Just polish it.
Piano roll. But seriously, some solution to adjusting note lengths and melodies with mouse and with great precision would be cool. It’s sad that if you don’t set your pattern speed to ludicrous speed in advance, you are denying yourself of the possibilities of fast, short and crazy note sequences. I know that there’s a tool called pattern resizer, but it would be nice to have a native way of stretching the time scale of a pattern to increase the precision between notes when needed.
Another thing to consider would be connecting the automation tab’s curve points to pattern editor’s fx column effects somehow. It just bothers me that the pattern editor and the automation tab live in separate worlds. You make changes to your pattern and now what? The automation is not synced to the changes so you will have to navigate to the automation tab and start readjusting the points there. Then you make another change and the cycle continues… This leads me to avoid the automation tab almost all of the time and it makes me sad since with automation you will usually achieve much richer and smoother sounds. Yes, you can directly automate the track effect parameters in the pattern editor’s fx column, but the precision is just not the same and it is clunky to make interpolations. At least this way you will see and can edit the stuff in one same place.
Another cool thing to have would be separate pattern work spaces for prototyping and the actual song. You could mess around freely in the prototype view, add infinite number of tracks and make things look messy. Once you got something cool done, the selected tracks along with their settings and effects could be copied to the actual song work space. To work around this, I have been dividing the pattern editor with one colorful track. The prototype tracks go to the other side of the colorful track and the real song tracks go the other side. It simplifies life a bit when you take the time to organize it like this, but even still the prototype notes have to always exist at the start or end of song so they don’t clash with the actual song patterns, that is unless you keep manually muting all of the prototype tracks from the pattern matrix.
5 Likes
detachable pattern sequencer.
detachable disk browser
Users have long requested a native piano roll for Renoise. If it does not exist, it will be for something. There will be a reason.
However, there are several piano rolls in LUA tools, but none of them will be like an identical piano roll to other DAWs, because the current API does not allow convenient programming for drag and drop operations. Ultimately, they are tools based on the click of the mouse, and on keyboard commands, and they will always be slower than using the tracker itself. But at least they will be able to help you visually understand the composed melodies better. For a piano roll tool to be “complete”, the API would have to evolve a bit with mouse control.
This could be done with a tool. However, Renoise may receive multiple effect parameter change updates (effects of parameters of devices) in the pattern editor at the same time.
I think this would only be workable with an on / off function chasing the cursor, and only obeying the change of the parameter selection when the cursor is over a parameter in the pattern editor, and this would only make sense when the mixer is disassembled.
Hopefully someone in charge of Renoise programming will read to you, because it’s a great idea. However, implementing it would not be easy. The pattern “template” should have the same number of tracks as the pattern editor, at least. The pity is that it would only work for the same song. The interesting thing would be to be able to save pattern templates and export them to other songs, but this doesn’t make much sense if the other songs use other instruments.
In the end, using a “template” pattern at the end of the song seems like the easiest from a programming point of view. In fact you can use several.
Probably if the manipulation of the patterns from the sequencer were improved, this would not be necessary.
I imagine an option to unpin pattern and deposit it in a template, another pattern panel. So you can manipulate it outside of the song with all the track effects. In this way it is prepared to be able to deposit it in the selected pattern when necessary. But this in the end is like copying and pasting a pattern, a very easy operation in Renoise.
Collapsible groups in the instrument tab for better organisation of sample categories. That way you could create one group for percussion, one for synths, etc, etc. Would really help reduce visual clutter and maintain a consistent workflow when working on one group of sounds at a time.
It’s been said before a while back by someone else, but more probability commands along the lines of Boolean Logic (or / and / not) or something. Maybe this is possible with the formula device but I don’t understand how to use it and I dunno if there’s any decent examples or instructions on how to use it. If anyone knows please tell me. But anyways, simple pattern commands would be nice to see.
1 Like
This has been on my wish list ever since i’ve been using Renoise, mapping pattern commands for volume/pitch to their equivalent MIDI commands. It was working in Schism Tracker at some point, but VST support was kind of… meh
1 Like
Also, it’s still VERY AWKWARD to track in flat keys with sharps showing in the pattern editor!!! (MIA: ♭ to ♯ toggle) Come on guys, even protracker on the amiga and FT2 on DOS had this!
Source: working on a song in B♭ minor right now. Having a moderately good time.
/* edit */ No, i didn’t choose what key it was written in, and yes, i theroretically COULD have transposed all my instruments which - as i pointed out 5 or 6 years ago - would be as much of a PITA anyway. Especially stringed non-synth instruments, ie. turn a peg or adjust a fine-tuner/mechanism of some sort for each string. Also was a retard and named the Rwong Key™ (said A♭ instead of B♭ because i was thinking about A# for some uhm… unknown reason 
)
2 Likes
Mac universal binary version for M1 
2 Likes
Still my biggest wish is parallel routing and layering. E.g. I made a mix and now want to finetune all those reverbs… Sometimes the reverb comes as insert, even before others. What a hassle now to move the reverb + post fx to a send, only to add some eqing oe compression to the reverb tail. Renoise even forgets automation, if you move an dsp from one track to another.
