When loading instrument presets, phrase playback should be disabled by default

[Lovewyrm]

It’s annoying. It’s really annoying. I am so sick of having to disable phrases every single time when I load an instrument that has them.

It’s renoise, right? It’s still renoise, right? Having purchases renoise and downloading the renoise installer that installs renoise, it’s renoise right?
It’s not redux, right? it’s renoise? A tracker? With a sampler? And you put like, notes into the patterns? And then you play it cause it’s a tracker?

At least first and foremost? It’s not a phrase DJ, by default right? The main use case is not live performance for phrase triggering, right? it’s a tracker, yes?

To make tracker music, but modern? It’s not redux, they just share the sampler, right?

If this is all true then …disable the freaking phrases by default please, or open source renoise so I can fix it without having to learn reverse engineering as fun as that would be…
it’s faster for you to just disable it by default for renoise. That’s why the effect to steer phrases is separate and has to be entered manually to begin with.

So if you have to enter the effect manually to steer phrases, then don’t make phrases default onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNnnnNNnnNNnNNnnNNnnnNNNNNNnNNnnNNNnNNNnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnn.

And to clarify the last spot.

Phrase selection is not an integral default column, but phrases are turned on by default.
To select phrases you have to use an effect…there is no delay column, volume, instrument or pitch column for phrases.
Phrases are not a default essential part of the pattern editor, they are delegated to an effect that one has to consciously and specifically enter.

This communicates that playing with phrases is not the first thought you have for the pattern editor in renoise.

And therefore making phrases on by default is BBBBBBBBBBBBBUUUULLLLLLLLSHITTTTT.
Please turn off by default. Please see the light. Please be reasonable. And consistent.

[esaruoho]

sounds like if i script a shortcut + menu entry that wipes / clears all phrases from selected instrument, you’d be pretty happy, right?
i can even combine it like this:
shortcut & menu entry that does this:

1. Show User prompt for selecting XRNI
2. Loads the XRNI
3. Wipes phrases

would that be fine? i’ll script it into Paketti right now.

[esaruoho]

ok, i’m making some headway.
i’ve added the “Wipe Phrases on Selected Instrument” to:
Instrument Box
Sample Mappings
Phrase Editor
Phrase Grid
Phrase Mappings menu entries
and a shortcut.

now working on the file prompt, load, wipe phrase shortcut + menu entry.

EDIT: got it wroking. now there’s shortcuts + menu entries for “Load .XRNI & Wipe Phrases”. they’ll open a file prompt (macOS Finder or Windows Explorer) - you pick the .XRNI and then it wipes phrases.

added to Paketti - can send you a version via Discord, just ping @esaruoho or join Lackluster / Esa Ruoho / HLER / Paketti (Renoise tool)
enjoy.

[Jonas (Djeroek)]

It is save to say that when someone has made and saved an instrument using phrases, that this is the intended sound ( together with any used modulation and instrument effects) after subsequent loading.

If you just want to play with the samples from an instrument, you can load them from the diskop;

Toggle the arrow to see what samples are contained within a xrni file and mouse drag or double click to load them.

[dblue]

@Lovewyrm

It’s annoying. It’s really annoying. I am so sick of having to disable phrases every single time when I load an instrument that has them.

(…)

phrases default onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNNNNnnnNNnnNNnNNnnNNnnnNNNNNNnNNnnNNNnNNNnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnn.

(…)

phrases on by default is BBBBBBBBBBBBBUUUULLLLLLLLSHITTTTT

Calm down, dude.

If phrases are used in Renoise’s factory instruments (or any instrument that you’ve downloaded), then they’re intended to show off certain features of Renoise that people might find useful – they’re designed to be played/used in the way that its creator intended it to be played/used, so why should Renoise ignore that?

If you don’t like that functionality, then… just don’t use those instruments? Or… if you like the samples that are featured in those instruments, then just take a few moments to delete the phrases, save your own custom version of that instrument, and then use that custom non-phrased instrument in the future?

You don’t have to go through this frustration <drama> EVERY SINGLE TIME!!! </drama> … Just use some common sense and save your own custom fine-tuned presets if this is really such a pain in the ass.

If you don’t like it, then make your own sounds.

