First Renoise Song Down - program is great but had some issues

Greetings,

Renoise is great. I want to start with that. No more tendinitis from my mouse while working on a song all night for days on end.

I am really happy with how tight and polished the end result was and it worked flawlessly with my guitar playing and live synth sample recording.

There are a lot of ways this DAW is better than most others and I am glad I took the time to learn how to use it. The native effects are great and I wished I would have started using it years ago.

Now here are my negatives.

  1. I wish there were buttons at the top bar (like to loop a 1/2 patter etc) to quickly alter the tempo while working on a complex rhythm sections so I could slow it down as I seem to keep fighting the tempo as it wants to reset - there is more screen realestate up there on that bar area, let’s use it

  2. When I put values into my VST plugins they require me to hit enter which ends up disabling the plugin - annoying

  3. I would like to use my numkey buttons in certain contexts like entering numbers for an effect command instead of having to use the keyboard numbers

  4. It took time to get used to the editing screen to constantly want to recenter when I clicked on something - even after two weeks of using Renoise I still feel uneasy when the screen jumps without me moving it

  5. FIND/REPLACE - this is huge. I plugged in a solution from someone that coded it up but got stung by it routinely, this should be native and I really can’t believe this is not in the application. Example of getting stung, the Replace Entire Song value is set by default on this plugin tool when it pops up, and I am thinking I am only replacing my current track…dangerous. Just had to undo about an hour of work due to this and then Renoise crashed…ouch

  6. I want to do some drum roll stuff and having a somewhat more difficult time getting a more natural sound than I have been able to do with other DAWs for my drum fills - there has got to be an easier way than to try and calculate a 16th or 32nd note from hex

  7. Please at some point allow me to fill one of my monitors up with my pattern sequencing and the other with the pattern editing - I use a lot of jazzy 5 note chords and it fills up my screen space fast side to side

  8. I would really like to use Addictive Drums 2 with the routing to single channel feature. This is the only DAW that has issues with this.

  9. The fact that I had to go to the message boards to figure out how to delete selected notes since the delete button does not do this was a bit off putting (Shift-Delete). This should not be something I need to search the documentation for or spend time figuring out when just getting started with this DAW.

  10. Also, when I press stop, I assume the playback of all sound should stop. Another thing that had me wondering if it was not bugged from the start.

  11. I am often with multiple versions of a song when producing. I found myself floundering on how to get one track copied from one version to the other. It ended up being a painful process as I am sure many know.

Thanks and cheers! Happy customer. Starting a new song now. :slight_smile:

Renoise is a tracker. And trackers are in lot of things different to other DAW’s. Renoise is designed by the principles of the old trackers from the 80’/90’s. E.g. most of the effect commands, editing in pattern sequencer, etc, are the same like in most of the old trackers. In lots of things in a tacker you have to think in another direction. You can’t compare a tracker with the most of the other DAW’s, even if it’s a modern tracker like Renoise, because Renoise was designed with the tradition of old trackers. Trackers are a own world. Otherwise it would no longer be a tracker. Sounds weird for non-tracker people or people who use a tracker their first time. The older generations which already used the old trackers from 25 years back, will understand, what i mean. Every DAW has it’s pro’s and con’s. Also Renoise. Of course, some things could be better here and there, but in other DAW’s also some things could be better, which maybe even be top features in Renoise or/and vice versa. Every non-tracker user has huge problems at the beginning when learning producing with trackers. Most features of a tracker can be done with just the computer keyboard, here you even don’t need the mouse.

to1) there is a loop function with several pattern divisions (the button with the circled arrow right near the transport section). But i think you mean that it also reset the pattern to the first line after reaching the loop’s end line instead of continuing further over the loop while step editing (if i understood right). It just resets to loop start while live recording, when the pattern is playing. That would be a feature which could be fixed, right. But if you mean song’s tempo changes which will be reset automatically to the origin, which was set via effect commands after reseting the pattern, then you have to change the effect command for this pattern to the tempo you want for the time of editing and delete it later again. There could be also a better solution, right.

to 2) no problems here confirming value inputs with enter in VST’s. All VST’s stay active. Maybe you have set the enter key in preferences as shortcut to deactivate the devices? or maybe you use a keyboard configuration software, where you can configure key shortcuts to different functions?

to 3) this would also be a good idea. But it’s not possible, because the num pad keys were configured for other functions of Renoise. And here it’s also the classical tracker’s functionality.

