One of the big annoyances I have with Renoise (though, don’t get me wrong, it is a great and extremely useful peice of software that I use daily) is that I can’t seem to get the volume slicer to work if I use a VST instrument.
Is there a way around this and what is the cause? Volume effects work so why can’t the volume slicer?
a lot of commands do not work when using VST instruments, and the cause is the different internal working flow of VST instruments.
The only workaround I can see is to use the volume slicer command over a rendered WAV made with the VSTi.
I know this sucks, but there is really nothing the developers can do about this.
well, when it comes to the volume-slicer…
It could be made to work. I mean, Renoise already allows a user to specify the volume of both VSTi:s and samples. So why couldn’t the volume slicer do something similar?
depending on what you want to do, you could also use a vst fx for the slicing. like mgTriggerGate
it’s a nice trancegate style rhythmic gate with step sequencer.
other i vote that VSTi synths get a note-off after x ticks effect. that’s really a must!
Sorry for bumping this really old thread, but this is something i use a lot, and something i use LFOs for. This will work for both samples and VST instruments with only very few drawbacks. The LFOs in renoise are brilliant, and i constantly find new interesting uses for them in combination with instruments and the effect chain.
To make a half-decent volume slicer you need to make an effect chain consisting of at least four units in the Track DSPs section. Drag-n-drop the following DSP devices to the chain: Compressor/Limiter, Gainer, LfoDevice and Gate.
Compressor/Limiter: Set the parameters so that the volume of the input sound is as even as possible.
Gainer: Do nothing.
LfoDevice: Set waveform to Square. Make sure that Desteffect is 02 (Gainer) and that Parameter is 00 (Gain). Set Amplitude to 50%. Set Offset to 25%. Set Frequency to the speed which you want for the volume slicer. The frequency is expressed as TPC, meaning “ticks per cycle”, so the speed will be relative to the BPM, which is nice.
Gate: Here, it may pay off to experiement a bit. Start by setting all the parameters to the lowest possible, and gradually play with Threshold to get a decent sound. After that, just go wild.
It’s also important to properly synchronize the LfoDevice so that volume is turned on and off at the right times. This is done by reseting the LFO at the start of each pattern and by making sure that Frequency is relative to the tempo of the song.
To reset the LfoDevice with the proper phase, i use the effect column command 3673 at the start of each pattern. 3xxx means use Track DSP block 3 (LfoDevice). x6xx means reset the LFO. xx73 means reset the LFO to phase 73. Why 73? Well, this is just trial and error on my part. The LFOs in renoise are filtered, so it’s not easy to tell where the LFO starts. This value will be different depending on the Gate parameters and other things. Try different values until you find one that works for you.
To set a good speed, preferably select one which is an integer divisor of the number 6 (if your song tempo is 6). Good values are therefore 6, 3, 2, 1.5, 1.2, etc. Another interesting trick is using automation to control the frequency parameter to get a gradually increasing or decreasing speed for the LFO.
I hope this trick will be useful for some of you and maybe even inspire more people to play around with the wonderful LFO devices and find new and bizarre solutions to their problems. 
Use Vsti automated device and choose the Vsti “Volume” then all you need to do is right click on the slider at the level you want the volume to be on the step you want it…
I’ve used automation like that too. Problem with that though, is that automation only works in blocks of 6 ticks (assuming you’re using speed 6). You’ll need to raise the BPM quite high.
I guess what we need is a tick resolution automation window instead of a line resolution one…if that makes any sense 
Yes. A lot of people think the automation has too low resolution. This is one of the reasons why i’ve learned to use the LFOs, to counter the deficiencies of automation. However, LFOs are more fun and unpredictable at times, so they’re not necessarily a bad thing.
As you are routing the lfo to an automated device aren’t the reading only taken from it on every line of a pattern anyway? Why should the lfo effect a parameter in sub-tick timing, but not an automation curve?
PS. I really do think it needs to be sub-tick, not only tick timing, for automation.
The LFOs do have better time resolution than automation. That’s why stuff like the volume slicer LFO trick is possible. I’m not sure why automation doesn’t have the same resolution, but this is what we have to work with, i guess. I agree that automation would be more nice if it had a higher resolution. It’s something a lot of people are not entirely content with, so if it hasn’t been done already, maybe it would be a good idea to suggest this to the devs?
It’s been suggested to the devs numerous times 
Hmmm, I was kinda assuming it ran on the same resolution, meaning that using the noise waveform router to volume for a slight offset to give a bit of humanisation or similar type effects (probably most that you would use the white noise waveform for) would only change the volume once, or twice at most, a beat for a fast hit hat track or something.
But then again, there are big benifits from it being sub-click as well…
Still, you can’t set the LFO speed to higher than 6 ticks per row, so that limits some of the more exotic uses of the LFOs. This, even if you set the song’s speed to other values than 6, which is kind of odd, in my opinion. Making the LFO speed go faster than 6 TPC would make it even more interesting for me.
This may be a bit offtopic…
I agree that much of the fun with Renoise’s LFO is their unpredictable nature! However, you should check this suggestion I made a while back about improving LFOs…