Raul ,
Thanks for that. And I would like to thank you for all your replies, and taking the time to give me helpful advice. I appreciate it and you have made me feel very welcome here. I am very enthusiastic about Renoise and looking foward to spending time here in this forum
When I said I don’t want to do anything live, to clarify: I meant live mixing (ie automation). I do, of course, want to input certain parts live from my keyboard. Like piano parts. I’ve already bought my MIDI keyboard and I am a keen keyboard player.
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.
Well you have more company here Raul, I am definitely into orchestral music. My style of music is very eclectic. I do a lot of pop style music, but the biggest projects I am working on are all highly orchestral - some of it is quite big and epic, and I’m going to want it to sound as natural as possible, not electronic. (I know it’s possible with good samples though right now I can’t afford the really good samples, so I’m starting small.)
It would only lack compatibility for video playback and time marking to be able to compose synchronized original soundtracks.
Yes, I checked whether Renoise handled video, and it’s a shame it doesn’t as I am interested in doing soundtracks. Though it’s not something I am planning to do too much of, so not a big deal.
If I ever get round to scoring a movie (a dream of mine) I figured out a way I could do it using Renoise…
My method for scoring films using Renoise
- First do the “spotting” to identify all the parts of the film which need music
- Then chop the video into smaller clips - only the parts which will have musical cues and nothing else.
- Export the audio of each clip and bring it into a corresponding Renoise file, with the clip’s audio starting at the very beginning of the song.
- Remove all the audio from the video clips.
- Also add 2 seconds of video to the start of each video, with 4 audio “clicks” (to serve as a count-in).
- To compose each cue, open both the movie clip and the corresponding Renoise file side-by-side
- Play the video and you’ll hear 4 clicks, then on the 5th click, hit play in Renoise - the audio and video should play in sync (note that synchronization doesn’t have to be completely precise when you’re scoring)
I also have a couple more Questions about Renoise…
(I know I could look these things up, but it would be helpful if anyone could give me a quick answer to save me searching…)
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I know you can set volume and panning with effects commands, but is it also possible to draw volume envelopes over tracks, or draw lines to specify panning?
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Let’s say I make a tune with a piano playing over a drum beat. Normally I would set the drum beat first, then play the piano over it, so the two are more or less perfectly synched, and I can make slight adjustments to the piano. But what if I’d recorded the piano first and then wanted to merge it with a rhythmical drum beat that uses a completely different temp. Can Renoise let me select part of a track and change its speed - changing the notes and delays, without changing the tune’s tempo?
OopsIFly,
That is all really useful information, thanks. At this stage, I really want to be aware of both the benefits and shortcomings of the software, so I know what’s possible. Thanks
Inputs/sidechaining
As I think I’ve indicated, I’m more of a classical type composer than a dance/electronica kind of producer, so things like inputs, outputs and sidechaining are not the most important things to me when I’m “composing music”. But having said that, ducking is something I typically like to use a lot of for general audio editing (I do a lot of video work) especially with vocals. It’s almost second nature to me: first I set the level of backing which goes under a vocal, then I set the level of “ducked backing” which plays in the gaps.
Autoseeking
Ah, that’s interesting. I was going to ask if Renoise did autoseeking, so you’ve answered my question, thanks. If Renoise didn’t have autoseeking, that might have been a dealbreaker for me. Any kind of long orchestral score is impossible without it.
Aligning audio/lack of waveforms
I definitely know what you mean about having no visual cues of what is happening in each track.
One advantage DAWs have over trackers is that you can see the waveform.
I haven’t even downloaded Renoise yet but already I’ve been having a play at imagining how I would like to see notes and waveforms on the tracker. In fact I have just posted a new thread about this…
https://forum.renoise.com/t/waveform-piano-roll-idea/47624