Hi,
I've been asked if Renoise can somehow be used to control LSDJ similar to how I described using Renoise with mgb in this post: http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/9131/ … -with-mgb/
Namely triggering instruments etc, combining the tracking and effects of Renoise with the sounds and capabilities of LSDJ
Instead of replying privately I thought I might as well share my answer with everybody in case anybody else might benefit from this. My answer is in parts building on things I've described in the other post.
Using LSDJ and Renoise together in that way isn't really possible unfortunately. You can't simply send notes or pattern effects etc. to LSDJ and expect it to know what to do with them. That means you won't be able to control, say, instruments you set up in LSDJ with Renoise.
That's certainly a bummer, but not all is lost, there are limited ways in which you can make Renoise and LSDJ work together. Both of them will require you though to set up your song in LSDJ itself.
(1) You can use Renoise Effects on the sounds you made in LSDJ if you use panning to create two distinct audio channels. This requires no MIDI at all.
How it works:
You write a song in LSDJ on the Game Boy, treating the right and left channel as separate audio channels rather than stereo. That provides you with two separate audio paths that you can process with Renoise effects individually. You then use an audio cable to get the sound of the Game Boy into your sound card and set renoise up with two tracks, one for the left and one for the right audio channel. Follow my original howto for mgb (Paragraph starting with "If you've not set the external sound card as an input device...") for that part, just don't set the Line input devices to MIDI return mode. Then when you hit play on the Game Boy the right and left channels will both play at the center in Renoise. If you now add effects to the device chains left and right tracks you get different processing for the two audio routes.
Simple example:
You have a drum track and a lead in LSDJ. You set up the drum track to play on the right channel only, and the lead to play left only. In Renoise you add reverb to the left track and distortion to the right. Now you have distorted crunchy drums and reverb on your lead.
Bonus points for:
Using a renoise XY control device or a simple MIDI controller like the Korg nanokontrol to tweak the parameters live.
(2) You can do everything described above but also automate the parameters in a synchronized and repeatable fashion.
How it works:
Do everything as above, but use MIDI to synchronize Renoise with LSDJ, either through an Arduinoboy or through the nanoloop USB MIDI adapter. That means Renoise is the master of speed and playback now, when you press start in Renoise your LSDJ song will start to play at the BPM set in Renoise. That gives you the possibility to go beyond static effects and use automation curves to vary them over time in a synchronized way.
Simple example:
To your lead from before add a lowpass filter. Make an automation curve that slowly cranks up the cutoff. Then when you play the song (by pressing play in Renoise) it will automatically ramp up as your song progresses.
You can go crazy with this, like adding accents to single notes, changing effects entirely between different parts by turning effects on and off, etc. It's going to be a bit of a blind flight because you won't see any of the notes or patterns you set up in LSDJ in your Renoise interface, so it would be a good idea to set up Renoise in a way that mimics the structure of LSDJ with 16 step long patterns and matching lines per beat so you can count patterns and notes to place your automation curves at the right times.
Bonus points for:
Tweaking the effects manually while your song is playing and recording it to automation curves in Renoise for later playback.
Hope somebody got something out of my description. Feel free to add to this article with your own ideas how to combine the benefits of LSDJ and Renoise.