Pattern editor

In the Pattern editor, you do all your real composing work. You work on your patterns, note positions and heights etc. here

A song must have at least one pattern (although almost all songs have way more).
The default length of a pattern is 64 lines (rows), but you can easily change this number by clicking the left and right arrows next to "Pattern length" in the Position editor.

Screen displays (from top-left to bottom right)

• Edit On/Off

  Shows if Edit/Record mode is active or not.

• Track names

  Each track can have name and can be renamed. Click with left mouse button to rename.

• Green Play/Red Mute

  Double click with left mouse to mute/unmute a track. Double click with the right mouse button to play a track solo or enable all tracks back. Muting a track stops all notes, but you can still play notes via the keyboard on it.

• Number next to the Play/Mute indicator

  This is the Track number.

• White arrows

  Click on them to open/close extended note and effect columns.

• White Play label

  If you use multiple note-columns within a Track, you can switch a particular column on and off here.

Holding the mouse button and moving the mouse will mark a block.

Pattern column format

Here is an example of one track's columns:

C-4 01 02 03 0423

• Note column

  contains 'C-4'. This means a 'C' note, at octave 4

• Instrument Nr.

  contains 01. This means instrument 01 is playing.

• Volume column

  contains 02. This means instrument volume is set to value 02.

• Pan column

  contains 03. Sets stereo pan (balance between left and right speaker).

• Effect column

  contains 0423 . 04 is the command number, 23 is the parameter for that command number.

All pattern command references are in the Pattern effect commands section.

Using the pattern editor

It's very simple. First load some samples (or load a song - demo or tutorial song). Select the instrument you wish to use in (3) Instrument selector and test it by pressing the virtual piano keys. Move the pattern cursor (highlighted block) in the note column of the track you wish to edit (Arrow Keys). Click on Edit on/off to set edit mode to On. Now you can enter notes by playing them on virtual piano keys (or using a MIDI keyboard). Press Del to delete notes and Ins to insert them. To stop note playback or cut looped instrument insert a Note OFF command (Caps Lock). Press play to hear what you just entered.

If you prefer to record notes rather than edit them, activate Edit mode and press play. Now, when you press keys, they will be recorded into the track as it plays.

When you enter a note in track, an instrument number appears automatically next to it. If you need to, you can change it manually and then you'll get another instrument playing the same notes.

Its also possible to expand the notes-columns and effect-columns within a track. To do so, press the corresponding arrow below the track name. Imagine, you want to enter some chords and let them use the same DSP's. Usually you would spread 3 notes over 3 tracks and assign them same DSP effects or route them to a Send Track. With the note-expand feature, you can add up to 12 note-columns to a track, so you can play chords on one track. The Effect row can be expanded to 4 columns, so you can use 4 effects at the same time (although we recommend using track-envelopes, which aren't limited to 4 'columns').

There are many keyboard shortcuts for the pattern editor, we suggest you use them to work faster!

Effect columns and Automation

If you're new to Automation, we suggest that you read the Automation part first.

However, Effect columns have been left for compatibility with older trackers like FastTracker 2 and because they give power users much better control of each track. However, most of the time you probably won't even have to use these effect numbers. Renoise supports a much better way of entering such value changes - called Track Envelopes. This is a way more powerful and an easier way to get the effect results you want.

If you prefer effect columns you can type them manually. But we don't recommend that because it usually takes a lot more than creating an Automation curve.
The easier way to get effects implemented in a track is to record them by moving the sliders of a DSP effect with the right mouse button. If you press the left shift key additionally, Renoise will automatically record the slider settings in a new Automation curve! You can also enter effects so that they spread throughout a whole pattern by using the effect interpolation keyboard shortcut. Enter a start effect value, enter an end value, mark it as a block and interpolation will fill the missing effect column values, so you don't have to fill them manually. This makes manual effect insertion a lot easier.

The Master track

The Master track is a special kind of track in pattern editor. We've already discussed this track in the Effects part of the Quickstart section. You can define effects in this track that will be applied to the entire song. For example, if you insert equaliser (EQ) in this track and tweak its value the whole song will be sent through this EQ.
This track is great for mastering purposes like using a compressor, reverb, or other effects etc..
Note that the effect row can only affect the DSP stack. I.e. you cannot apply arpeggio effects for the whole pattern right here.

The Master track has some special features.

• DC Filter

  Removes master DC (Direct Current) offset. Calculates average middle and centers master output wave (song) to zero (instead of leaving it offseted so that "zero" is somewhere up or down of real digital zero).

• Declipper

  Works as a hard limiter. If the master signal is too loud it will reduce the amount of distortion which would be introduced without this filter by smoothing the waveform edges that are over the maximum sample value limit. We do not recommend using this feature, since it might cause your song to sound distorted.

• Dither

  Smoothens the output of low volumes by dithering them (noise shaping). Low volumes use very few bits for sample definition so may introduce more amount of unwanted frequencies in sound. This happens when reducing internal 32-bit mixing to outputting 16-bits - using dither improves quality of output. Note that dithering employs psycho acoustic effect and inserts intentional noise into wave - but the resulting wave sounds more natural.

Send tracks

We told you already in the Effects part what Send tracks are, so if you don't know what they are, please read that section first.

By using Send tracks you can also optimize CPU usage - if you insert a reverb DSP with same settings on 10 tracks it will be calculated 10 times. If you insert it into a send track it will be calculated once and you can setup several tracks to pass their output to that particular send track.

Organisation of track usage

Renoise has an option to rename track names to anything you wish. As you will probably not need more than 8 tracks for drums we recommend that you use the first 8 tracks for drums and give them appropriate names. Track 9 might be bass, then string, piano, whatever. If you don't use all these tracks for drums it is no big deal to Renoise to play the empty tracks, but it might be a great deal for you to know where you can locate your drums, hihats, strings etc. So combine track names with such track usage to locate your tracks quickly.

Hexadecimal numbers

You may have noted that numbers can look weird: they show values like 1C or so. If you know all about hex numbers you can safely skip this part, if not here is a little explanation. It is a little specific thing about all trackers you have to adapt to but you will learn it really quickly and it's not a big deal anyway. The point is that by using Hex numbers you can write bigger numbers with less characters (space saving is important). Otherwise you would have tracks with long numbers which would occupy too much screen width (and you want to see as much tracks as possible). If you have more than a few effect columns the reasons for hex numbers are even more obvious.

All you need to know about hex numbers is that they have base 16 instead of base 10 like "normal" decimal numbers. That means they have 16 different digits. They are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and then A,B,C,D,E and F. Here are few examples:

• 01 hex =01 dec
• 0A hex =10 dec (one decimal digit is added after all digits (0-9) are used up)
• 0F hex =15 dec (last hex digit before new one)
• 10 hex =16 dec (here hex adds one digit as it is used all hex digits (0-F)
• 1F hex =31 dec etc.

Now, this may look intimidating but don't worry - you won't have to even think about such conversions. For example: the volume column volume can take value 00-40 hex. If you want full volume it's 40. Half would be 20. 25% would be 10. Appropriate decimal numbers would be 64, 32 and 16. In this case it is even easier to set appropriate volume in hex value. However, if this all seems too complicated for you, try Instrument envelopes and track envelopes where you can draw the same volume change graphically. Or you can try to record a DSP volume slider with right mouse button, and Renoise will make the conversion to appropriate hex values automatically.

And finally, don't worry too much about effect columns and hex numbers if you are a beginner. You will learn to use them in time, whereas in the beginning you will probably rarely need them.

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