill - a mess? Wouldn’t it be wiser to add a new smaller set of functions for MIDI only? Guess you would also expect that MIDI does not depend on the keyboard focus?
This or that way, this might be easy to “hack in”, but we want it to be a cool feature and not a half ass implemented one, don’t we? Thats what stopped me from implanting this so far. I know how important this is for many of us.
good questions taktik. i believe the most natural behaviour would be Renoise to either save each individual midi mappings along with the matching song file, or save each midi mapping alone…like on midi profiles. perhaps this could be done through the disk browser menu (there is still space for one more feature without compromising the design). the profiles could be also stored under the preferences>midi menu, in a numbered like list 1->5. 5 profiles should be more than enough. usually you don’t change your midi layout too much when you’re playing live or when you’re composing. you just create your own comfy layout, like on computer games.
i’d also like to remind you that most controllers have the ability to learn and memorize all the functions you assign them under Presets (usually they have up to 20+ presets profiles). this means that renoise wouldn’t really have to do anything but allow the machine to “midi manipulate” the song according to its saved preset, like in a sort of “midi open mode”.
the most famous sequencers have standard midi profiles. perhaps Renoise 2.0 could start precisely there, allowing the user to save one midi profile for all the songs and still alowing the so mentioned “midi open mode”, that would allow advanced users to user their hardware for different midi profiling.
