A Question Not Of How, But Of What

First and obviously, I’m new at this. I’ve not had much exposure to trackers, and wanted to learn. And now I’ve got one. @duh. :wacko:

But then I hear what other people have done with it, and I’m not sure where to begin. Is there a tracker-friendly guide to musical styles out there somewhere? It’d be too much to ask for a convenient recipe book of breakbeat, drum&bass, house, trance, chill, acid, etc., but some tutorials on their musical theory would be a great start.

Please? :(

First of all, welcome to the world of trackers. :)

Like all other music production tools, trackers (like Renoise) are also tools for making music. Composing in a certain style is possible in all tools, since you know the fundamentals of the genre. There would be no difference in what tool you use.

This is why I haven’t seen any guide to tracking (or any other tool) for making a special style, of course I haven’t searched for such a thing ever.

But there are many sources for making music in different styles on the net and can be easily revealed by a google search. As soon as you know the specifications of a style, you’d be able to compose it using your preferred tool(s).

Still my friends here on renoise board could help you way better than me. :)

The best way to learn is to download XRNS files, look at them, and edit them for fun.

Here’s a few links:

http://www.trotch.com/mbc/
http://www.renoise.com/beatbattle5/entries.php
http://www.yomirecords.com/music/botb/renoise/
https://forum.renoise.com/t/keith303-jitter/22271
https://forum.renoise.com/t/acid-trip-squelch-mp3s-and-xrns/22256

Etc…

im not quite sure what your after exactly, but possibly the best plan is to read through the renoise tutorials to get a basic understanding of how to use it… then you need essentially to listen carefully to the music which you wish to make something similar to and try to work out exactly what it is you are hearing. for example, listen to the organisation of the rhythmic patterns. experiment with making your own rhythmic patterns for a while and pretty soon it is easy to make something similar to any of the styles you mention. then you need to do a similar thing with other parts of the music such as bass and other instruments. you could also look at the demo tracks which come with renoise for examples of how a track is programmed. if you really want a book which covers the standard rhythmic patterns or techniques, there are one or two. i had one, although i didnt really find it to be any help at all. most things you learn through experimentation and having fun.

/\ hope thats of some sort of help :slight_smile:

Really, I’m looking for more on the musical styles themselves and how to construct a solid track of type x in any application (where the distance between x and “classical” approaches infinity) rather than specifically how to assemble it in Renoise.

Renoise will come with practice and included documentation. But when I finally manage to assemble something, it’d be nice to know where on the family tree it belongs, and to know that there’s an audience for it somewhere. :rolleyes:

And if it doesn’t fit any style whatsoever, I’ll know I’ve created an IDM track. :badteeth:

EDIT: Oh, just remembered: I found a Pandora podcast which had some quick, good-sounding information in it.

you want to make something as far from classical music as possible?

you want to know whether this anti-classical musical you made is acid techno or breakcore?

surely the audience will be the judge of that?

sorry, i don’t mean to be cynical, but this all seems kinda back to front to me :unsure:

I doubt the point of making music is that so you can classify what you made.
The borders of any genre are vague and always open for discussion.
They are guidelines that help a listener to tell others what he/she likes,
not a goal one strives for, more like landmarks in the vast world that
is music.

I’m sure the internet’s full of descriptions of different genres, because
there are always people who are absolutely sure that drum&bass should
sound like THIS or THAT. Purists like that are what I like to call MUSIC
POLICE and I daresay most self-respecting musicians consider them
somewhat of a menace to creativity itself.

But then again, it’s only human nature to classify stuff. Just don’t stop
thinking outside of those classifications, because there’s still so much
to discover. It would be a waste of time and energy to focus on the
borders and boundries of music, whilst creativity allows one to do
everything that’s thinkable with sound and get away with it.

I dont understand this at all.

Make the music you want to hear. Thats all there is to it.

watch the xnrs, you learn ALOT technics from them.
Then you should just download some samples and make music.
It starts from there. Just assign samples, make some loops you like and
make it happen.

You could try the method I used with Reaktor, Renoise, and Ableton.

I dove right in, and bashed my head against it until I got something I liked the sound of. Renoise and Ableton come a lot easier now, but I still use the “dive in and headbutt” approach with Reaktor.

Then again, you asked about trackers…