Considering using Renoise... 8 questions first

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

Hi guys,

I’ve spent my life making music on my keyboard, but now I really want to start producing my music properly on the computer, to a professional standard.

At first I thought DAWs were the way to go, but the more I researched DAWs the less I liked them. A few of the things which put me off DAWs are:

• I like to have precise control over the properties of every note

• I want all my notes to be precisely on the beat, every time, unless I say otherwise

• I like small, simple programs and hate the huge bloated size of most DAWs
• I like a program that can accesses samples directly, rather than needing a VST for everything
• I generally prefer step sequencing (inputting tunes note-by-note)

So now I’m leaning more towards the idea of using a good old tracker (I used them a lot in the 90s) and Renoise was highly recommended. It looks like a great program, totally my kind of thing.

I just have a few questions/concerns, if anyone would please be kind enough to answer…

1. Velocity
While I generally prefer step sequencing, there are some more expressive parts (eg piano parts) which I sometimes like to “perform” on the keyboard. If I hook up my MIDI keyboard controller to Renoise, will it record the velocity I hit the keys?

2. Non-rigid timing
I’ll want most of my instruments to be “rigidly” on the beat (eg drums, bass). But what if I want to add a more “flowing” piano piece on top of the rigid drums? Then I’ll want the timing to be recorded accurately, rather than being “quantised” into distinct beats. Can Renoise do this - adding the exact delay to each note?

3. Sound fonts
This is a big one for me… I remember in the old days of trackers every instrument was just one sample. That probably still works fine for dance music. But for me, with orchestral music, that is simply not viable. I need to use sample “packs” or “fonts” such as SFZ or NKI, so that every key on the keyboard is mapped to a different sample, with variations for velocity and “round robin” variations. Can Renoise use these kind of sample packs?

4. Organising a library of instruments
One thing I really want to do is have all my instruments accessible as a single library, all neatly organized into categories (eg all my violins together in one “folder”, all my pianos together in one place etc). This is something you can’t do with DAWs because all the instruments have to be brought in through multiple VSTs, each with their own interface, which means you can’t pool them all together into one neat library. Will Renoise allow me to access all my samples as a single library?

5. Previewing instruments
Another big problem I have with DAWs is that every instrument has to be “loaded” before you can hear it, so you can’t just “preview” samples. For example, say you’re looking for just the right piano sound, there’s no way to simply go through all your pianos and hear what they all sound like on the keyboard (like you can with a physical keyboard). Can Renoise let you preview all your instruments without having to load them? Ideally just by tapping a key to cycle through each one?

6. EQ
EQ/mastering is very important to me, and something which DAWs actually do well, but it’s not something I associate with trackers. Can Renoise let you adjust the EQ of each track while the song is playing? Again, this is important to me.

7. MIDI compatibility
How “compatible” are the files? If one day Renoise was discontinued, would my music be unplayable? Can music data be taken into Cubase? One thing I’m planning to do is this: I have a bunch of stems (song parts) I recorded from my keyboard years ago and at some point I would like to use a program like Melodyne to convert these audio files into MIDI so I can change the samples and mix them properly into a song.

8. Skins
Really hoping Renoise can be skinned? I do like having a black background (especially for night viewing), but I don’t like everything so stark ‘black and white’ including all the menus. I prefer a more friendly look.

Sorry to ask so many questions!

2

I’ll make it short for the most part.

1 & 2: This is working ok in Renoise… i have posted a video here of a piano track i have recorded in Renoise and in the columns you can see volume and delay commands behind the notes. One pass recordings usually work fine, but if you like to overdub the layout can get a little messy.

  1. Soundfonts: no, SFZ: yes, NKI: needs NI Kontakt

  2. You can either use folders to sort your stuff or use the Renoise libraries, so yes.

  3. You can preview samples instantly, but mapped instruments like SFZ or XRNI need to be loaded first.

  4. Renoise has a few EQs you can use, but you can also load your own plugins if you so desire.

  5. Renoise itself has no solid way of converting your song to MIDI, but there is always the bit cumbersome route of using MIDI drivers to send MIDI data from one program to another. Also there is a Renoise tool to convert songs to MIDI, but i don’t know if it still works or not since i haven’t used it in a good while. The Renoise files itself are ZIPs, which contain XML data, so in worst case you can always roll your own conversion.