Work smarter, not harder.

[dblue]

@Jonas

when someone has made and saved an instrument using phrases, that this is the intended sound

^^^ this guy gets it.

[Lovewyrm]

“when someone has made and saved an instrument using phrases, that this is the intended sound”

Anf if I start renoise it’s empty, that’s the intended interface. Should I just walk away from the intended state of renoise?
No, it actually is a boon that it starts that way, and lets me change the default template song after the fact.

So why cannot I specify “turn off phrases” by default?

It doesn’t destroy the phrases, and maybe I want to trigger them with the effect here and there.
I just don’t want phrases by default on.

This IS an interface bug.
You are communicating to me that phrases are the overriding and most important interface to an instrument by making them default on.
But you are not providing a dedicated column to program this high priority interface, you delegate it to an optimal effect.
Like
“oh yeah, maybe someone sometimes wants an arpeggio here, so …let’s put that into an effect.”
“oh yeah, maybe someone sometimes wants to change a phrase here, so let’s put that into an effect.”

You are delegating “a purposefully crafted product made by sound engineers” to an afterthought in your daw while putting it IN YOUR FACE for the instruments non phrasal usage.

If the sound designer crafted 255 differen’t phrases then I can wax on wax off all day, I’ll only play the one that comes up by default unless I look into the effects manual and see it there.

What about the intended sound of the instrument, the concept I apparently do not get?
Gotta use it via an effect.

Surely I must be making sense and you’re just playin’ here.
And furthermore, I am a result of abuse, this issue makes me not calm, and it will never have me calm, because my reasoning makes sense even when taking in your counterpoints like “this is the sound the sound engineer wanted to present”

What about the other phrases then? What could be more important to sound and music making than sound qualities and character?
You want to shoot me down on that front but then make changing these integral parts share the system of a C64 tremolo effect!

P.S.:
Work smarter and not harder.
How is my workload easier if I have to always turn off phrases >_< instead of going in the preferences and check the hypothetical checkbox of “Instruments start with phrases turned off” or something?

So what if “phrase turned on with one weird little jingle” is the intended design…if that’s set in stone add support for read only instruments.

Sure fun being “calm” when I face this kind of audience.

[Lovewyrm]

Interesting, but I don’t wanna necessarily wipe the phrases I just want them to not be used by default…

Edit:
Yeah I checked right now, I can have phrases turned off, and still hear them with the Zxx effect.

Making my legitimacy stronger.

P.S.:
By hearing the raw quality and not the phrased quality of an instrument by default, also gives an idea how to make new phrases.
Sure maybe you want the anthem of Moldavia to be signature sound of your instrument but…
What about …working with them beyond it?

Don’t want that?
Then yeah, ask the team to make instruments/songs lockable or something. I’m from the old mindset of “listen to mod, like mod, dowload mod, rip it apart and learn from it and all that”

My elongated NnnNNNnnnns were in anticipation of this kind of reluctance despite reasonable reason behind my laments.
The team just doesn’t want to.

P.P.S.:
I don’t want to vow on it or anyting, but I will buy a copy of redux if this change makes it into the program.
That’s the most immediate way I can think of to thank for this quality of life improvement if it makes it into renoise.

I am that irked by it

Edit:
Oh, I just noticed that I can’t just overwrite the renoise library with the phrases off by default, the program actually detects that and denies it cause “Renoise will overwrite it on updates”

So if I want to do this manually then I have to copy all of these instruments to a ahahahaha different locatoin and go through them one by one.
That’s such smart work… not hard at all. …

[esaruoho]

well, if the idea was not to wipe, but to disable, i can see about making that flavor into Paketti, too.
thanks.

[Bluethereal (Bryan)]

I struggled with this before but the beauty of Renoise and I’d say the whole propose of the program is creating and resampling your own sounds tbh, no shade on the stock instruments. For example the space piano has an octave doubling phrase by default which indeed can sound bad with certain chord voicings. Other than that and the seventh house bass I don’t remember too many phrases.

