At long last, trackers who use Renoise have their own niche in the longest-running active compo in today’s scene: The Complete MOD Compo! CMC Renoise is now accepting entries for September’s compo. To enter, all you have to do is cast your vote on August’s six entries! Details and a pre-FAQ are all up on the CMC site. But hurry… the voting/entry deadline for this month is less than 10 days away: Saturday, August 30th!
Hmm… silly me. When all you Renoise users out there kept bugging me for the last 20 months to start accepting Renoise songs in CMC, I thought some of y’all actually wanted to, um, you know, enter your Renoise track? And instead of all this Renoise goodness you’ve been telling me about, all I hear are crickets instead. Nothin’ wrong with crickets, I suppose, but…
Crickets… you know… as in when a comedian tells a lousy joke, pauses for laughter, and all he gets instead is such a thick silence that you can hear the crickets chirping outside.
You know, crickets. 
(I once heard a trance song that incorporated cricket-chirping into the beat. Sounded pretty good, actually.)
Anywho, Beatbattle 3 shouldn’t pose a problem. I mean, all you gotta do is take a few minutes to download and listen to the CMC entries, vote, and submit a song a song that you already wrote last month. Or heck, submit the same tune to BB3 and to CMC. I don’t get jealous. 
As for what the winners get… how does dozens of downloads, legions of screaming and adoring fans, and an automatic berth to compete for Song Of The Year sound? With all of that, who needs prizes anyway? 
(Hey, work with me, I’m on a budget here!)
well, I didn’t beg you at all for CMC not accepting ReNoise modules 
anyway, I’m going to get into the competition as soon as the Buenzli demoparty finishes (i.e.: next tuesday), because I’ve made only one RNS with no VST so far, and it will take part to Buenzli tracked compo, so I can’t publish it for now (actually, it took part to Breakpoint party compo, but was not selected for the final, so it can take part to another party).
A note:
at this URL you can download an XM of mine (which is actually an 8chn MOD saved as XM) I made in 1995 and has crickets in the beat after 2’30"
a second note:
I don’t make this style of music anymore
well i’m making a tune for the cmc renoise compo, but you know, it’s tough when u have all those uber vsti sounds you can’t use and that you have to go back to dirty wav files.
i’m trying to convert some of the vsti in sample but it doesn’t sound as good as vstis, and i hate it when it doesn’t sound good .
i’m also trying to make a good use of renoise advanced tracking function so as to show the difference btw renoise and oldschool trackers.
Sun: That’s the spirit!
It-Alien: What’s wrong with “this style of music”? 
Hmm, I hear the crickets, but they’re just there… they don’t seem to be chirping to the beat. Ah well. shrugs
Anywho, I’ll be looking forward to both of your entries, with my thanks. Anyone else?
It-Alien, you’ve been extremely helpful, so forgive me for bugging you again. (Or if anyone else can answer this, feel free.)
As expected, I’m starting to hear complaints about the no-VSTs rule. As such, I’ve been wondering if there is in fact a good way to run a public-voting compo for next-gen trackers that DOES allow VSTs.
Problem is, VSTs are the aspect of the next-gen trackers that I know the absolute least about. But between my busy work schedule and my limited free time being spent with my girlfriend, I’ve had no chance to fire up any next-gen programs and figure what this stuff is all about.
Except for today. I came home from work this morning (I work overnight) unexpectedly wide awake, called my girlfriend’s house, and discovered that she is sleeping and doesn’t plan to wake up for a while. And I’m feeling industrious today, so I grabbed Renoise, Skale and Mad Tracker, and I’ve been tinkering around with them and Reading The f****ing Manuals for the past 2 hours.
I’ve noticed that VSTs are actually .dll files. So here’s my question: does Renoise only use VSTs that are stored in a particular directory somewhere, or does it scan the entire hard drive looking for VSTs it can use?
Heck, same question for Skale too. (Their forums are down, or else I’d ask this there.)
The reason I ask is that on Skale’s website, there are two demonstration songs by Awesome. The ZIP files include several VSTs each in them, and I simply extracted both ZIPs straight into the Skale folder, loaded the songs, clicked play, and discovered that Skale found the VSTs on its own and was using them. So naturally this has me wondering if I should simply require that if a next-gen entry uses any VSTs, they must be included in the ZIP file along with the song itself.
Heck, here’s a crazy thought: considering that the .dll files themselves aren’t very big, wouldn’t it make sense to just find a way to save them directly into the RNS file itself? Think about it. Samples and instruments can be saved as individual files, but they can also be stored directly in an RNS file. Why couldn’t the same be done with the VST .dll files?