  6. Renoise has theme support but not exactly skins, meaning you can change colors but not do a complete own UI. Look here for examples.

3

I’ll make it short for the most part.

Hey thanks for all the answers! This is great news, better than I was expecting! I am now seriously thinking about using Renoise to produce my music. I checked out some of your music too and was very impressed.

So, just to check, a couple of things…

i) Can Renoise modules be exported as MIDI - meaning your music can survive if Renoise is ever discontinued?

ii) Is it possible to change the EQ while the track is playing - like, dragging points on a line? (To me, EQ is one of the 3 most important aspects of mixing, the other two being reverb and stereo placement.)

4

i) Can Renoise modules be exported as MIDI - meaning your music can survive if Renoise is ever discontinued?

ii) Is it possible to change the EQ while the track is playing - like, dragging points on a line? (To me, EQ is one of the 3 most important aspects of mixing, the other two being reverb and stereo placement.)

The MIDI export tool is really functional as it is. I think the only serious shortcoming is the lack of MIDI channel support right now (?).

But you can also just play a Renoise song through MIDI outputs and record it elsewhere. A bit more complicated, but possible.

With either one of these choices, if you are using Renoise-specific things like sample offsets or reversed playback, you will obviously loose these details in the exported version. But for basic export of e.g. melody lines and rhythm it should be more than sufficient.

Also, all Renoise file formats - files (songs, instruments, everything) - are completely open and saved as plain XML files in a zip-archive.

So no matter what should happen - even if Renoise itself was not able to run on the computer - it’s possible to extract information from those files, build converters, etc.

Finally, the registered version of Renoise has very flexible rendering / track-bouncing. This allows you to take your song and e.g. render each ‘pattern’ into a separate file - or even each track in every pattern, quickly leading to hundreds of stems sourced from a single song. Makes it very easy to remix/master/whatever outside of Renoise itself.

5

That’s great, thanks! :slight_smile:

6

@James Music

Hi James. I started with Renoise for electronic music, but I ended up using it for orchestral music.I tell you my experience. If you have used trackers in the past and you’re interested in composing orchestral music, I recommend you Renoise 3.1! This software seems focused on experimental music or electronic music basically, but that’s just an idea. The truth is that it works fructually well for orchestral music for many reasons…

I would say that the 10 main things are:

  1. Compatible with MIDI instruments (keyboard MIDI)and mapping, for live recording, include velocity (volume) and time (delay).This is great for the nuances and be more expressive.
  2. Absolute control of notes in the Pattern Editor (with advanced drop-down panel). Volume, panning, delay and effects for each note.The main difference between a tracker and a sequencer with pianoroll.Writing in the Pattern Editor gives you practically absolute control for each note using a usb keyboard (and mouse).If you have advanced control(knowledge of the commands) you can do things very fast.You will end up loving the parameters (numbers and letters)!!!
  3. Pattern Sequence Matrix, very important. If you manage to control it, you’ll be able to compose a song very fast.You can duplicate a pattern instantly and modify the new pattern later for nuances. For repetitive exercises it is very fast.The trick to be quick with Renoise is to control effectivelythe Pattern Sequence Matrix.
  4. Creation of own instruments with Keyzones Editor and compatible with VSTi (VST instruments) and VST (VST effects), not compatible with VST3.An instrument XRNI can consist of hundreds of samples.Each sample can have assigned strings of effects (effects chain).This is great to create instruments, especially for percussion. Through Keyzones, you can assign several samples to a single note by adjusting the velocity (volume) to achieve greater realism in the instrument.For example, the sound of a piano note does not sound like stronger than weak.Both sounds are different.In addition, it allows routing tracks with VSTi and VSTi alias.
  5. Individual sound control for each track and possibility of groups.It involves using native effects or even VST on each track, but also share effects chain on multiple tracks tucked into a group.
  6. Native Spectrum Analyzer, for mixing and mastering.Very effective for equalizing and comparing.
  7. The Sample Editor.Pretty advanced!
  8. Create new samples with effects, loops and phrases, with complete recording of the song, a piece or separate tracks.
  9. Compatible for scripting tools with LUA.It is customizable to add some features that you miss.As you are interested in orchestral music,I built a tool oriented to this style of music, with some functions that I missed, things to go faster.Can you take a look here: GT16-Colors.Currently is a beta, but you will have an idea of the scope of some tools contributed by the community.
  10. Forums Renoise.Here you will find the help you need…

