I currently own an Elektron Digitone which I bought to use away from the desk that I am at for 8 hours a day at work, to jam ideas on and then hopefully record into my DAW and edit, sequence and add to. I was using Reason 11 until recently but I sold the licence and the only DAW I now own is Renoise which is fine - I love Renoise and I am still learning new things every day. With the money from selling Reason and a bonus I have just found out I am getting from work I am looking into getting a Digitakt to go with my Digitone.
I am lucky in so far as the Elektron stuff uses the Overbridge VST to connect to DAW and can do audio over USB, I have managed to set up a template for the Digitone to stream it’s four tracks into four tracks in Renoise and apply FX to each one, as well as one master track for automating pattern changes and some automation of parameters. But I am yet to try and commit anything to audio and with any further hardware I decide to get this problem will be compounded. I am tempted to just only bounce to audio when finishing the song, rather than bouncing clips and bits and pieces.
Does anybody else multitrack hardware with Renoise? If/when I get a Digitakt I will need to create a further 9 tracks (one master pattern change, 8 audio tracks). I am loathe to move DAW after simplifying down to just Renoise and am looking for input from anybody else who uses hardware. Part of me also things that perhaps I should separate my hardware endeavours from my software but I think that limits me in some ways, each can compliment the other - it’s just a case of figuring it all out. I have also considered selling my Digitone and using my money for a faster PC to run, dare I say it, more than one instance of Diva (shocked Pikachu.jpeg).
Thanks and sorry for the long post, I felt it necessary to spell out what I do and will need to get the best advice.
I might get a lap tray and do the same to be honest with you. My laptop is only 14 inch screen but at my desk it is plugged into 23 inch monitor. First World problems eh
This is probably a little off from what you’re looking at but I find that renoise does a good job of capturing audio from instruments. I use it like a 4 track cassette sometimes. I’ll make beats and stuff and then grab my ukulele and play a riff or maybe the whole song and have a sample that is triggered at the beginning and plays all the way through. The main limitation I have is that I can’t record multiple tracks at once. So all my live style synth techno jams are recorded as a stereo track and I can’t seperate them for mixing afterwords. But for one at a time multitrack recording it actually works really good.
It’s usually fine as long as the tempos are good. I usually use the sample recorder function and play along to the song so everything lines up ok. And it’s easy enough to trim or add a delay to the start of the sample if it needs to be adjusted.
I have always used Renoise like a multitrack recorder. In the early days I tended to use software vsts, but now find hardware more satisfying, so i develop ideas on synths etc, record them into Renoise (with vocals) and then use the pattern editor and superb Instrument Editor to mould and shape the sounds into songs.
Thanks for the reply. I’m just going to have to sit down and just get a workflow together for it. Although my new Polyend Tracker is a distraction right now lol.
I keep to trying to apply ‘less is more’ to everything I do. In other words I have owned too many software synths that I didn’t use/master, and then owned too many hardware synths that I didn’t use/master, and now try to own fewer devices, getting more out of what I do have.
I think even a really basic synth when put through effects and software manipulation can do amazing things. I have a Korg MicroPreset which is exactly that, and I’m always inspired to think how much OMD did with this synth in their earliest days when they couldn’t afford much more. To be honest, however, it is the Moog Matriarch that does most of the heavy lifting in my music, and often it is a single oscillator sound that gets me going.
In other words, don’t feel you need to buy lots of gear to achieve great results, there are very few genuinely bad synthesizers (Timbre Wolf?) and it’s what you do with it that matters.
it’s a real psychological issue.