Render or Freeze Plugin Instruments to Samples

Rendering Plugin Instruments To Sample Based Instruments

The Plugin Grabber in Renoise allows you to create sample based instruments out of any plug-in based instruments (like VSTi or Audio Units). You can also quickly render and replace (freeze) a plug-in instrument this way.

Replacing a plugin with samples has several advantages: When sharing your Renoise XRNS song file, your song can be opened and played back on any computer which has Renoise on it, and does not need the plug-in to be installed. Sample based instruments also always use less CPU than plug-ins, because samples simply can be played back and pitched instead of being synthesized and generated on the fly.

When not replacing, but creating new instruments with the grabber, you can quickly sample your favorite synthesizer sounds and create a small sample library out of it for later processing and sound mangling. Samples in Renoise also can be manipulated in many ways which you can't with the real plug-ins. You can for example control the playback pitch, direction and offset at any time in the pattern with Renoises Sample Pattern Effect Commands.

Replacing a plugin with samples also has disadvantages you should be aware of: Automation of plug-in synthesizer parameters with for example a Automation Device, will only work with the original plugin. Such automation can no longer be applied to the rendered samples. Also samples always are limited in length. Even though you can apply cross fading to create smooth loops in Renoise with the grabber, such automatic loops may not always sound as detailed as the original.

Opening the Plugin Grabber Dialog

To directly replace and sample a plug-in instrument, you can use the record button in the Instrument Settings. Left clicking the record button will setup the grabber to replace the plug-in (render the plug-in and then unload it). Right clicking it will setup the grabber to render the plug-in into a new instrument (create a not yet used Renoise instrument).

Alternatively you can also right click plug-in instrument based instruments in the Instrument Selector and then choose "Render Plugin To Instrument..." or "Render Plugin To New Instrument...".

Finally you can also bring up the grabber in the main "File -> Render Plugin To Instrument..." main menu.

Overview

Instrument Selection

• Source: The plug-in that should be rendered. Only plug-in instruments that can be grabbed will show up in this list. Plug-in aliases and plug-in FX aliases can not be grabbed explicitly, and thus will also not show up here.
• Destination: Where the resulting samples should be placed after rendering. "Current instrument" will overwrite the actual source instrument.
• Remove the source plug-in after rendering: When enabled, the plug-in will be unloaded, removed from memory, after the rendering successfully finished. Unloading the plug-in can be undone just like everything can be in Renoise. So if you're not happy with the rendering result, you can rewind this action without loosing any plug-in settings.

Note: All those options will be set up for you automatically when either left or right clicking the record button in the Instrument Settings or launching the plug-in grabber from the Instrument Selector. You still can change those settings afterward though, if you're planing to record a batch of instruments without closing and reopening the grabber over and over again.

MIDI Options

With the MIDI options you set up which and how many notes will be sampled.

• Range: The note range that should be rendered. This and the "Step" option defines how many samples will be created in the resulting instrument. When more than one sample is rendered, a multi-sample instrument will be created. See also Instrument Editor. Set From Song will parse your song and fill in the range automatically for you, by using the lowest played notes as the lower boundary, and the highest played note as upper boundary. This is especially useful when replacing a plug-in instrument. Using this together with a "Step" of 1 will create a sample for every note that is use in the song.
• Step: How many samples should be rendered in the set up range. Setting this to 1 will render each note in the range. Setting this to for example 12 will render one sample per octave only. The more samples are rendered, the more close the rendered result will be to the original.
• Velocity: The Note-On velocity that should be used to trigger the instrument when sampling it. Plug-ins may modulate some of its settings depending on the velocity.

Sampling Options

With the Sampling options you set up the resulting sample length and loops.

• Auto-loop samples (cross-fade): When enabled, the sample is cross faded and looped. Cross fading creates a smooth, click free loop, and thus is especially useful with pad or other long sounds. Enabling cross-fading will disable the tail (Note-Off) settings below.
• Duration: The duration in milliseconds of the Note-On phase, before a Note-Off is send to the plug-in. With cross-fading enabled, this will be the total length of the sample. By hitting the "Set" button right to it, you can apply a millisecond length from a specified pattern line duration.
• Tail: With cross-fading disabled, how long the Note Off phase should last. This is needed to also sample the sustain phase of plug-in instruments.
• Fadeout Tail: When enabled, the tail/sustain phases of the samples is cleanly faded out to zero at any length setting.

Sampling Format

• Bit depth: The destination format of all rendered samples. 32 bit will use the internal bit depth and highest possible precision & quality, but also create larger files. 16 or 24 are good alternative bit depths which still sound excellent (CD players use a bit depth of 16 at a sample rate of 44100 Hz) and create smaller samples.