Gathering your Instrument Library

When you run Renoise you can feel it’s a great program.
It will probably stimulate your immagination and lead you to be willing to compose some…
Renoise come packed of DSP-TRACK effects… and that’s just fine… but comes with no instrument, no sample, no vsti…

Unexperienced users might proably feel the urge of building their own sample library… but how?
Here is a small list of usefull suggestions to get some instruments for you to start with…

Multistuff
As you noticed, there are 3 tabs in the “instrument setting”… the first tab could be the first source for your sounds… because that’s the MIDI… and you DO have a bank of sounds in your midi soundcard already. Just turn it on… select the channel… and find out what’s wrong in midi music

Sampled sounds on web
The all-classic sample collection that any composer is used to hide somewhere. Pro composer are known to take YEARS to build a decent collection themselves… you can have your try by searching on web for free samples to be downloaded. There are plenty of sites giving away average-quality samples for free… have a browse…
http://www.soundrangers.com/
Sample Direct
Looplab
http://www.e-drummer.net
http://freaknoise.com
On Top of a Cloud
That’s the result of a very short browse on the net… do your researches!
Keywords to hunt for instruments are: WAV - SAMPLE - XI - INSTRUMENTS - and I wouldn’t despite to add a “FREE DOWNLOAD” pasted among other keywords…

VST instruments
A “Software” synth to load like a plugin. Since Renoise can load and handle those VSTi… just do yourself a favour and go visit:
http://www.kvr-vst.com/
http://www.vstcentral.com
TraxMusic Vsti page

Ripping from Modules
Come on… do it with no shame. As long as you great and thanks the original owner of those samples, you can use it. Remember that’s lame to rip an entire sample-set and replicate one atmosphere by changing notes…
Listen to XM and MOD modules you find around and save the worth samples on your hd.
It’s slow, I know, but great things take time.

One final suggestion about samples and the way they sound…
Don’t get too mad if you can’t obtain the sound you’re looking for… most of the time it’s not a matter of sample… it’s a matter of frequencies… so instead of restlessly search the web for -that- sample… you better load your Equalizer and tweak that bassdrum a bit…

Hope this is usefull somehow

Thanks for the great post, Parsec. The newbies will probably love your hints. Maybe you should take on the Links page of Renoise.com

I’ve managed to gather quite a collection myself, but I’ve yet to find some really good guitar sounds. I hate riff loops and would rather use single-shot samples but haven’t been able to find any decent ones. Any suggestions, anyone?

Or is there a (free) VST that can produce a listenable guitar sound?

the cheapest I know is
ReFX Slayer (58$)

slayer rocks, its really a fine VSTi.
You need to tweak it abit and its not really a guitar, but if you just need a electric-guitar in the background, its perfect. also the basses are very very nice after tweaking them abit.

and ripping samples from modules really sucks nowadays. the web is such a huge sample-library that you should not need to rip anything.
honestly, I didnt like sample-rippers back in the very old days and I really dont like them now.

It’s obviously useless to rip samples from modules when you know how to generate samples yourself… but still I had to place it in a listing of ways to get samples…

could you please generate a sample of a three-legged monkey beating its tail on a cowskinned bamboo conga, all closed in a barrel thrown into the Niagara Falls in the middle of December? I really need it thanks

I strongly suggest you to try “3-Legged”… a freeware VSTi…
This unique plugin simulates “3 legged monkeys inside barrels” through a complex chain of phisical modelers. You can change barrel’s dimensions… monkey dimensions… and add external sound sources to send in a tail-beat to be reverberated into the barrel… The special “Falling barrels” section (second tab from left in main screen) allows you to change the kind of wood the barrel is made of… the height of the falls and other usefull option… like whether or not you want the monkey to have full stomach or empty stomach… (it will influence falling speed)…

To complete it all shall I suggest you to use the commercial
DX plugin called “Decemberator”?

If this is too much, you can always rip your sample from any module

hahaha

best bump ever