Procedurally Generated Music – Part 4: Song Structure
Friday May 17th 2024
Is it possible to procedurally generate the actual song structure using nothing more than the native Renoise effects? Let’s find out.
Is it possible to procedurally generate the actual song structure using nothing more than the native Renoise effects? Let’s find out.
It’s possible to create complex instruments and music without ever touching the Keyzones section of the Sampler. However, if you want to control how different samples are played across a range of notes and velocities then that instrument will need to make use of Keyzones.
Scale & key can be changed over the course of a song’s structure using the existing song seeding. However, there’s a number of hurdles to overcome before it all works properly.
Time to start turning this into my own song by using the full Stepper range to control the Panning, Pitch and Filter domains of the percussion instruments.
The Maybe Melodies tutorial song uses randomness to drive most of its music. I figure out how to replace this with procedural generation so different seed numbers create different versions of the song, but using the same seed always plays the same song.
I noticed something interesting about the velocity of retriggered notes – Rxy – when the x value is something other than 0 or 8. They transmit different versions depending on whether there’s an accompanying note or not.
The Repeater captures a chunk of sound from what’s playing, but odd timings make it impossible to write music to match it. But what if you could, for example, have the kick drum follow exactly what the Repeater is doing? This tool inserts notes into the Pattern Editor that match Repeater timings. It can be done manually or by linking to a Repeater and using its effect commands to track the changes made.
Keyword: A Spider’s Thread is a puzzle/investigation game that brings together a set of ideas in a very satisfying way. But a disproportionate amount of work put into one aspect of the game prevents it from reaching the heights of its peers.
Triggering samples in the Note-Off layer has some restrictions that you need to deal with, and getting the most out of it requires creatively incorporating some more advanced features. So in this video we’ll work through a few examples to hopefully inspire you to create your own techniques.
Improving on the method created in Part 1, this version has a few advantages. Due to some extra considerations though, accurately setting up the LFO is a little trickier. The song created in the video is available for download.