(After search, i found this similar request (http://forum.openmpt.org/index.php?topic=3527.msg29254#msg29254). But i'm back to composing by computer keyboard, so it's different in that respect.)
Altho many tracker users can't read a lick of music (which attracts them to tracking), for those of us who can, the ability to enter notes (as in notes in a score) would make using a tracker a lot easier. Altho sequencing software does this innately, trackers do not. For MPT, the Row Jump setting is the closest to note length we can get.
What would make orchestration (and transcription) a lot faster would be to have note stops entered automatically based on a quantize setting. For example, if i wanted to enter a quarter note staccato (the note is shortened before reaching the end of the quarter beat), the long-hand way of doing it now is to set the Row Jump at 2 (in this example, each row equals a 16th note), enter the note, then enter a note stop. For a long series of these notes, it can be time consuming. What if i had an eighth note the first beat of every measure? You end up navigating more than actually entering notes.
What would be helpful is a separate setting that enters a note stop automatically. Perhaps the user can select the type of note stop he wants to use, but the value of the "note rest" is a value (less than the Row Jump setting) which marks how many rows after the note entry to place the note stop.
So to enter an eighth note every half measure, the Row Jump setting might be 16 (assuming there's 32 rows in a measure), but the AutoStop setting would be 4.
I think this won't work in a tracker, because a tracker has NNA's. A sequencer doesn't know something like: what would I do if I see a new note? Cancel the previous one or perhaps let it go this time?
If you have NNA's set to cut the note, it will basically do what you suggest if you have notes following in the same manner.
But lets say that it would do what you say, it would have to take into account that a note could get cut earlier if the NNA is set so, or would cause problems if the NNA is set to continue, in which case the new note cut command will not trigger the right note because the note is being played in a virtual channel.
The best thing I can think of is ensuring that the note itself is being played shortly, and then set the NNA to continue. You don't need to work with note cuts at all. Just either set an instrument envelope that cuts after x ticks, or if you use VSTi's, try to get the same using attack and decay settings (I know, this is not optimal)
What exactly are NNAs and row jumps? I am guessing that the "A" stands for acoustics. I am also guessing that the "row jumps" are pattern breaks.
NNA = New Note Action
Well, NNA's won't really help. All my suggestion does is simply insert a note stop (whatever you've configured) at a certain point after you enter a note.
Quote from: Really Weird Person on November 19, 2010, 13:04:54
What exactly are NNAs and row jumps? I am guessing that the "A" stands for acoustics. I am also guessing that the "row jumps" are pattern breaks.
Dude, i spent a lot 2 years writing up a manual to cover these basic things. It's now downloadable from these forums or from sourceforge. Please get your hands on it ... so i won't feel like all that work was in vain. :D
Quote from: Harbinger on November 22, 2010, 20:26:36
Well, NNA's won't really help
I think one thing LPChip implied wasn't that NNAs should help, but that NNAs destroy the whole concept of note lengths.