Pattern editor

Related topics
Intro to recording into Renoise
Pattern sequencer/arranger

Advanced editing tools
Rendering a selected area to a sample-slot
DSP-chain in general
Controlling meta/dsp/vst devices using Automation
Controlling meta/dsp/vst devices using pattern effect-commands
Song properties and groove settings


In order to understand editing and recording in Renoise, you should know how the pattern-editor works and how tracks are assembled.
First we will discuss the general terms and settings that apply to the pattern editor.

Patterns

You can think of a pattern as similar to one page of sheet music.
A pattern could contain four measures of notes or more. It may contain notes for just one instrument, or it may contain notes for multiple instruments. This depends on the arrangement tastes of the composer.
Each score line can be filled with notes from a range of 10 octaves (0 - 9).
A score line in a Pattern is called a Track. Just as a composer may indicate what instrument a line of music is written for – in a Renoise track, you can define the instrument number of the instrument the inputted notes are to trigger. A pattern may contain one or more tracks, but each track can also contain subtracks for to allow notes to be played simultaneously (as chords, for example). If you know how sheet music works, you will get the hang of this construction in no time. If you don’t know how sheet music works, forget about it and start on this page :)
Each pattern has a pattern size. The default size is 64 lines (or 3F in hexadecimal format). The default size is calculated at 4 beats per measure, but you can change this value to any size you like. To change the pattern size, click the text box in the upper-left corner of the pattern editor drag the mouse up or down, or double-click it and enter the value manually.

To toggle the format of the position number between decimal and hexadecimal, go to the menu bar, select edit → Preferences, select the GUI tab, and click the hex or dec button. You’ll notice the instant change in the row position numbers on the left-most and right-most sides of the pattern editor.

You can customize other GUI effects relevant to the operation of the pattern editor. The background highlight color marks every xth line in the pattern (Preferences menu, Color theme tab, select the pattern editor’s highlight and highlight back in the Color Settings panel) depending upon the desired timing of your song. If you want to compose a 3 beat-measured song, set your highlighter to highlight every 3 lines. (Preferences menu, then tab GUI, Pattern font panel).

Tracks

There are three different types of general track in renoise:

 Note Track

 Send Track

 Master Track

Adding / subtracting / moving / duplicating tracks
Adding either a note- or effectcolumn is accomplished by holding lshift + lctrl and then pressing right arrow to add one column or left arrow to delete a column.

To add or remove a whole track in the pattern at the current cursor position (or current track), press lctrl-t to add a track and lshift-lctrl-t to remove the track the cursor is in. (Watch the track names in the next example)

Adding a track will add the type of track the pattern cursor is currently in. To add a send-track, for instance, go to a send-track and then insert a track at that point: a new send track will be being added/inserted.
If you want to play it safe while adding a notecolumn because you’re afraid to mix up the key combos (deleting a column instead of adding one), use the right mouse button and pick the option “Add notecolumn”. Also, if you don’t want to tab across five notecolumns and then slide over to the effectcolumn to add one, it can also be quicker in this case to do a right-click and select the “add effectcolumn” option. Remember that a misfortunate action can always be undone with ctrl-z, this also goes for (sub)track deletion.

The same goes for adding or subtracting tracks.

To duplicate a track, enter lctrl-d in the pattern editor and a track with the same subtrack and effect column parameters is created next to it.
If you also want to duplicate the whole track’s contents throughout the whole song, then press lctrl-lalt-d in the pattern editor. The complete track structure will be copied to the newly created track (i.e. every specific pattern data for that track is copied in that new track inside that specific pattern!).

Drag-and-Drop
Renoise has a couple of drag-and-drop features. The pattern editor has the ability to drag and drop tracks (shuffling track positions). You can also drag and drop note selections from one track to another, or from one area to a different insertion point within the same track.

Drag-and-Drop tracks

Drag & Drop notes
To drag the selected area, hold your left mouse-button for a few seconds with the mouse cursor above the selected area to enable drag mode. The mouse-icon will show a small block to indicate drag-mode is on. Consult the Advanced Edit mode part to read about how Section to Process works.

