A DAW Finally worth settling on - Renoise

I am interested to see if anyone else out there has settled on Renoise for music production but previously had extensive use in various other daws?
What made you settle with Renoise? Are you still satisfied? Anything lacking for you that IYO NEEDS attention?

I’ve owned a lot over 15+ years working in audio post but also as a writer i used Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One, FL Studio, Pro Stools 10 HD, Live 8, Sonar X1…
In my own personal priority…

  • UI - Visually appealing modern UI is a must. Renoise solves this x100 with theme customization and pre-built themes. 1000/10.
  • Extension via script, plugins, tools etc - Multiplies the original power of the daw by a lot. Renoise does this very well.
  • Prioritized Functionality - Why do things like implement gay track icons etc when functionality still needs work and/or bug fixes? PRIORITIZE! (AHEM… steinberg) Renoise seems to have solved the “mystery of missing functionality” puzzle for me as most other daws are still behind.
  • Vertical alpha numeric tracking - Since my discovery of Renoise; trackers win for me but a tracker won’t be a good tracker if it’s NOT Renoise.

Have only just discovered Renoise in v2.8 so i am very interested to see where this amazing software heads (and hope the software doesn’t blow away).
Keen to hear your guys thoughts.

Cheers

Since 2005 I’ve gone through Modplug, Psycle, FL Studio, and Renoise

I always liked tracking more than clip sequencers as a method of digital composition, I feel like it’s simpler to have all my notes and automations right in front of me on one page, it’s more intimate than clicking through dozens and dozens of windows and clips. There’s also just a really neat novelty about it, always loved watching modules. Wound up using FL for years as it was more actively developed and had better VST support and such than the trackers I’d tried at the time. I found out about Renoise some time ago but hadn’t tried it, eventually gave it a shot last year and loved it. Aside from having a bias towards this interface to begin with I also find the mixer to be near perfect, and the stock effects are also very quick and easy to work with(some of which are beyond what I’d expect out of host effects, lofimat is my favorite bitcrusher). I could list a ton of other advantages but the integrated sampler is also particularly significant, it elegantly does the work that you might need 3 or 4 plugins to do(less efficiently) in another host.

I’ve tried everything, every goddamn thing. Briefly dabbled with modplug and buzz because my homeboys were on those, then tried renoise once that vsnares vid popped up. Thought it was nice but that it wasn’t for me, it was for people who were there, way back then, something I never took part in.

Then last year I realized that all I need is a sampler that can be sequenced, I tossed all that convoluted steinberg and rewire bullshit, got rid of all VSTs, and just settled.

I’ve said it before but seriously, desert island, renoise, pumping out 'ardcore bangers until i run out of coconuts and die.

I´ve also tried almost every daw i know. Renoise is most complex for me, there are some things i would improve but on the other hand, other daws have something i can not overcome. And because i compose mainly on my laptop and i dont have 2monitors i dont use rewire.
Fl Studio have bad mixer, Ableton wont load all my vsts, Reaper has weak midi etc. etc.
I bought Renoise but i dont use it just for its prize it is simply the most complex and user friendly daw i know (Yeah, cubase can do a lot of more things but the workflow is just way slower than in renoise) and every compromise i´ve did with it is less painfull than with other daws.

Btw I´ve found that differents daws make me produce different music. Its why i dont use fl studio fe., i dont wanna make that trap shit :lol:/>/>.

this thread may be worth a reading because it is about a similar topic

Cheers for that! Very interesting read. Quite good to see what background people had and now where they have ended up.

Half year of experimenting on Cubase, FL, Live, Reason and Renoise; worked with the Renoise 2.6 trial version back then. As soon as 2.7 betas were announced and 2.7 was offered at a reduced price, I was there. Didn’t look back, really. Except for Reason I can’t think of another DAW right now where you can actually LFO an LFO. As in, set a LFO cycle to 1.5*LPB, point to filter cutoff, and then add another LFO with much longer cycle controlling the 1st LFOs “offset” param. I really love this. Also because the Automation editing in Renoise could be better though. But with right click at the right moments a lot of it works awesome.
(Man if you would have seen how much Renoise grew and improved in those two point releases!)

For me all of these are true too. Trackers that ain’t Renoise ain’t shit :D.
Scripting: whoa. The things you can get done. I’ve learned myself a lot about synthesis and drum synthesis in making (and of course working with) the Overtune tool. I love how I can do so much more with just keyboard, using scripts.
Functionality: truth.

This too. The software is so friggin awesome and complete especially at the price.

Yeahhh boy!

It does not appear to me that other daws are looking at making their native plugins talk to each other… Wait hold on i can’t think of one that even has it’s own LFO, Signal follower devices etc? SLACK.
This was by far the most amazing thing for me as it gives the user so much creative control especially how the signal follower has attack and release controls which obviously had modern
sidechain in mind; and, no need for a compressor which is obviously more cpu taxing…

Yes automation could do with a bit of work but it doesn’t slow me down any more than the other daws do anyway so i don’t really care :)/>
In Cubase… have you ever tried to find a single parameter to automate in an instrument like arturias modular synth (100’s of parameters)? Did you ever find that parameter in that pathetic little manual selection box? I gave up.
Ableton Live automatically displays the parameter in it’s corresponding track once ‘touched’ on the plugin gui - by far the best method for this but Renoise allows you to ‘type to search’ parameters which is
just as fast but also keeps Renoise more true to the fact that it doesn’t have a ui based of real-life objects. Real-life objects and icons = majorly gay and some devs need to come to terms with themselves lol.