to 4) don’t really understand what you mean with “the screen jumps” please explain more detailed. What are you doing, that the “screen jumps”? Do you mean the pattern editor? It jumps to the position where you click with the mouse on it, so that the line which you clicked is centered? If so this just happens in enabled record (edit) mode. If the edit mode is disabled, this shouldn’t happen. Then it just jumps to the position after a double click. But you can deactivate that in the GUI section of the preferences (just uncheck “Single click to set cursor in edit mode”)

to 5) it seems there’s nothing wrong with that tool. maybe you just have overseen, that it is set to whole song by default. And then you accidentially clicked “replace” without changing the “search in:” option to “track” or whatever instead of “whole song”? And if you have issues with that tool, then you have to report it to the developer of this tool (you can do this in the “discuss” section of the tool’s download page), not the Renoise crew.

to 6) what do you mean exactly with natural feeling? Simulating the small inaccuracies of a human player? This can be done in the track’s delay column manually, by delaying some lines some ticks. But if you mean a “one click” function to shuffle or humanize you notes, there’s such a “humanize” feature in the right click menu for selections, colums, track, pattern etc. But it might not be what you want. I’m sure you think about the “shuffle/swing quantise” function like in other DAW’s to shuffle e.g. every 1/1x note for the amount of x. This, you’re right, is a missing feature in Renoise.

to 7) You can drag the main window of Renoise over multiple monitors. But you also can detach the VST plugins from the plugin editor to drag them to another monitor (e.g. left monitor for Renoise and right monitor for the plugins). But you also can detach the whole instrument editor (view menu on top of the main window) and drag it to another monitor. But you can’t detach other things like the matrix editor, sample browser, mixer etc. Would also be nice if they could be detached, right.

to 8) Do you mean routing every single output channel of Addictive Drums 2 on a separate track? Don’t have Addictive Drums 2, but it should be possible to route several outputs of a plugin to several tracks in renoise, if this plugin supports multiple audio outputs. This can be done in the plugin editor. There you can find the output routing on the left side. There just click the drop down button to unfold the menu.

to 9) this can be done by default key combination ctrl+delete instead of just delete, because just the delete button is configured to delete notes in active live recording mode or step recordingg mode. But you also can configure a key or combination of your choice in the key section of the preferences. There you can assign any key to any function.

This should not be something I need to search the documentation for or spend time figuring out when just getting started with this DAW.

People who read the documentation before the first use are in advantage. :wink: For this the doc’s were written.

to 10)

Also, when I press stop, I assume the playback of all sound should stop.

Pressing stop once stops the song, but instruments and their effects are audible, as long as they fade out and reach their end (e.g. reverb’s decay faded out to 0)

Pressing stop twice stops the song and all sounds immediately and all effects and plugins switch to suspend mode. This is similar to the “panic” buttons in other DAW’s

Another thing that had me wondering if it was not bugged from the start.

Maybe you’re using plugin instruments and/or effects, which are running in auto suspend mode. Then Renoise will switch them automatically to suspend mode as soon as they stop processing any sound to save CPU while they don’t process any sound data. Then some devices need a small time to switch back from suspend to active mode and this may cause some issues like missing the first note when start playing the song.Auto suspend for all instances of the same plugin can be disabled in the plugin editor by clicking the ? on top of the left menu (not the auto suspend mode further down in the menu, this is just for the selected single plugin).
But missing 1st notes while start playing can also happen, after pressing stop twice before. Because then all sound activity stops immediately and all plugins will temporarily be switched to suspend mode undtil the next activity.

to 11) you can run multiple instances of Renoise at the same time and each instance can load a different song. And copy & paste between them should be possible without any issues (here it works like a charm).

btw: if you want a fast workflow inside Renoise, i recommend to open the preferences and customize all the keyboard shortcuts for all the features to your choice/needs. So you have your own key configuration with which you can work best.

Hey Mastrcode.

Thanks for the thorough response and the history lesson on software trackers.

Every non-tracker user has huge problems at the beginning when learning producing with trackers.

I really don’t think this needs to be the case really. I basically laid out the stuff that made me think at times to just ditch it and go back to Reaper.

To me the software was not incredibly different than other DAWs. The core beauty of it is that I have a ton of information about my music on the screen at the same time and deal directly with the notes for the chords I am playing.

Most features of a tracker can be done with just the computer keyboard, here you even don’t need the mouse.

Yes the mouse became less essential however the larger my song got after I filled it out, there was still definitely a need for a mouse to navigate it.

