This is a real testament to the program itself, but since I’ve returned to Renoise I can’t stand to be looking at Ableton for more than a few minutes. Even with custom themes in Ableton I’m quickly longing for Renoise GUI.
I used to feel like Ableton Live was the pinnacle of GUI achievement, not so much anymore.
It’s still got some nice features, but most can be done in Renoise if I really think out of the box.
The only thing I really miss is the session view and recording to arrange view. If Renoise had a way to sequence the patterns as blocks just like session view, into a final tracked arrangement, I’d sell my copy of Ableton and Max4Live tomorrow.
I just wish Renoise would have been as awesome as it is today when I spent my hard earned on Ableton products.
Oh well. Studio One is tolerable, but it’s also like Meh.
also… you know you use renoise too much every day when you scroll through files in win explorer and right click the scroll bar and think “shit i made automation quick delete it before the pattern loops”
…start to feel annoyed as why the volume level doesn’t represent the position of your “fader” when moving down the vertical scrollbar in your browser-frame.
When Renoise does vst layering or allows notes from one instrument to be duplicated to another then… THEN I’ll consider moving full time for my electronic only stuff.
Probably a modular subhost like energyXT or Chainer could help until then? Not the best workflow, not 1000% native, but maybe you didn’t think of it? (doubtful)
i compose with 2 mates and they use ableton…i dont know how many times i told them i would never switch to their point-and-click maze. renoise looks ultra-complex but i do whatever i want on it, ableton looks like a pretty GUI and i just dont understand anything. it takes a lot more time and steps to achieve anything in live. and you’re always tempted to rely on drumloops and vsts, not much on sampling creativity.
but live does the trick when it comes to multitrack recording (for synths and vsts, guitars and stuff). its imo the main lack of renoise (but maybe theres a way to do it nicely in renoise i still dont know -i never had to do this before composing with those friends)
Only when Renoise (finally) incorporates a straighforward (but vertical!) waveform track for recording and viewing audio, THEN I will forget all other daws.
What I like about Renoise now is not what I liked about trackers 15 years ago.
Back then it was the sheer speed of music programming.
But now, when making music for me has become 90% playing instruments and 10% (or less) of actual programming, I find myself adopting daw concepts that I never found adoptable before: the ones that let me use a PC just like a damn tape recorder with tape cut-ups and quick visual rearrangements.
EDITS: Having said that, I still get won over by a keyboard controlled PC daw. This way Renoise still retains the No.1 position in my studio. When audio track is here - all other daws fly out the window. (Even Bitwig, which hasn’t even flown in.))