“Input! I need input!” - Number Five
some vst are actually much more complex and the dll is just a link or an interface to the main program.
i believe the vst you are talking about are very simple one, you can just put the Dll in the zip file and it works.
renoise scan all the vst in it’s dspplugin/vstplugin directory, if it’s not there it ain’t gonna searche somewhere else, but as i said sometime the dll that are here are just the interface of a much more complex program (i believe).
i’m not sure for example that Absynth vsti would work if you just include the .dll (someone correct me on this if i’m wrong).
so one would have to check the package on a computer without vsti installed to be sure that only the .dll is needed, then that would work for a zip file.
another solution would be the mp3, but i understand that for a tracker compo it’s nice to have the actual track, so maybe something like include the .RNS file + a note on what vsti are used and include the resulting .MP3 file. if one’s get very interested about that music and how it was made he can look out for the vstis (google 
), and it is a proof that the current .MP3 was made with the .RNS file. the other benefits of that is that you won’t need to have a separate skale/mad/renoise compo, if one is very interested by what he is hearing (mp3) he can search for the tracker and the vstis and listen to the music under the tracker (since the track is included).
just my 2cents.
ps: my track is doing good, i’m gonna win
novus, your idea would be good only for free and freely-distributable VST plugins.
The best you can do is to compile a list of those plugins and maybe offer a separate pack of them for download, previous contacting their authors.
The realisation of this is not very easy.
Another alternative could be letting people compete with OGG/mp3 files and release the corresponding RNS/whatever source together with the streamed file.
another good point of the mp3 solution (+ included track and note about vsti used) would be that renoise trackers can send any tune they’re making to the cmc compo.
for example, i have to start a completely new music and make extra effort to try to convert some vsti into .wav (and they’re far from sounding as good as in the original ), while i could have used one the 2 tracks i already made (but with vstis).
so that means each time you want to send a track to the cmc compo you’ll have to make one for that occasion, that will obviously limit the amount of tracks that is going to be made, not everyone want to completely skip the vsti power.
mp3 + track (and vsti notes) is imho the best way to do it.
ps: when a track include a lot of vsti it is actually quite small (around 1mb)
since it doesn’t include any sample, and it crunchs very well (i just zipped a mixed vsti+sample track from 2.2mb to 400kb), that gives you an idea.
ps2: don’t change the rule for this compo now k ? i’m making special effort right now to submit a track. (means had to made one for the occasion, since my other tracks are vsti).
sun: don’t forget that VST instruments does not mean only synthetizers, but also samplers.
I presonaly use Kontakt (which is not free so novus could not add it into a VTSpack) with many commercial samples, so even if I’d release my RNS and everyone would have Kontakt, they couldn’t listen to my module because the won’t have my (HUGE!) samples.
So basically it comes down to this:
Well, I think the ones who are interested in the next-gen compo’s would be interested in the trackers with which the songs are made and I also think (lots of thinking here) those persons are interested in vst’s/vsti’s aswell (to expand their own collection).
So I guess allow all free vst/vsti. Users must submit the rns + url’s of the vst/vsti.
Oh yeah I’m currently thinking of downloading the plugsound free vsti but it’s a whopping 50mb (on a 56k here!)… so I don’t know if there should be a limit to the filesize.
Wow, you all have been incredibly helpful on this. Rock on!
Thanks especially to Martinal for breaking down my options for me.
I guess I’m leaning towards a variation on rules 2 and 3. More on that in a minute.
I’m very uncomfortable with allowing MP3s and OGGs, because there’s no guarantee that the WAV wasn’t altered or post-produced in some subtle way before being compressed to MP3, and if the WAV is altered in any way, that crosses the line from the specific category of “tracking” and into the broader category of “computer-produced music.” And this is a tracking compo, not a computer-produced music compo, so…
throws hands up defensively I know, I know, insert every conceivable counter-argument here about why it should just be the music that matters, not the format. I’ve been down that road before, and it’s not a road I want to travel again in this thread. Whether or not it’s a pure track may not matter to you, but for the purposes of CMC, it matters to me. Moving on…
My main beef with VSTs is the threat they pose to “track portability,” the ability for a track to play correctly as-is on any computer. But if the VSTs are included in the ZIP and are easily handled at the listener’s end, I’m inclined to allow them. Heck, if I were to start using Renoise or Skale myself, I would just make it a practice to include all VSTs in the ZIP file anyway. Forcing my listeners to run hither and yon on the information superhighway to download VSTs from all over the place just seems rude to me.
