Work in progress: Piano roll

Renoise Tools
87

I would have an easier time selling friends on Renoise if there was a piano roll.
It would really ease the learning curve.

You mean, remove the learning curve. Because if they were only interested in Renoise because it had a Piano Roll, they would proceed to just treat it like any other daw, and record into the piano roll, bypassing the Tracker and thereby relegating Renoise to being a redundant sub-DAW instead of being what it is, a Tracker…

if there was a branching universe in which Renoise released a Piano Roll, I’d bet my imaginary fortune that this is what would happen:

  1. people begging for Piano Roll finally get it

  2. people who finally got their Piano Roll immediately start demanding / asking “when when when” for dozens of piano-roll related functions and features that every single ‘standard’ DAW already has

Truly a great direction for Renoise to take. Fortunately, this is just in my hypothetical universe conjecture, and in the actual world, the devs know better :wink:

88

The way I see it, the real issue here is that too many guys who’re in “tracker exclusive” mode seem unwilling to sharpen their skills bylearning multiple tools formusic production.And that attitude leads to a lot of pain and frustration when you need features such as native side-chaining or time-streching(for example) in your workflow, and it’s not there inRenoise.

I bet most such tracker exclusiveusers who “hate the stupid pianoroll” are rooted in that camp simply because their experience of using a pianoroll in conventional DAWs makes it painfully obvious to them that there is still much to learn and master out there. It’s an ego thing, really. The pianorollfeelsintimidatingif one masters only tracking,just as the trackerfeels intimidatingif onemasters only the pianoroll.

Butbothhave their respective strengths and weaknesses depending on what you want to do, and you’re much better off in terms of production and flexibility in today’s world of possibilities if youcouldmaster both.

IMO what would be better than a pianoroll in Renoise would be more common bridge options tointeract with other DAWs, such asexporting midifilesby drag and drop of selection to the file browser (and vice versa). Maybe also more power togo even deeper in the customization of the Renoise experience (API, graphics, and more).

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89

Haters really gonna hate. Even a piano roll TOOL is too threatening. Let’s start derailing the topic, shall we?

Well said!

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90

Shame was looking forward to having the ability to Piano Roll in Renoise.

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91

Huh ? It’s simply a different way of entering and representing notes. I’ve used both and like both but since I no longer play any instrument, the tracker workflow is much simpler and faster. If I was to record midi, piano roll sequencer would be the way to go. Same goes for recording audio.

The only reason for the absence of piano roll in Renoise is probably no way of elegantly and easily integrating it and not some kind of prejudice. Also since there are countless sequencers with piano roll out there, its addition is not going to make Renoise stand out from the crowd. People are not going to abandon their sequencers and move to Renoise because it gained a piano roll. Therefore from the standpoint of the developer, it may not be an important feature.

92

I must say that I use both things with Renoise, the Pattern Editor (tracker) and the Piano Roll Editor tool. So this discussion of what is better or worse no longer makes sense. We can already use both with Renoise.

If you are skilled with keyboard commands, you can compose like a bullet with Renoise. You can also record notes accurately by interpreting through the MIDI input. But having the Piano Roll Editor you to visualize the notes on a plane. This is magnificent! You locate the notes very quickly. This is tremendously useful for editing notes already written. In addition it does not come alone, but it is loaded with great complements, like the Chord Builder.

In addition, the Piano Roll Editor is a complete and quite direct editor, very easy to use with the mouse and also includes many keyboard commands and compatibility with MIDI input. It is a great tool that is currently maintained.

So we already have both worlds thanks to this tool. If someone gets bored when they get here, download and try the Piano Roll Editor tool.

93

Yea, in RN there are options to enter notes with a mouse, if you get tired of keyboard, and go back to keyboard when you get tired of the mouse. If you’re not recording midi, in a typical DAW you can only use mouse for note entering which can get pretty tedious.

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I still would be very interested in trying the OP’s tool. Looks to me like a very solid piano roll!

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95

To further clarify, notes from a piano roll that can overlap and have fined tuned, resolution independent, unquantized beginning and end can not be represented in the same way in a simple tracker. So if you are asking for a PR in Renoise, you are asking for the pattern editor to be reworked. If you want to keep the pattern editor as is, then you are asking for a half-assed solution.

There are trackers like Aodix and Radium with events in the pattern editor that result in more fiddly note editing (IMHO). So you can either have a simple and easy to use tracker with some limitations, or event based more difficult to use pattern editor that is compatible with a piano roll. Take your pick. If you know of an elegant solution to this then I’m all ears. I’m not surprised that there is no PR in RN.

With Lua we can add step sequencers but not a true piano roll.