Some limitations that could change in future versions:

  1. Order and association. The instruments box does not allow management by folders, nor groups or visually associate the instruments with respect to the tracks or groups using colors, not even manually.This is a problem when starting a medium or large project.Renoise does not take advantage of the colors to associate things that are useful, as is to associate visually the instruments used in each track.In this regard, the instruments box is very basic.If you use many libraries or many VSTi, you have to classify them somehow, but it’s chaos.
  2. Creation of complex instruments. Keyzones is very basic.You should learn some repetitive tricks to create a large library of instruments (XNRI).
  3. A real problem is the control of the automation editor.Still in version 3.1 of Renoise it is very basic and cumbersome to control.Automation is very important for orchestral music.You can also use automation parameters in the pattern editor or even some effect of automation in the chain of effects of each track.But you’ll miss a decent automation editor.
  4. Version 3.1 has some bugs related to group management and cloning, which will be resolved in the next version.
  5. It does not support high screen resolutions.It is rumored that it will be added in a future update.
  6. Only allows two VST folders in Preferences.
  7. It does not allow live recording of several instruments with MIDI control.It is necessary to play in steps…

I think the best way to control Renoise is currently with two HD monitors (both of 24" or 27" HD 1920x1080 px.)Of all the available DAWs you will not find anything better than the selling price of Renoise, even for orchestral music.What’s more, this software is great for this style of music.If you use tracks templates (you can create a tool with LUA) and preloaded instruments, within a few hours you can have a solid foundation for a serious song.Between Monday and Tuesday I composed a complete orchestral theme, in two free moments,only using Renoise (and VSTi, with libraries for Kontakt).

Of course, Renoise has many more things that keep far him from being just a tracker, is much more.Although you may miss a few things, it is a fairly complete DAW, even to compose faster than with other DAWs with pianorroll…

Finally, creating your own XRNI libraries is a great job. I tried but I desisted in favor of using libraries with Kontakt Player and others (VSTi using VSTi alias)…

7

GrandMasta, thanks, that is really useful information, and very encouraging to know that you are making orchestral music. My music is heavily orchestral. I’m familiar with most of the benefits you listed as I have used trackers all my life. :slight_smile:

It’s also good to see a summary of the program’s limitations. Thankfully most of them do not apply to me. I don’t have a large monitor, don’t need to record multiple tracks at once, and never used automation. Though management of instruments (folders, colors etc.) is very important to me so hoping that will improve.

While I’m here, do you know a good source of royalty free samples, particularly orchestral? I have a few but always looking to add more.

8

GrandMasta, thanks, that is really useful information, and very encouraging to know that you are making orchestral music. My music is heavily orchestral. I’m familiar with most of the benefits you listed as I have used trackers all my life. :slight_smile:

It’s also good to see a summary of the program’s limitations. Thankfully most of them do not apply to me. I don’t have a large monitor, don’t need to record multiple tracks at once, and never used automation. Though management of instruments (folders, colors etc.) is very important to me so hoping that will improve.

While I’m here, do you know a good source of royalty free samples, particularly orchestral? I have a few but always looking to add more.