But it sounds like that’s only possible for freeware VSTs, and even then only for the ones that are small enough to be downloadable in a practical sense. (Blaster mentioned a 50-meg (!) VST; obviously I can’t make my voters download that one. )
BUT TO CLARIFY: Any such changes to the rules won’t be made yet. For now, it’s still no VSTs. That means you can put down the meat cleaver and the chainsaw, Sun.
To avoid lots of double downloading, VST’s should at least be put in separate zips and listed on the download page. That way the user can choose to not download already installed ones…
And btw it’s not necressarily ok for the VST author that the plugin is spread from other pages. If you’re doing this properly, you or the song authors will have to ask each VST author if it is ok to mirror the installation files or link directly to them.
Sorry when I´m a bit unconstructive but I don´t like those vst ideas for compos at all. I think it´s just to much work for the competitior and the listener when it comes to downloads.
Well… just my thought
Martinal, considering the insignificant size of the VSTs I’ve seen so far, I’m not really concerned about the double-downloading aspect. So you over-write an existing VST file with the exact same version of itself. No big deal.
But good point about getting permission from the indivdual programmers to distribute VSTs on the CMC website. I hadn’t thought of that. That’s quite a monkey wrench. Ugh… and that alone means it would just be easier to put up seperate links to the VST file next to the song… which then makes the CMC website even more vulnerable to outside server crashes making downloads impossible.
That made me wonder what Renoise users do about the VSTs they use when they release their songs… but a quick scroll through the Songs section of this website shows that everyone just side-steps the issue entirely and releases their tunes as MP3s… which brings me back to my MP3 tirade in my previous post.
So, PT, you really weren’t unconstructive at all. It sounds like you’re right: allowing VSTs in CMC is just going to cause more complications than it’s worth.
But hey, I also just noticed that Beatbattle 3 bans VSTs too, so what the heck am I so worried about? If Renoise’s own official compo bans VSTs, I think I can too, right? Right.
…though it does allow internal DSPs, which I’ll allow as well. If it’s internal to the program, that means there’s no inconvenience to the voters, so go for it. And that leads me to some brainstorming out-loud… what if the Renoise software itself was distributed with a variety of bundled VSTs?
An example would be the latest version of Mad Tracker, which includes their reverb “plug-in” right in the ZIP file itself. You download the program, run the self-installer, and boom, it’s right there and ready to go, as if it was just another part of the program. Because the software and the plug-in are bundled together, it poses no inconvenience to the voters if I allow it to be used. So I’ve declared that plug-in to be legal for CMC Mad.
Discuss!
I think that, if you’re going to prevent people from using VST plugins, you should not divide CMC into several branches (for ReNoise, for Skale, for MadTracker, for the rest);
Tracking is about music and not about DSP, this is what you yourslef have said.
Moreover, if other contestant will think that ReNoise is better, they will be convinced to try it, which is something positive, as I think it’s time for everyone to move a step forward in tracking.
One flaw only: playing a no-VST song with ReNoise, under some extreme circumstances, can require a fast P3 CPU, which is way more than what a MOD requires.
just a precisation:
what you call “internal VST” are not compliant to VST standard at all: they are ReNoise plugins, they work in a different way and can’t be used in any environment other than ReNoise.
You’re partially right. However, I’m running a public-voting compo. And I started CMC (or re-started actually; the original ran briefly in 1998) knowing that my biggest challenge, like before, would be getting enough people to vote.
So, I set a goal for myself: to make voting as simple and as easy as possible.
How does that enter into allowing the next-gen trackers? Simple. If I were to throw RNS, SKM and MT2 files right into the pot with the ITs, XMs, S3Ms, and MODs, then it is theoretically possible that the voters would have to download and install 4 different programs, and then jump back and forth between them, just to be able to hear all 6 entries. That goes against my rule of making things easy for the voters, and I believe it would dramatically cut back on the number of voters.
But banning legitimate tracking formats from CMC has never hit me as a good solution either. Hence, the spin-off compos. It’s the best compromise I could think of. The voters can decide for themselves which compos to vote on, and nobody’s forced to download extra software or jump back and forth between programs. They’ll only have to do that if they CHOOSE to.
Now, can someone please put together a player that can handle all of these formats together? Heck, I might even settle for simple player-only versions of ReNoise, Skale, and Mad; it’s a bit bulky using the trackers as players. 
“Blue Legend” Demmas? 'course I remember you. 
Good to have ya back, and good to have Outshined back too, even if Aged is a silly name. 