I have been using Scream, Impulse and later Schism Tracker since 1995. So thats a long time. The keybindings and interface merged with my neural system and probably my genes. So if you want my babies, our child can track at birth. But im not here for promoting my seeds, Im here because I’d like to know from other users how their switch went (to Renoise and coming from a tracker thats different from it).
I tried several times but the tries were shortlived because my old trakcer was so familiar and bc i thought it was too FT-like. But now I want to give it a serious try. What helped you in getting to know Renoise and what difficulties did you face?
I’d also like to know if there is a keyboard binding map, Impulse Tracker layout. That will save me 100s of keybindings to reset. Is there also an Impulse skin?
The transition from IT to Renoise is more difficult than from FT2 to Renoise. I am used to Fasttracker so it’s not that difficult to me, especially since I changed some of the keybindings to mimic those of FT2. The graphical interface isn’t a big deal.
I’d advice you to use nothing but Renoise for a month or so, and then evaluate if you’ve grown accustomed to it. Change the most important keybindings. It’s probably worth it, since software like IT/Openmpt et c are a dead end in comparison to Renoise.
A way to help yourself: Try to find specific features and ways to work that you really like with Renoise, and learn to depend on them (sends? tools?). That way the benefits will seem greater than the costs.
other than that one i’d give you probably the same suggestions you got from Joel Johansson. i do think using these IT keybindings will help you though, seeing how keyboard-oriented most oldschool-trackers are, i can imagine this to be quite a hurdle. i have no idea how far these IT keybindings are, but you could consider sending a PM to the creator for further inquiry.
A workaround is to download Milky Tracker, save as XM, then import the XM into Renoise.
Don’t expect a perfect import. Renoise’s format is XRNS. That said, the rudimentary import might help you to get started by loading up old song and doing some hands on messing around with the free demo.
Also, a second thing that will assist you, is fixing your Global View Presets to conform to how ImpulseTracker does it (f2 pattern editor, f3 sample editor, f4 instrument editor, etc). You will find more information from here: GlobalViewPresets and how to implement them
Renoise becomes way more usable for hardcore ScreamTracker3/ImpulseTracker/SchismTracker-people when they just take the time to make it more like ImpulseTracker shortcuts. Trust me, it’s worth it. Also, Protman (as mentioned before) is working on LUA Scripts that give us the other required features, I’d recommend checking his scripts out.
Ofcourse it does import IT, but not perfect (pitch and filter envelopes don’t match perfectly) and perhaps it doesn’t import the .IT files saved in Modplug, i don’t know that for sure.
I have also made the step from IT to Renoise.
Eventually, the best trick that got me accustomed best was starting projects from scratch and forget my old .IT projects.
Great tips. Thanks everyone. I will finish current almost finished projects and will endure a 30 days of Renoise. I tried on and off for 6 years now. Could’ve been a real pro
I’m not sure, maybe im missing something, but this is about hooking up other software to Renoise/midi thingies. Right?
Esaruoho, I recognize your name (or your alias) from the Schismtracker forum. I see you also still use Schism. How do you keep overview in programs differently operated… isnt that confusing? And in what manner do you use these programs? Main song structure in Schism and finalizing in Renoise or the likes? Just curious!
As for playing old mods, thats a job I will keep Schismtracker for.
Most certainly not. It was about modifying the Config.xml so that there are ImpulseTracker-like global view presets in Renoise. Then loading the KeyBindings.xml so you have ImpulseTracker-like keybindings in Renoise.
It also seems that I made a mistake and linked you to my old ReWire thing instead of the Renoise Global View Presets thing. This is the real one.
Hi. I use anything. I use Schism for .it, and Renoise for .xrns. While I’ve experimented with using Schism to send midinotes to Renoise, I’d rather use Schism to send midinotes directly into Logic, while Renoise sends midinotes directly into Logic. Ido full songs with both, but don’t import between them, no use really, it’d just be confusing.
The features you REALLY will miss are:
ALT-M <- Mix Paste (being able to mix clipboard content to pattern editor)
ALT-F <- Expand selection content
ALT-G <- Shrink selection content
ALT-I <- Template Mode. Here’s a little screenshot:
I user inputted the first channel’s content, then copied that content to clipboard (Alt-L (select whole track) Alt-C (copy to clipboard). Then enabled Alt-I Template Mode, and pressed one note per channel. First note was C#6 - and hey presto, the clipboard content was transposed by +13 notes. Next I decided to input D#7, so each clipboard-note-content was transposed by +27. Then D#8 so clipboard-content-transposition of +39. Then I noted that the going higher than B-9 made the whole content wrap down to C-1, so I decided to zoom down to C3 (so transpose by -24 notes). Obviously this also works for notes and effects, so if you have something like this: , yes, you can do it. (first channel is copied to clipboard, Template-mode enabled, and hey presto, all your fancy effect + volume + etc stuff is copied across while your magical notes are transposed )
Expand/Shrink keybinding from Adv.edit request3
Let us not forget the eternal posting from Taktik to this thread “The more interesting questions is why you guys need to do that that often that you need shortcuts for this?”
dBlue’s routine has keyboard shortcuts available, but i guess you want this routine expanded to apply to specific selections or tracks within the pattern instead of the whole pattern.
The script is already there, just a little more expansion should be enough.
It’s more about user-created selections indeed, be they the-whole-pattern, one column or any amount defined by user. The second preference would be for these expand + shrink commands to be key-bindable, so that no window springs up when trying to shrink or expand a selection.
Thankfully with much assistance from dBlue, etc, I was able to modify his Pattern Resizer script to provide for Alt-F and Alt-G (Shrink, Expand) shortcuts, bridging yet another ImpulseTracker<->Renoise gap
, yes, you can do it. (first channel is copied to clipboard, Template-mode enabled, and hey presto, all your fancy effect + volume + etc stuff is copied across while your magical notes are transposed 