I just process samples until I get the sound I want, the waveform editing functions and the sample dsp fx render button alone make encourage this workflow and experimentation more than any DAW I’ve ever used. In fact most of the time I don’t even save or use instrument presets, instruments are saved with the song anyway, taking hints from Renoise DemoSongs, most of them use single sample instruments rather than tons of keyzones and complicated stuff, like they were made in a more spontaneous way instead of strictly sticking with presets, in fact I’m curious if instrument presets even existed in the 90s, it seems to me the whole magic of the tracker workflow has always been focus on the sample, resampling, and pattern data. I love looking at old mod files and imagining the workflow that led to the that with so many limitations , and in my mind it always is: load an amazing sample or tweak it until it is amazing, put modulation, write pattern, done. Samples ARE your presets in a way.

Sorry but this is essentially like asking u-he to disable the arpeggiator or sequencer of all their synth presets which is kinda what phrases are. As @Jonas said it’s just the intended sound.

Don’t stress that much about it and happy tracking

[Lovewyrm]

But renoise has step sequencing and stuff as effects and modulation tidbits…
Phrases sit on top of that.

Yeah, I just checked just to be sure.
Sampler → Modulation → Ptc → Stepper from the effects menu → Get pitch stepper → It sequences

On top of that, I could now put a phrase.

The lengths to go just to avoid a basic checkbox in the option menus…but I thought about this in the meantime and I might see a source for reluctance.

Perhaps it’s tied to song opening, and there is not separation between loading an instrument via a song, and via user interaction?
Perhaps parameters are set differently but maybe some core element is shared and thus this request is just too much to code?

…but really it’s a 100% reasonable request.
Just cause I go
Come ONnnnnnnnnNNNnnNnnNNNnnNnnNNnnnNnnnNnnNNnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnNNNnnNNnn doesn’t mean I’m a hundred percent yabbadabbadoo unga bunga WHOPEEE unhinged.
It’s 70% tops…

I just am burned and maltreated… I complain rarely, but when I do, it’s cause it’s actual substantial, but I also think I tend to touch on ‘established stuff people live with’.
Like …I bitched at the OSC dev for naming his project in a way that when abbreviated/initia…thingumgs…spells OSC, and it deals with OSC.

I am talking about, of course, the Open Stage Control framework, where you can whip up GUIs to steer OSC (open sound control ) things with.
So you can use OSC to control OSC…

Or the Gaffer Lookdev/VFX package… I complained that naming a digital lookdev package Gaffer…that does the same thing as a real Gaffer…is a bit bad.
It makes googling/searching harder. Including documentation and tutorials which can lead to increased time wastage trying to find solutions by RTFMing like a ‘good boy’ and having to talk to people on the issue trackers and co instead, wasting THEIR time.

I got banned over that.

By the way there’s also a blender lighting addon called Gaffer.

So you have reallife Gaffer, Blender Gaffer, and Gaffer by the GafferHQ.

Another example, hydrogen an open source drum machine, that can also steer midi with the patterns you can make it in.
It has a built in soundfont sampler and at the time of back then, the only way it generated midi output was when you also had at least one sample loaded for any drum component… so even if you wanted pure external midi steerage by it, you had to set the sampler, and then fiddle with that to not have it sound over your sound.

Brought that up…got basically laughed out of the room.

Or LMMS, an open source DAW that’s a bit like FruityLoops/Studio,
At the time, which was some time ago, sound generation was unlimited (big kudos to renoise for having not only limiting, but settable limiting) and even playing a single triad could easily clip and blow out the sound, depending on the generator/synth.
(the most basic one did that)

I got apologetics all around from that too “just adjust the volume in the synth”
Bro I expect to be able to frikn play a triad without causing a space time wave reinforcement cascade…man.

I expected resistance like this here too, because Renoise is kinda old, but that don’t mean some parts ain’t dumb.
And the more excellent a thing is, the more such dumb parts stand out.

Sure I can ‘work around it’ but …c’mon “a toggle that makes it so phrases aren’t set to “Prog or Map” by default , aka off for user induced instrument loading” is not THAT unhinged.

P.S.:
I fixed most of those things myself with the open source projects (can’t do anything about naming conventions tho)
But I’m too awful of a programmer to make it fit for release to others…

I could do this for myself were Renoise open source, but it would probably just not be to the teams standards.
(unless it coincidentally is good enough)