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Did you even look at the video in the first post?

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Nope :slight_smile: I don’t think I need to. I’m assuming that notes from PR that end up in RN are approximation not 1:1 representation.

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I think it would be good to agree on what a true/good piano roll would be. My opinions…

  1. Draggable/adjustable notes displayed with “analogue precision” - e g not a step sequencer - being a 1:1 representation of the pattern editor (Possible)
  2. Resizable window, modifier keys (Half-assed compromises possible)
  3. Complex editing, like mouse-drag selection of multiple notes, making them adjustable and draggable as a group. (Possible but borderline unrealistic due to the complexity required)

Edit: The resolution being 256 steps per line is a given, but that seems quite acceptable to me.

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99

If you want to be able to edit exactly the same notes in both tracker and piano roll, not to have notes translated from PR to pattern editor, the tracker part has to be able to display and edit resolution independent events. That’s just not what classical trackers do and that’s what RN essentially is.

100

Some observations.
I’m looking at how to translate this to a real case of graphical interface. Let’s say the case that is a horizontal roll piano. If you put a resolution of 256 per line, we can say that a line is 256 pixels (although this is very small), which is approximately 6 or 7cm on your screen (depending on the resolution). That is, to cover a pattern of 512 lines, this pattern would have a length of 256 pixels by 512 lines, which are 131072 pixels (6 cm x 512 lines is 3072 cm to cover a pattern). The graphical interface should have a huge zoom.

This in practice hinders the work flow, although it seems otherwise. The effective thing is to be able to insert and erase notes like a bullet, or change their position.

If you want to make millimeter adjustments to the length of the note or its position in the sequence, it can be grossly tedious with the mouse. It is even easier to select the line and modify its delay, as Renoise is designed. Unless you have a superzoom and be very fluid and easy to handle.

The other problem is the visible display of the notes, because each track contains 12 columns of notes. If you start putting notes with very long duration you are hiding other notes from other columns of notes. This is a real representation problem.

Honestly, I think that the only way to make a real piano roll effective for Renoise, is to respect the design of the tracker, which shows one note per line (the shot of the note and the stop of the note). Making slices on a line graphically is somewhat exaggerated. I refer to the control with the mouse.

On the subject of drag and drop notes it only makes sense to modify the shooting time or its duration, but not to change the tone. No need to drag and drop to change the tone.

Another thing that I consider important is that the mouse should not have several switches to change the way you edit, for example, a switch to divide a note. For what? Insert the same note tone in the middle and you’re done. For me, a true piano roll in this case is that which best fits Renoise’s design, not “a copy” of the pianorolls of other DAWs. The main reason is that you should be able to visually jump from the pattern editor to the Piano Roll and “see the same”, something equivalent. That you know where to go to rectify any value.

But I am aware that all of us can have several concepts of Piano Rolls for Renoise. But do not forget that a track contains 12 note columns, and that is necessary to represent it without hiding too much information. Now imagine representing several tracks.

With the API available, it is only possible to use “buttons” to represent the notes, because it will be necessary to color them. You can not make all the notes have the same color, because that is not understood! And bitmaps are not feasible here.

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I’m not sure what you’re getting at regarding the button colors being a problem. That’s how all other piano rolls are designed, and it’s never been a problem.

Also, fine-nudging should work quite well while holding ctrl when mouse warping is on (xypad). That’s how you get sub-pixel precision of move movements. Having a square xypad isn’t that fun (needed to circumvent weird x/y mouse speed), but you should be able to crop it and do the maths needed.

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Hi! Shame on me for abandoning this. Now I returned. I found that there is still interest in the tool. Actually, was working on it for about a week. Reworked almost all code. The look of pianoroll didn’t change much, but grows in functionality and performance. I remember that before the break I was fixed on some unnecessary things. I look at my selection of modes in the old video (“glide”, “roll”,“jump”) without enthusiasm. Now I’m going to concentrate on what really pianoroll needs.

I see that meanwhile Raul came up with his own pianoroll. Congrats! But I suppose it doesn’t make my tool obsolete.

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103

Hi there and welcome back on the tracks! ^^
Due to the recurring number of piano roll topics here, I’m sure that if you finish your tool, this will have success! :slight_smile:

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104

Not obsolete at all frenetic_friend, it can be as simple as you like or perhaps there are things that can make it stand out in it’s own right. Best of luck with it.

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Thanks! I didn’t mean that it will be simple, rather that I don’t want to be carried away anymore by things that could exist as separate tool

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and also don’t want to impress viewer with extralarge selection of modes. I.e. removed “cut” mode, you can cut notes in “draw” mode.