Clean Machine

[Sam_Zen]

The Edit/Cleanup dialog has several options to remove unused elements, or recalculate the orders.
Cleaning leaves the wanted elements, but there is one option to wipe a whole section : Remove All Instruments.
This results in the situation, that the pattern-score is still there, but the instruments have to be filled in yet.
An opportunity to play the same composition with another ensemble of instruments.

To get a balance in this, it would be nice to be able to wipe the other way around by : Remove All Patterns.
This would offer the opportunity to use the same ensemble and make another composition for it.

A (luxury) fine-tuning to this would be Remove All Duplicate Patterns
because I like to save a module in its 'basic form' as well, as a 'short version' of the composition with all the data.

[Saga Musix]

An extension of "Remove All Duplicate Patterns" would be nice to: It would be cool if openMPT was able to recognize if patterns are identical so it keeps only one copy.

[Sam_Zen]

You're right. I was thinking about patterns with the same number, but of course there could be patterns
with another number, having the same content.

[Relabsoluness]

The ambiguity in word 'pattern' hits again. In 'remove all patterns' it refers to the 'grid with the note data', and in 'Remove All Duplicate Patterns' it refers to the things in the orderlist, right? It's a pity that the word is used in such confusing manner in MPT - it took me years before I came to notice that a pattern exists even if its number is not present in the orderlist.

[Sam_Zen]

You have a point with 'pattern'. But in this case the ambiguity lies maybe also in the word 'duplicate'.
As Jojo added, not only pattern numbers in the orderlist can be similar, but also the 'grid with the note data' of patterns,
having different numbers. A different way of comparing.

I didn't know either, but you're right, a deleted number in the orderlist doesn't make the file smaller.
The pattern can even be retrieved as well by inserting one, and giving it the missing number.
So removing any kind of duplicate wouldn't be much more efficient, so only valid for the playback order.

[Saga Musix]

'Remove All Duplicate Patterns'

Yeah, this should be rather "Remove duplicate patterns in sequence, right?" The thing above the patterns is the sequence, and since it is affected, why should one not insert this in the name?

[Relabsoluness]

The pattern can even be retrieved as well by inserting one, and giving it the missing number.

And with keyshortcuts, it is even possible to change pattern without using the orderlist.

Yeah, this should be rather "Remove duplicate patterns in sequence, right?"

Or avoid the word pattern altogether with 'Remove duplicates from the sequence'

[Sam_Zen]

Sufficient. I support the use of the word 'sequence'.
'Pattern-row' is confusing, because it can also be a line in a single pattern.
'Orderlist' suggests something vertical.

Still, because there are two types of duplicates, a specification of removal has to be made.
Suppose somewhere in the sequence you have .. 6 - 6 - 7 .. While the patterns of 6 and 7 are identical.
Removal of duplicates of number and/or content?

[älskling]

I don't see the point of removing duplicates from the sequence/orderlist/whatever. It seems about as useful as a feature to remove all odd patterns, unique patterns or patterns that start with a C-4, i.e. not at all.

[Saga Musix]

you're probably right about that since one is already able to sort patterns and duplicates can be found easily then...

[bvanoudtshoorn]

So maybe a better option would be "reduce redundancy", which would do the following:

• Replace duplicate patterns (with different numbers) with a single pattern number.
  That is, if pattern x is identical to pattern y, replace them both with pattern z.
  
• Replace duplicate samples with a single sample.
  
• Replace duplicate instruments with a single instrument.
  

So basically, you'd be taking out all duplicate data from the file.

[Sam_Zen]

A nice concept, "reduce redundancy", but the first * one is not about reducing but about replacing.
2 älskling
You're right about the usefulness of the removal of the type of your examples.
But cleaning is not output-song related. It's removing things that are not necessary for the basic composition.
You can compose a pattern-order of 4-5-6-6-7. The removal of that second nr 6 pattern doesn't affect
the base material of your composition. This 'compressed' version can be archived as the 'base' composition
with all the codes and sounds, and the basic pattern order. The material.
Then you could decide: This time : 4-5-6-6-6-6-7.

Jojo brings up the other clean-function "sort patterns". This probably would be disturbing the previous cleaning
function of replacing x-y by z-z. After "sort patterns" this will become x-x I guess.

[älskling]

You can compose a pattern-order of 4-5-6-6-7. The removal of that second nr 6 pattern doesn't affect the base material of your composition. This 'compressed' version can be archived as the 'base' composition with all the codes and sounds, and the basic pattern order. The material.

I disagree that there is a "base" composition, changing the pattern order by adding, removing or reordering patterns in the sequence just changes the composition, it doesn't compress not makes it more "pure" or whatever. Then again, I should care more about issues than semantics.

[Harbinger]

The Edit/Cleanup dialog has several options to remove unused elements, or recalculate the orders.
Cleaning leaves the wanted elements, but there is one option to wipe a whole section : Remove All Instruments.
This results in the situation, that the pattern-score is still there, but the instruments have to be filled in yet.
An opportunity to play the same composition with another ensemble of instrumentsTo get a balance in this, it would be nice to be able to wipe the other way around by : Remove All Patterns.
This would offer the opportunity to use the same ensemble and make another composition for it..

Hear, hear! In sequencing this is called thinning, and we definitely need a few more options for this. We need to be able to filter out notes or other pattern data, instruments/samples from a song, even patterns. We should be able to use an expanded version of the Find/Replace command to filter our deletions.

[Sam_Zen]

The Find/Replace tool could be luxury useful in this, but it would be quite a complicated routine to perform.
Don't forget, it's not only just some ascii-strings, but also maybe some audio-data to be replaced, plus settings.