Zoomable Automation Editor

Hello, quick suggestion for the RNS dev crew. I’ve been using your software a lot, for years, and even with 2.0 I still have to put in long automation fades across multiple patterns. Not a complaint but an observation because I’m absolutely tied to this software by now and hate all other sequencers.

I typically compose in pattern blocks of 2 or 4 depending on pattern length, and it’s melodic ambient so I do a lot of long volume fades and automation changes. If you’re working with a 4 pattern loop that’s sometimes 4-6 envelopes to get from 0-100% of a param. If you don’t like the way it sounds, you’re back editing multiple envelopes. Compare against Ableton Arranger view where you just draw one envelop in.

I reckon this is one of the big remaining disadvantages between horizontal and vertical sequencing. With horizontal your automation is all just in front of you on the timeline… Ableton, Logic etc. With RNS it’s in chunks (patterns).

SUGGESTION - create an automation editor that is zoomable beyond the extents of the pattern. The pattern start/end points would be marked of course but you could zoom out up to X patterns and use those lovely curve spline things to draw in a perfect volume fade over a period of minutes if you wanted. Programmatically, the zoomable automation editor could then write individual envelopes to each pattern, thus preserving the current format. Or something.

note - This has probably been raised before by someone at some time over the years, I did a quick search before posting. Regular forum users, don’t jump on me for being redundant.

best,
Aia

We hear you and yes it has been suggested a few times.
Indeed, a logarithmic spline redefined spanned across two or three patterns is a bit clunky.

Also how this should be implemented depends on how the arranger changes are put through, automation is just a part of the bunch, fixing one area means you got to apply a related solution to other areas as well to prevent loosing logical sense or worse, causing problems there.