I’ve only used Renoise for 4 days but i have got a good grasp on everything except i’m still waiting for the brain to get use to vertical alpha numeric tracking data - Totally worth the brain racking though.
Over the 4 days it’s amazing how much i have discovered like how to perform an action from another daw - turns out Renoise has a faster method more than %50 of the time lol.

I don’t think Renoise would ever be the most popular (only because there’s too many pussies who wouldn’t dare touch a tracker) but hope there is plenty of further development. It’s also good that it intimidates a lot of people because of the fact that it limits it’s users to a crowd that Imagine where it could be in a year or two? Making you eggs and baked beans for breakfast? Who knows…

One thing that can make this easier when you’re starting(in 4/4 at least) is to use hex position numbers, you get 16 lines per measure under the standard settings so in a standard 64(40) line pattern each bar begins on 00, 10, 20, and 30, and beats are highlighted so that takes some of the thinking out of it. If you’re using a drum loop it’s similarly convenient to use sample offsets, 10, 20, 30, 40 etc are 1/16th steps

Cheers for that! Yes it has helped for me to use 16 lines to simplify things although i may need to enhance the highlighting if possible to make it more visible while adjusting to it.
Will have to study sample offsets a bit more though… so this produces the same function as cutting/slicing an audio clip and offsetting the cut regions start time?

+1 ~ That’s it for me.

I’ve always taken the simple path but over the years I realized deeply I don’t need more to do what I want or sound how I want. I’ve used a lot of softwares/DAWs and hardwares and I’ve learned from them and keep that knowledge and sometimes apply it to what I am doing, but generally I don’t want to have so much clutter. I’ve done my best to simplify everything down to what I need most: a sampler. Renoise is my favorite sampler.
An example is that I had an Akai MPC many years ago but realized I could combine several effects and tracker machines inside Buzz Tracker and make a good imitation, so I ditched the MPC. Now I can do that kind of thing even better in Renoise. I don’t like dealing with cables, virtual or analog, VSTi, Rewire, etc, etc, etc. It distracts from what I am doing, which is playing samples back. I know Buzz synthes inside and out so I sample those for my songs instead. I do what’s easiest and quickest for me, and with all of the excellent options and simple UI, Renoise is a winner. I love trackers in general and as far as sample trackers go, Renoise is on top. I still go “back to basics” sometimes and then later import the XM into Renoise for polishing.

I’m down to a netbook with a Behringer UC 202. Soon to be a Korg NanoKey as well. My music still sounds like garbage but only because of my skills.

This has always made me so confused. I’m looking at a screen, not even a touch screen, and I have drawn representations of physical objects made for hands that I’m supposed to fiddle with a mouse. It makes no sense! Buzz Tracker and Renoise have it right, with horizontal sliders that give the full information and can be used easily with a mouse or controller.
Somewhere back in the '90’s someone thought this was a great idea, other people agreed, and we’ve been stuck with it ever since.

that’s twice now

stop

I think he was aiming at devs of other DAW software, not Renoise.

My guess would be that Name User is gay and takes flippant use of the word as a derogative term as being at least mildly homophobic, or at least something which should be discouraged… Something I have suffered with myself from friends of mine…

(Sorry not to actually add anything to the thread. Happy to hear you’ve found a tool you like here though! May it bring you many more years of joy.)

Common form of expression with no means of harm or offence. I’m sorry that your mind is so closed in that you have to make assumptions out of me. Stick it mate i’m not here to follow demands.

He didn’t seem to have a problem before he edited his message. And cheers, am quite satisfied with Renoise now :)

(Unintentional thread hijack!)

I’ve done the same myself before. Used GAY as a derogatory term in front of a homosexual friend of mine. He calmly pointed out he’s not too happy with that kind of use. I’ve also posted on Facebook mid-conversation that I’m “eating my Chinky at my desk/computer” or something similar not realising one of the people in the conversation was Chinese (although I’m not sure if that really would have stopped me posting…) At least I could argue that Chinky is a concatenation of the word and when used to express food or restaurant is in no way offensive (or should not be and I believe that.) But it does not mean that it might not bring up certain memories and feelings in certain people. Also the actual history of the word is quite debated, as I discovered…

But back to the gay thing. The way you use it is as if you equate everything is wrong and should not be done to being the same as being gay. Maybe you believe that?? Some people who call themselves Christians do! Or maybe it’s just that it is so commonly used that it’s easy to slip into using it. Like calling somebody a dick when they have done something you don’t like. It doesn’t mean you don’t like dicks! (Or at least having your own one.) But again I think it comes back to history and awareness of others and their (possible) feelings.

Didn’t see the pre-edit…

Cheers for your thoughts bro.

why bother with punctuation and sentences if you’re just going to pump out some heteronormative slop that makes you look like a child anyway?

“common” isn’t good enough

i just said that it’s not the 90s anymore, which i deleted because it wouldn’t matter if it was the 50s

Make it good enough then.
I hope you’re having a wonderful day :)

I can appreciate visuals(Renoise is very aesthetically pleasing after all, how many DAWs will let you turn your whole screen black and green and watch music scroll like matrix code?) but I am also confused at how much software simply imitates hardware, most of the better interfaces I’ve seen are software that is unpretentious about being software.