Whenever I try to use the volume column or 3xx effect command with certain VSTs, they act up. Fair enough, some VSTs do quieten down at lower numbers, but others don’t. Some VSTs will just muffle instead. Others still will even sort of change the harmonics/octave (!).
I’m guessing this is because MIDIs idea of volume (let’s call it velocity) is not the same as real volume. It tries to be ‘clever’ by changing the tone as well as the volume (which can sound great sometimes, but it’s not something I always want)
Problem is I don’t want to keep using Cxx to change the real track volume, because often I want lots of different volumed sounds, but where the master track volume is kept the same. This way I can use the track volume seperately for what it’s meant for - slight adjustment at the end so I can balance the sound with the other tracks.
Is there any way of getting the ‘velocity’ column to act like a proper volume column instead? And if not, is there a way to simply get a ‘second level’ mixer, so that I can have two levels of ‘real’ volume?
Oh while I’m asking, is there any way to change the colour of the volume column?
For VST’s this is pretty much impossible.
You can add a gainer device and use pattern effect commands on that one to change volume aspects.
The VST plugin should allow you to change the velocity of the note you triggered by using the velocity level for that, if they don’t or do something else, this is a problem of the VST and ain’t fixable from within Renoise since the velocity command is the only command that allows you to control the velocity note-wise of a VST plugin. Any other form of velocity control is upon the whole audio stream the VST produces.
I believe the VST3 protocol should be able to deal with this types of problems, but most VST developers don’t seem to warm up for this protocol.
I am one of the team-members who favor the drastic XRNI improvement and get rid of VST plugins myself.
That’s what I’m looking for really. Just a second command effect to change the (preferably note-wise) audio stream volume, so that vol 1 can act relative to vol 2. It’d be very similar to Cxx.
As always there are workarounds, even if it means dynamically changing the volume within the VST itself (most VSTs do have a ‘real’ volume control), or as you said - Renoise’s internal “Gainer” control. But it would be nice for a second ‘master track volume’.
Que? I’m sure you don’t mean what I think you mean… But I can’t see how Renoise could hope to compete with the thousands of amazing VSTs out there. Oh unless you mean upgrading to VST3 (which sounds very interesting) ?
Yes, well, that is the problem:this can be done with internal instruments, but not VST instruments.
VST instruments level their velocity amounts internally and then merge all audio and send it back to Renoise.
So you have to send a command to the VST that makes it process the note specific command before it merges the audio.
There are a lot of amazing VST’s, perhaps i should have said “Sampler vst’s”.
Your described problem occurs with a lot of VST plugins (merely synth i believe) where the velocity value for the specific plugin seems to come in second place since it mostly only produces one audio stream, the plugin developer considers the user clever enough he can use the host’s volume tools to work out the velocity of their stream and then decide to use the velocity value to make it trigger something else.
It is all pure policy against the Steinberg specs.
VST plugins offer a limited way of control and they offer a limited way of output.
Once you run against such limit, it is a pure brick wall that the host cannot break or you will have to nag the plugin developer to change the behavior.
But I can’t see how Renoise could hope to compete with the thousands of amazing VSTs out there. Oh unless you mean upgrading to VST3 (which sounds very interesting) ?