  1. Philharmonia Orchestra. Basic and limited, but will serve to experiment.http://www.philharmonia.co.uk/explore/instruments
  2. Best piano samples: “Piano in 162” of Ivy Audio:http://ivyaudio.com/You can extract the samples and create a complex instrument XRNI.
  3. Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra:http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/
  4. DSK Music:http://www.dskmusic.com/
  5. etc, etc, etc…

There are a lot of free samples on the Internet.The problem is that they are very limited and it is difficult to sound “something real”. I prefer VSTi libraries, or even some free VSTi.

Some VSTi are samplers with libraries of loose audio files (MP3, WAV, AIFF).Then, bring loose samples that you can use to create your XRNI instruments…

Enjoy!

9

:slight_smile:

10

I am really starting to think that I will love Renoise. It’s much more advanced than I originally thought it was :slight_smile:

Thanks very much for the links Raul, and the advice! :slight_smile:

UVI World Suite looks great, shame it’s not free. I am particularly interested in middle eastern instruments, having a personal interest in Jewish music.

11

Another great thing I’ve just discovered about Renoise is that the demo version is not time-restricted, meaning I can try it out without the stress of knowing I only have a few days to do so! :slight_smile: That’s fantastic. And the price is good too.

So far, the only thing I don’t like about Renoise is its name, which I find a little bland, uninspiring and forgettable. I also find it grammatically irritating, as the prefix “re-” always comes before a verb, but “noise” is a noun! :slight_smile:

12

Hi James

:lol:Is the first time I see someone complaining about the name “Renoise”.I prefer a name like that, instead of using the word “tracker”.In fact, there may be a small problem in these forums, related to their name and how to define this software.

Viewed from the outside, Renoise gives the feeling that it is considered a minor software (maybe for its cheap price). Even some of its most loyal customers, insist on defining it as “just a tracker”.Instead of defining it as another DAW in the market; instead of using pianoroll, its base is a tracker.The problem is that defining it as “just a tracker” contributes to dwarfing this software compared to the rest of DAWs.Maybe it’s because the rest of the trackers on the market are very poor and basic. But Renoise does not belong to this large group of old and not very modern trackers.

I understand that the word “tracker” can be a very broad word.But seen by the people in general, this word has been mistreated or despised, undervalued!“Tracker” sounds like something outdated, old, out of the modern era, when it’s not like that at all.In fact, a tracker is a very good and effective invention to compose music and be very detailed.But as long as Renoise is not strongly defined as a complete DAW, people who do not know it will not see it as such.

If your looking for information on the Internet, most media compare Renoise with the rest of trackers.The rest of trackers are crap, shit.Renoise is often not compared to the rest of DAWs and that’s a marketing problem, possibly inherited from its origins.However, those responsible for Renoise clearly define this software:

"Renoise is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) with a refreshing twist. It lets you record, compose, edit, process and render production-quality audio using a tracker-based approach."

DAW, DAW, DAW… While some continue to define this software as “just a tracker”, will be contributing to an antiquated and unfair campaign of this software. And that spreads over the internet, being unfair. So, any new customer, thinks this software is much less than it actually reaches.In fact, I think it’s superior to certain DAWs based on pianorroll and much more expensive, for a few reasons.

A well-made and modern tracker, is a very powerful and useful software, but currently there is only one, Renoise, your competition is not the rest of trackers, but the rest of DAWs.I’m spanish. I’ve never really thought about what the word “Renoise” means… But:

  • Re-: with reference to (or “repeat”?)
  • Noise: noise

…a software to be able to make noise.This name has all the sense of the world. I understood “Re-” as repeat, “repeat the noise” :lol:I’ve always liked that idea…Some composers use this software simply for that, to repeat noise.But you can be extraordinarily expressive and detailed, with very complex melodies.

13

Thanks, Raul.

Yes, I can see that Renoise is a DAW. It can do much the same as the other big DAWs can do. When I call it a “tracker” I mean the interface style, which is a tracker, and I believe its coding is originally based on that of a tracker, according to Wikipedia.

I am not suggesting for one moment that the developers add “Tracker” to the name. I’m just not keen on “Renoise”, it’s such an odd word and it bugs me.