Or I would like to add multiband compression only with Renoise fx. Then I already have to use 3 send tracks, only to put a single compressor on each. Imagine now some post reverb… Or final grouping. The project turned into a sendtrack-mess.
Or you want to layer sounds, which I think is the standard now in modern productions. Renoise already has the instrument fx layers, why you can’t put VSTis there? Currently then I have to double the notes as I had two separate tracks. Oh, later you want to improve the melody… Or add some modulation…
Or let’s say I would like to setup a dual mono chorus… With 180 degree rotated LFO phase, 100% wet, to get a accurate stereo vibrato. Would now have to use two insert send tracks, and then a sum send track. Now combine that with the reverb problem above. You end up with 20 send tracks, the project turned into a complete mess that you will avoid to touch again from now on.
seems like some of these things could be fairly easily done in instrument fx. parallel compression, for instance, is a breeze to set up in instrument fx, but an annoyance in track fx. Simple parallel compression via instrument effect chains
i like the idea of adding vsti in instrument fx, tho. hardly use plugins, but could certainly be useful to layer xrni/vsti
your last example also seems like a good case for use of instrument fx. just use multiple chains and sends/sums as needed. it’ll keep your mixer sends much more organized and simple
Well I mostly use VSTis, so the the fx chains are useless for me.
ah. i’m the opposite. almost all native synthesis, so the instrument fx chain capability is huge for me
1 Like
I posted this idea before but I think there’s still a lot of potential in this idea. It would make Renoise that much better as a live looping tool and wouldn’t (seemingly) be much of a change from the existing functionality.
1 Like
Flexible timestretching via warp/anchor points in the sample editor
2 Likes
What @slujr said, and please please please some sort of real granular stuff built into the sampler please? 
2 Likes
YES. at the very least, it would be great to be able to assign sample start position to a macro…
2 Likes
This is what I’m talkin’ about - Gleetchlab, for example. It’s just so useful, being able to use the sampler as not only a looper or another piano, but as a haze/granular cloud generator. For those of us not on facebook, there is no equivalent video of this, so I’m also going to provide a screenshot.
There are TWO Tools that can provide a rudimentary version of this type of sample manipulation - SMC Tool and RxMarkers. Both of them are able to only use a single instance of the sampler’s playhead, so the amount of granular stuff they can do is on the basic side - that’s all that is available within the sampler currently. They are great tools for sample mangling and click generation.
Since they can only use one playhead, there’s no actual way of getting ‘clouds’ or ‘haze’ that full granular synthesis can get. It’s such a unique sound, Renoise would only benefit from it. Since we do not have PM/FM synthesis, more aggressive sample manipulation would add more sound generation capability to Renoise, and quite possibly grow it’s user-base.
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, Renoise can be so similar to Max/MSP in it’s tight sequencing and sample manipulation, and it is EASY to understand in comparison to visual programming. Renoise is the entire reason I can create tracks that sound like they came out of Max/MSP; all it is missing at this point is smaller (but big) sample manipulation, and maybe some sequencing additions (more random/logic functions). Yeah, I want more synthesis within Renoise, but I can get by by creating my own single-cycle waveforms or larger samples.
So much more can be done with Renoise besides the typical electronic music tropes - why not take it to the next level without requiring VST/AU plugins? Renoise’s effects are so damn good, and if you don’t like the TWO built-in reverbs, you can “roll your own” CONVOLUTION reverb which can sound like any reverb or any space you desire…
Renoise can sound like anything, would love for it to be able to push sample manipulation to the fullest.
6 Likes
100% with you on this.
the integration of renoises sequencer and sampler (and phrases within that) makes it the best tool for control of samples. so a bit more granular power feels appropriate.
tbh you can do some interesting stuff with the phrases already - definitely granular/wavetable territory.
here’s a crack at getting a cloud going - it’s a bit hacky setting it up and could use an envelope for the voice as well as the individual grains but it’s something.
cloud.xrni (2.8 MB)
options like phrase LPB automation/patterncommand would open this kind of thing up a bit for a start
3 Likes
embedded detachable chat (that can be enabled / disabled) in order to talk with other online renoisers (with public and private rooms, text & voice rooms to share sound of incoming tracks, etc)
3 Likes
Some sort of device that allows the user to map a pattern or global effect
command to a CC-assignable push encoder knob.
Sorta like a small command line interface that allows you to issue, on-the-fly,
one-shot, pattern and effects commands; only enhanced with device support.
That said, im not 100% sure if this is already doable, gonna go check on that.
Time passed… guess phrases can help to do something like it.
Thanks for Renoise! (…and all the fish)