Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard Shortcuts

Renoise has an enormous amount of keyboard shortcuts. In the previous topics we often only noted a few important shortcuts. There are far more shortcuts available in Renoise to avoid that you have to use the mouse at all, if that's what you want. There are even lots of shortcuts available, which are not assigned by default, in case they fit into someones workflow.

Keyboard Focus Concept

Renoise utilizes a short-cut focus handling system for keyboard shortcuts. This means that the keyboard shortcuts available to you at any particular time will vary according to the area currently in focus.

You can perform shortcut commands in each area of renoise. To know in which area you are currently working, Renoise surrounds the area with corner tags... "Scope tages". So keyboard shortcuts for the instrument list for instance will only apply if the instrument list has keyboard focus thus the corner tags are visible around the area.

To change the short-cut focus area, you can either click the middle-mouse button, or use the shortcut combinations [ctrl+tab] or [shift+ctrl+tab] to forward or go back. If the "Single click mouse navigation" is turned on in the GUI-preferences, you can also instantly focus upon the pattern editor using one single left-mouseclick.

Global vs. Local Shortcuts

Some shortcuts can be applied globally, regardless of the focus area (like: you can also perform pattern sequencer related actions in the pattern editor to name one example). Other shortcuts are specific to certain areas and have no equivalent in other areas. "Global" does not always mean "Define once" and execute everywhere. A global shortcut has the same assignment tree in more than one area. If you unfold the Pattern Editor tree, you will find a node called "Pattern Sequencer". This same pattern sequencer you can also find underneath the "Mixer" and the "Pattern Matrix" for example. If you make changes to a global shortcut, you have to apply the changes to all the other areas as well.

So, if you would like to change the "global" behaviour of a shortcut, you are required to make the changes in the keyboard short-cut preferences on the other different areas where this shortcut is assigned as well.

Customizing and Printing Shortcuts

In Renoises preferences you can customize all keyboard shortcuts by your own, and also print the current set of shortcuts.

To print your shortcuts, simply click the File:Vvoois renoise preferences keys print.png button in this dialog:

keyboard preferences

And you will have the most actual key layout in printable form in your default browser (*), even including your customised key layouts. Note that the printing format is different from what you see in the browser, just hit File and then Print preview in your browser to see the layout that is being send to paper.

List Of Default Shortcuts

For convenience, here are the default shortcuts for all 3 platforms that Renoise runs on:

• Windows: Default Shortcuts for Windows
• Mac OS X: Default Shortcuts for OS X
• Linux: Default Shortcuts on Linux

List of Important Shortcuts

Below is a list of the quickest and most used keyboard shortcuts (mac-users: Replace CONTROL with COMMAND and ALT with OPTION):

Renoise supports most of the common shortcuts that any application uses, like CONTROL + X, CONTROL + C, CONTROL + V to cut, copy paste, or CONTROL + Z, Y or CONTROL + Y, CONTROL + SHIFT + Y to undo/redo.

Global

Panel switching

• F1: Preset 1 (Default: Pattern Editor and Scopes panel)
• F2: Preset 2 (Default: Mixer and track DSP)
• F3: Preset 3 (Default: Instrument Editor and Disk I/O)
• F4: Preset 4 (Default: expanded Sample Editor)
• F5: Preset 5 (Default: expanded Pattern Editor)
• F6: Preset 6 (Default: Pattern Editor and track DSP)
• F7: Preset 7 (Default: Pattern Editor and Automation envelope panel)
• lctrl-tab / lshift-lctrl-tab: Cycle focus between various areas (pattern arranger, pattern editor, instrument list, etc.) visible on screen.

Note The current keyboard focus field is saved with the preset. If you desire to quickly jump to a specific area inside that saved GUI-view, click that area and then store it under the preset. This gives you the opportunity to quickly jump between various used areas (like Automation / Dsp / Instrument Properties and Pattern Arranger etc.) using the function keys.

Play and Record

• space: Toggle play-button (whether pattern-loop is on or off, doesn't matter).
• enter: Play the current line at the cursor position.
• ralt: Toggle play-mode with pattern-loop.
• rctrl: Toggle play-mode of sequenced patterns.
• rshift: Toggle sequence record mode of the song.
• ralt-shift: Toggle sequence record mode of the pattern.
• escape: Set renoise into sequence editing mode.
• Num-pad-enter - Set block-play around current cursor position for 25%25 of patternlength (or the selected block division length).

Instruments

([keyval] = Numeric Keypad keys)

• [/]/[*] - Decrease / increase octave
• [-]/[+] - Decrease / increase instrument-slot selection
• [1]-[9] - Select each individual instrument slot in current instrument block
• lalt+arr.left/right - Jump 7 instrument positions up / down.
• lalt-up/down arrowkeys - Select previous / next instrument.

Pattern Editor

Edit Step & Navigation

• lctrl+1 - 0 on upper row keys: Set edit step
• lctrl - / + on upper row keys: Decrease / increase edit-step
• lctrl+lshift +1 - 0 upper row keys: Set Quantize row-level (Quantize note to each x rows)
• arrow keys: Scroll through the pattern editor / sequence editor
• pgup/pgdn: Jump through pattern
• home/end: Go to start / end row of pattern
• lctrl+home: Go to first pattern in sequencer
• lctrl+end: Go to last pattern in sequencer
• F8: (un)Lock keyboard focus to pattern editor
• F9: Set cursor to patternposition 0
• F10: Set cursor to position 25%25 of the pattern
• F11: Set cursor to the center of the pattern
• F12: Set cursor to position 75%25 of the pattern.

Note-Off

• Caps-Lock - Smart Note off
• lctrl+Caps-Lock - line Smart Note off

Cut/Copy/Paste

• ctrl-c - Copy selection to clipboard
• ctrl-x - Cut selection to clipboard
• ctrl-v - Paste contents from selected clipboard to target.
• Backspace - Delete all notes and effect commands at current row in track and scroll everything beneath current row up
• Insert - Insert clean row into track and push all notes and effects in current track down.
• lShift+lctrl+backspace - Delete note under cursor and scroll column beneath current note up
• lShift+lctrl+insert - Insert clean row into column and push all notes in current column down.
• lshift+lctrl+arr.left/right arrow - Remove / add sub/effect column.

content and selection mask settings apply to all of the following

• lshift+F3 - Cut current track
• lshift+F4 - Copy current track
• lshift+F5 - Paste current track
• lctrl+F3 - Cut current pattern
• lctrl+F4 - Copy current pattern
• lctrl+F5 - Paste current pattern
• lalt+F3 - Cut current selection in pattern
• lalt+F4 - Copy current selection in pattern
• lalt+F5 - Paste current selection in pattern

Pattern Sequencer

• lctrl+arr.left/right - Change pattern-number of current sequence under cursor
• lctrl+arr.up/down - Go up / down sequence positions
• lctrl+ins - Insert sequence line above current queued line.
• lctrl+del - Delete current queued sequence line

Disk Browser

• lctrl-up/down - Switch between Song / Instrument / Samples / etc filter and folder preset options in Disk Browser panel.
• lctrl-left/right - Collapse/expand current selected folder
• up/down (when focus on file area!) - select file.
• lshift-up/down (when focus on file area!) - Multi select range of files for loading.
• lctrl-click multiple files - Selective multi select files for loading.