One of my problems is I’m really not sure how to pronounce it. If it had a hyphen (“Re-noise”) then I would probably see it as two equally stressed syllables. But since there is no hyphen I assume the “re” part is unstressed (as in “renew”, “repeat”, “renounce”).

Part me me thinks that the “noise” part should be pronounced the French way, like:
“Renoire” = “ren-WARR”
“Renoise” = “ren-WASS”

Pretending it’s a French program and calling it “ren-WASS” in my head helps me to feel better about the name.

Anyway, the name is not a big deal :slight_smile:

14

I checked out some of your music too and was very impressed.

Thanks! :slight_smile:

ii) Is it possible to change the EQ while the track is playing - like, dragging points on a line? (To me, EQ is one of the 3 most important aspects of mixing, the other two being reverb and stereo placement.)

Yes.

Also a big plus for me with Renoise is stability. While not crash free, it crashed less in over 10 years of usage than Tracktion 7 for me in like 2 or 3 months, and that includes alpha and beta releases of Renoise in the past. In Tracktion 7 i went as far as switching to a DirectX driver instead of using ASIO, because i got tired of rebooting my machine because my ASIO driver was locked. Also using Ableton Live for a bit now and that one managed to crash a few times on me as well, but it’s not as bad as Tracktion 7 was. It’s something a lot of people take for given, but after dabbling around with other hosts it’s really something you start to appreciate. In the end use whatever tool you feel comfortable working with, because that is what counts most. Get your ideas done to full songs and use the right tools to reach your goal, no matter what the fanboys say.

15

In the end use whatever tool you feel comfortable working with, because that is what counts most. Get your ideas done to full songs and use the right tools to reach your goal, no matter what the fanboys say.

Yes, everyone always talks about Cubase and the big, mainstream DAWs. Apparently that is “the future” of audio production. But every time I looked at DAWs, with their “piano roll” system, I always just felt kind of miserable inside about the prospect of using them. It looks so hard to see what you’re doing, it looks hard to quickly change note parameters without having to use the mouse, and it looks like a totally imprecise way of working.

When someone mentioned Renoise, I initially thought it would be impractical to use a tracker, since the music industry now seems to have left them far behind. But then I started to see that Renoise really can do everything I need. So why not? Now, the idea of using a tracker again is making me totally excited. I think I just have a passion for trackers, having grown up using them. I really can’t imagine making music any other way.

It’s so good to know there is a substantial community of people who are like me and want to keep the Tracker alive - not for the sake of nostalgia, but because we actually think the tracker is a better interface and a better system of making music :slight_smile:

16

Just to note, I anticipate spending many years in this forum so I have now changed my username to my real name, “Lee B. James” :slight_smile:

17

Well, I tend to believe that tracker interfaces to note data lend to a different feeling when composing, especially when you are used to them for a while. I’ve also been a Fast Tracker kid, renoise is so damn close in look and feel, just much more powerful…

For me - the focus of tracker interface is stronger on the rythm, concurrency can make a whole lot of different sense visually, and it somehow really encourages microeditings as well as being able to keep track of the edits more naturally. Only thing I often miss in renoise is a linear sequencer where one can shift and especially name the clips that are sequenced. On the other hand renoise matrix model is pretty direct to work with, only a thin layer over the actual note data so to say. Renoise in its simplicity does put some strain and responsibility on the user that other daws would have more visual clues ready for the user. Also true for automations.

Seein your catalogue of expectations I feel a bit like…you are maybe going to be at least frustrated, if not even majorly pissed and fed up, at some point. Those are features that all major daws boast with, and that might be different or more rudimentary or overly complicated in renoise - compared to other progs.

Have you already played around with the demo, trying if it can accomplish what you need? I mean, it does everything, just not render/resample or rewire or asio. For me using renoise also means…having certain limitations imposed on my workflow, and constantly having to be creative in moving around them or even having to abandon ideas that simply aren’t possible with renoise due to technical limits. This can be frustrating at times, but just as well be stimulating to creativity and making one think about principles of things instead of just applying standard recipies.

18

Thank you OopsIFly, that’s interesting. Do you think you could give me an example of the kind of incident where Renoise leaves you frustrated, or is not able to do what you want it to do?

