Song Settings

The Song Settings panel configures options which apply to the whole song, such as general playback behaviour or Groove Settings.

Player Options

When starting a new song in Renoise or loading a relatively new song (saved with Renoise 2.7 or later), the Player Options will look like this:

• Ticks Per Line: Changes the internal event rate for Renoise, stating how many ticks make up a horizontal line in the Pattern Editor. This applies to Sample Effects like re-triggers or volume gates, and also to meta devices like the LFO device, which will use this to determine how often values are updated. This rate also affects automation interpolation, i.e. how often line values are smoothed for playback. In general, the default value of 12 is just fine and makes musical sense (it is divisible by 2, 3 and 4). If you need even higher resolution, you could try a value of 16. Lower values may make your sounds and automation a bit more "rough", which could be useful if that's what you're after.
  
  To adjust the Ticks Per Line as the song is playing, you can use the Pattern Effect ZKxx, where xx is the new TPL in hexadecimal. This can also be Automated on the Master Track.

• Track Headroom: The amount that each track's input is lowered by, which helps avoid clipping in the final mix.

• 0S Mode: Applies only to the 0S effect used in the Pattern Editor. The "Amiga/FT2" option will slice samples into chunks that are 256 bits long, starting from the beginning of the sample. The "Renoise" mode will divide the whole sample into 256 pieces, where 00 is the start of the sample and FF is the start of the final piece. This is mainly a compatibility feature used to achieve slightly better playback for old XM / MOD files.

• Pitch Mode: As with the "0S Mode", this is a compatibility feature for XM / MOD sound files and only applies to pitch related effects in the Pattern Editor. XM / MOD pitches are coarse, while "Renoise" pitches offer much more accuracy.

When opening an old Renoise song (saved with Renoise previous to version 2.0) or loading a MOD, XM or IT song, the Player Options will look like this:

(This shows the panel in Renoise 1.x compatibility mode)

(This shows the panel in Renoise 2.0 - 2.6 compatibility mode)

• Upgrade to latest version - Upgrade the song to the new Renoise 2.0 playback behaviour (mainly using Lines Per Beat instead of the old "Speed" value).

• LPB mode – Set up how Renoise should pass Beat and BPM information on to plugins. Selecting "BPM & Ticks" will cause Renoise to try and double or half the transmitted BPM, depending on the Speed settings used. "Only BPM" will just transmit the set BPM value.
• 0S/Pitch Mode – see Player Options above.

Pattern/Sequence Highlighting

• Highlight every xx lines - Indicates every xxth row in the Pattern Editor with a highlighted colour. When this is set to LPB, Renoise will automatically highlight rows for every beat. This is typically the most useful setting, but other configurations can be helpful depending on the particular song.
• Default pattern length – Set the default pattern length for newly created patterns.
• Highlight every xx blocks - Highlights every xxth block in the Pattern Sequencer.
• Highlight block offset – Start the block highlighting after the stated amount of patterns. Useful to skip an introduction section, for example.

Groove Settings

With the Groove Settings you can shift playback of lines in the pattern back and forth, allowing you to create a swinging feeling for the whole song.

The following diagram demonstrates what each slider does:

In other words, a groove of 25% means the first note will be extended to 125%, while the second note will be shortened to 75% and triggered with a 25% delay, creating the groove/swing. Technically speaking, a 100% groove would mean that the second note is triggered together with the third.

Groove Settings & LPB Settings:

Note that the numbers 0&1, 1&2, 2&3, 3&4 only apply to line numbers when using a Lines Per Beat Setting of 4. If, for example, you used an LPB of 8, then Renoise would apply the first slider setting to lines 0, 1, 2 and 3, and not just 0 and 1.

It's not vitally important to understand the exact technical details here, since groove is about adding a feeling to the beats. The best way to get a feel for the settings is to just play around with them. To make it easier to hear what's going on when you do, try adding something like a steady hi-hat line, which will be triggered fast and often.

Template Song

A Template Song is a special song file which is used as the initial document when Renoise is loaded or when creating a new song. By default, a new song is blank. If, however, you would like every new song to be created with a specific set of tracks, DSPs, instruments and/or MIDI mappings etc, then you can create such a base song and save it as a template.

It is possible to bypass a template song and use a blank one instead without having to delete it. To do this, select "File->New Song (no Template)" from the menu options in the Upper Status Bar.

• Save: Saves the current song as the new template
• Delete: Delete the existing template song (if one is exists)