I am not too sure what the deal is with my plugins is but when I enter a number in one of them then poof it becomes disabled and I have not remapped any keys intentionally.

But it’s not possible, because the num pad keys were configured for other functions of Renoise

Check the context when a number is pressed, if the input focus is active for a command and that is where the cursor is currently active, allow it to work like a number input.

I guess the screen jumping is me just getting used to the line I want to edit being at a certain point on the grid and then my eyes are focused on that spot to do an edit since the letters are pretty small and then after I double click on it, blip!, the little box moves to the play head to be edited and I have to refocus and stop what I am doing for a brief moment to make sure I did not do something to my music before I proceed. I am getting better at adjusting to this but I still experience a slight hesitation in what I am doing.

With the Replace feature, I mean really this thing is a scrolling spread sheet. Copy/Paste/Delete/Replace/Find - these seem like baseline core features and I was surprised that it took a 3rd party person to implement Replace. When I use the Replace tool that I downloaded and select track in song and try to replace the instrument number for all the notes in that track, it only performs it on a single column. Again this is just stuff I stumbled around on and am just vocalizing to the team. One person’s experience. The software is really great as a whole.

The drum roll thing was for a fill I was working on and yeah I will chalk that one up to being a newb. It was based on just wanting to bump a few drums hits by 32nds and 64ths. Working in Hex is completely worth the screen real estate.

You can drag the main window of Renoise over multiple monitors

This almost works for me however my right monitor is my smaller utility monitor I would rather use for my pattern matrix and my main wide large monitor is the left one and I currently believe with my limited knowledge it is impossible to swap the two viewing areas. I am sure they will be adding more flexibility in this area in the future.

Do you mean routing every single output channel of Addictive Drums 2 on a separate track?

Yes. Right now you can do this however they come out paired for some reason into Renoise - one drum on left channel, one drum on right. All other DAWs, the drums map directly as separate channels so I thought I would point it out as it is currently my main drum processing module.

My thoughts about reading documentation is that the more the user is required to read it for basic functionality, the more you limit your potential audience. It’s totally reasonable to me to have to flip through it for command codes and for how to side chain and deeper concepts but not for simple usability stuff. I suspect a large percentage of users expect something to delete that they just highlighted when they hit that button when they first use the software.

you can run multiple instances of Renoise at the same time and each instance can load a different song. And copy & paste between them should be possible

As a new user I first tried to find a way to copy a complete track over to my second instance - not a feature. Next, I tried to copy a block from my pattern editor, nope. I had to manually copy each pattern - yuck but luckily the selection area remains active across multiple patterns so I give it that - yay.

I have also decided against going in and changing a lot of the hotkeys to how I want them at this point and I will just try the default settings to see how they treat me as I continue making music.

I have no intentions of leaving the software.

I ended up creating one of the best songs I have recorded yet with it and I know I will only get better at using it with time.

Cheers and thanks again Mastrcode.

This are just my thoughts. Maybe older people, who grew up with the old trackers in their time think a bit different about trackers (in a more positive way) than younger people of later generations who are new to trackers and/or grew up with modern DAW’s. :smiley:

But people get better the more they use a new software and the more more they gather experiences with it. Wheter it’s a tracker or another kind of DAW. Just have fun using it should be the main purpose. Regardless of its pro’s and con’s :wink:

Yes I agree.

I am probably what most consider one of the “older dudes”.

I used to code software in VI which Renoise brings me back to and at the end of the day it’s the music that matters.

Cheers. :slight_smile:

  1. FIND/REPLACE - this is huge. I plugged in a solution from someone that coded it up but got stung by it routinely, this should be native and I really can’t believe this is not in the application. Example of getting stung, the Replace Entire Song value is set by default on this plugin tool when it pops up, and I am thinking I am only replacing my current track…dangerous. Just had to undo about an hour of work due to this and then Renoise crashed…ouch

Just wanted to be sure that you know “Advenced pattern editor operations” in the right side of tracks screen, hidden in button that have [A ↔ E] on it.

Here you can do basic remap instrument numbers, transpose, quantize … with different areas (whole song, pattern, track, selection …) and content mask.

Just wanted to be sure that you know “Advenced pattern editor operations” in the right side of tracks screen, hidden in button that have [A ↔ E] on it.

Here you can do basic remap instrument numbers, transpose, quantize … with different areas (whole song, pattern, track, selection …) and content mask.

Exactly. This i forgot to write in my comment. I use these operations a lot while producing.

Thanks guys!