I’m not interested in automation as I don’t like doing anything “live”.

19

…

I’m not interested in automation as I don’t like doing anything “live”.

Just comment on a couple more things.If you are serious about composing orchestral music, there will come a time when you will use live recording using a MIDI keyboard, and you will also have to use the automation in some way.There is no other way to be expressive and fast at the same time in your compositions.

Live recording involves mapping your MIDI keyboard, and play in real time, at least the main melodies while the song plays.You can first compose rhythms manually in the pattern editor, and then melodies with the live recording. This will add velocity (volume) and delay in his live composition.Afterwards, you can make adjustments to modify the nuances.When you start with Reniose, when you are new, it is very difficult to use the live recording, seems a hidden feature, to discover.But I recognize that Renoise would not be the same without this great feature.

In electronic or experimental music everything is more “squared”. In the orchestral must be more expressive, more detailed, more varied, less squared, to sound a little more real, less artificial.To achieve this, the best is live recording and automation. These are the two main themes.Obviously, the major third is to find good libraries that sound good. But all the final work will get worse results.

As a curiosity, I see more and more members in the forums that use Renoise for orchestral music.This is great news for me. It makes me less feel isolated, and also demonstrates the versatility of Renoise, which also serves for orchestral music.It would only lack compatibility for video playback and time marking to be able to compose synchronized original soundtracks.

…

Also a big plus for me with Renoise is stability. While not crash free, it crashed less in over 10 years of usage than Tracktion 7 for me in like 2 or 3 months, and that includes alpha and beta releases of Renoise in the past. In Tracktion 7 i went as far as switching to a DirectX driver instead of using ASIO, because i got tired of rebooting my machine because my ASIO driver was locked. Also using Ableton Live for a bit now and that one managed to crash a few times on me as well, but it’s not as bad as Tracktion 7 was. It’s something a lot of people take for given, but after dabbling around with other hosts it’s really something you start to appreciate. In the end use whatever tool you feel comfortable working with, because that is what counts most. Get your ideas done to full songs and use the right tools to reach your goal, no matter what the fanboys say.

Yes, stability is actually expected in all programs, but it is not always so.With Renoise, I’ve only had problems with some VSTi/VST (Most of them are the fault of the VSTi/VST), and with the construction of tools with the code LUA, most of the time because I wrote something wrong, or I used some tool made by other users with some error.In the beginning, these are the two main causes of crashes.

However, we need an update of version 3.1 to cover some bugs.Most are errors that probocan malfunction, but do not crash.That is why it is very natural to ask for updates.They are always necessary.

20

yes, examples of shortcomings…

One is the lack of sidechaining/multi input plugin support. You can do sidechain ducking and such with the renoise internal signal follower. But some VSTs just rely on using multiple audio inputs to combine them in some fashion, not only compressors. You simply cannot use such yet with renoise. Only multi-out VSTi plugins.

Automation - I also don’t record automations from my controller, where renoise is currently also quite weak in terms of resolution and when it comes to managing takes and inserting/overdubbing over existant automations. I like to set up graphs by hand, and tune them while the notes are looping until satisfied. It still is unnessecarily difficult, as you can only see one graph at a time, you cannot compare graphs next to each other, unless you open it up you have no clue what automation might be going on from the track or sequencer view, only if there is at all in the track, or none. And I have instruments going on that need 3-4 macros automated at the same time, maybe even in some sort of dialogue with another instrument with similarly complex modulations, where it often comes to the point of me only having the choices left of either ripping out my last hair or reaching for that revolver, or…

Also working with audio tracks is similarly hard, you can have an autoseeking sample, but only visual indication of what is going on is the single c-4 note in the track that starts the audio somewhere. It is fucking hard to align things properly without visual clues. There is no proper freeze/unfreeze mechanism.

I mean you can get things done in spite of these things. But maybe there’s just some points where…renoise is still more tracker than daw…and where you will have to use other programs in addition or even switch if your ambitions call for certain ways of solving problems.