Vst Plugins With Pattern Effect Commands

Hello Renoise Community :)

I got a big Problem… Maybe someone can help me. Just one simple Question:
Is there a way to use Pattern Effect Commands over a Track with a VST Plugin (eg. Spectrasonics, etc)?
Via Automation and PluginGrabber is not very usefull for me.

Many Thanx to all of u :wink:

Best Regards.

Mr.E.

You can control parameters of effect plugins using effect commands:
http://tutorials.renoise.com/wiki/Pattern_Effect_Commands#Track_DSP_Commands

If you want to control a VST instrument with it, you need to add an Automate or Midi Control device into the track, then point them to th e instrument you want to control and then approach these two DSP’s with the same way as described in the link.

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Would it be at all possible to apply slides, vibrato and retriggers, etc?

Applying pattern effect commands to plugins would cause a lot more confusion and questions than it would have a proper purpose, this would become even more if you would update a plugin where functional characteristics of the plugin has changed causing songs no longer to sound the same. This is hypothetically assuming you could apply these effects.

There are two suggestions that apply to this option and neither will give you the most satisfied effect which includes altering the audio feed directly from the plugin or altering the parameters of the plugin (autotranslate slide and vibrato option to plugin parameters) that affects such parameters.

Altering the audio feed is in the majority of cases really out of the question:
All plugins submit their audio through the same audio stream so such effect would be applied to the complete audio feed (including the internal plugin effects that are applied to them so reverbs and delay effects change noticeably when altering pitch) whereas with internal samples, the pan/vol column effects get applied per note which is preferred in a lot of cases and the latter option is a feature that could neither be accomplished with most plugins supporting multi output channels. (you might get away with percussion plugins where each percussion element gets its own channel, but still your audio environment is limited and you still cannot use the plugin its internal effects)

Then you might have monophonic plugins where such commands might work because you can only affect one note at a time, but usually these plugins have support for pitch and vibrato and might even have a good and easily configurable legato feature.

Which brings us to why these effects may or may not be translated to the correct parameter value for the plugin if it supports it:
Internal parameters and values are dynamic so no host could ever support a default “pitch” parameter or a default vibrato parameter set (outside the midi pitchbend and perhaps modwheel) because it is not known which parameter would have to be altered for that (that’s why the instr. automation device exists).
Added to it: it is up to the plugin developers to create such functions inside their plugin in the first place, else sending these parameters would have no effect. (causing questions and false bugreports)

Renoise supports writing pitchbend and modwheel midi commands to the pattern, if the plugin supports these by default, it may be sufficient, in some cases you would have to activate the pitch and modwheel features inside the plugin for this to work.
If it does not support these defaults: Doing it through the VST instrument device and/or the Midi Control device is the closest thing you can have and even the best thing and automate a VST plugin with.

Also: Automating through envelopes offers a higher and more precise resolution than pattern effect commands can do.

What is not usefull about plugin grabber? Any time I have had a VST synth that I wanted to do some Pattern Effect Commands (like retrigger or pitch bend) I have just use the plugin grabber (usually grabbing an exessively large sample just in case) and away I go with Pattern Effect Commands.