Track construction

If you examine the note-track image in the table above, you will notice some contents, let’s have a closer look at the details:

Each track consists of the basic components named above:

• note - in the form of note-letter and octave-number such as: C-4 or A#3.
• instrument number - identifies which instrument from the list is to be played.
• Volume column - in this column you can set the volume for each note played, or you can use 9x and ax commands (volume slide up and down) and the Fx command (volume-cut). - Volume column effects apply to the individual note next to it.
• Panning column - In this column you can set each panning value for each note played. Commands in panning column are: 0–80 (00=left, 40=center, 80=right), 9x - Panning slide left, Ax - Panning slide right, B0 - play sample backwards (TIP: can be used in combination with 09xx effect command), B1 - play sample forward again (TIP:can be used in combination with 09xx command), Dx - delay note x ticks. (depends upon the song-speed, the slower the song, the higher the possible value), Ex - retrigger note, Fx - cut note after X-ticks. - Panning column effects apply to the individual note next to it
• Effectcolumn - Here you enter all your effects from 01xx up to Fxxx. You can consult the manual list of effects that comes with the Renoise manual for what each effect does. You can also type an effect in the effectcolumn and the status bar below will tip you on its action and its value range you can use. - Effect column effects apply to all current notes on the whole row in the complete track
• Each column has its own color syntax.
• Various effect commands are categorised in groups and each effect group has its own colour syntax.
  This goes for the effect commands in general so also in the volume/panning column as well.

Note(s) Some effects (like delay) also depend upon the speed and bpm settings. E.g.: With a speed of 03 and a bpm 128, you can reach a maximum Dx value of about 3 (D3) or effect 0D03, but when you set the speed to 10 (much slower) at the same BPM rate, you can set the delay value a lot higher.

By default the panning column does not show in the tracks because it is hidden.
To toggle the panning column, press the lctrl+lshift+p keycombination or toggle the most right button on the track controls in the control panel:

Converting DSP slider values to effect commands
Parameter values are linked to either an effect command or an automation point when the green icon is lit next to the DSP sliders in the DSP panel. You will see the sliders move when playing the pattern or hitting the enter-key on any of the rows within the track inside the pattern:

Note that the Reso/Q. parameter has the automation value icon and the Cutoff parameter has the effect command value icon. This indicates that the Reso/Q. parameter slider is being modulated by an automation node and the Cutoff slider will be changed by an effect command. If you add these values by hand, the icon will turn green as well if the values are inside the current pattern. If no alteration is being made simply because the values aren’t in the current selected pattern, the icon turns white. If no alterations are made at all for the slider, the icon will be blank. A combination of effect commands and automation commands applied to different or the same slider will be indicated with a combined automation / effect icon: .

To have the DSP value recorded to an effect command, toggle the record DSP sliders to envelopes or pattern-commands button to .
To make it record the value to an automation point, toggle it to .

A right-click on each dsp slider sends its current value to either the effect column or the automation curve (depending how you set the previous toggle button). You can also assign a MIDI controller to these sliders. Instead of one value, all values during recording are sent to either the automation curve or the effectcolumn.



The details

You probably will not enter all notes, instrument numbers, volumes, pannings, and effects by hand. The days of such work are pretty much over.

You record them when record-mode and play-mode are both enabled. Depending on configuration settings, volumes, delay values, and related instrument numbers are automatically placed in their proper places with the measured values.
Volumes are related to the velocity recording setting within the MIDI-configuration settings. A delay is recorded if the “Record Note Delays” button is triggered. (lshift-`) For every later-timed note you hit on your keyboard during recording, a delay will be set to the current delay-position of that row. You can also record the DSP slider settings to either automation curves or to effect commands, but this will be covered in another page. There are some tricks around the corner to change this effect value recording status to any of the three available: recording to automation envelope, effect command, or combined.

Once you are done with recording, you start shaping up your pattern by patching notes that fell out of the rhythm timeline, volumes that were recorded a little lower than desired and certain recorded slide effects that do not slide as you wanted them to. This is when you do that by hand, but if you perform well on your live input, you’ll have to do less patching. Within the patching, however, lies the art of making your song.

Related topics
Intro to recording into Renoise
Pattern sequencer/arranger

Advanced editing tools
Rendering a selected area to a sample-slot
DSP-chain in general
Controlling meta/dsp/vst devices using Automation
Controlling meta/dsp/vst devices using pattern effect-commands
Song properties and groove settings

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