Hi there, thought I’d introduce myself as a relative newcomer to Renoise.
Having been an independent music maker / home-studio user for over 12 years, I’ve used all sorts of hardware / software for sampling / sequencing (MPC2000, FL, Reason, Live, Logic, etc) and I have to say that for this type of workflow Renoise is by far the most intuitive, streamlined and powerful instrument I’ve encountered. The new stable release of 2.5 adds some amazing features to an already stunning musical tool (plug-in grabber - holy sh*t, awesome!!) but yet days after the latest release there remains a constant stream of suggestions for improvements and new features when surely people should be better spending there time getting the most out of the new functionality?
I have been playing guitar / keys / bass for almost 20 years now, and as a musician one has to accept a few limitations within one’s practice of the artform, necessity is the mother of invention as they say and certain restrictions help to channel / guide the creative process. I have yet to think of a sample / synth-based musical idea that I am unable to express using the pattern commands, volume and delay column,etc and I haven’t even started to mess around with automating DSPs yet!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t see much chatter on the forum about actual musical thought processes like melody, harmony, groove, dynamics, syncopation, etc and feel that a lot of peoples gripes and problems could already be worked around if they think a bit more creatively rather than assuming that the only solution is further coding / software development.
Examples:
Beat-slicing / markers / using 09xx command: If the start of your snare / kick / whatever is not bang on the value on the hex ruler, use the hex value immediately preceeding it and offset any dead-air by putting the note on the previous line in the sequencer with a high value in the delay column. Your tracks should be absolutely riddled with delay column entries for correct timing and rhythmic flow. This gives you a resolution of 256 ticks per step so one of them is going to slot in nicely.
Audio / waveform tracks: Didn’t the team go to all the effort of integrating rewire / jack support? There are already countless DAW options for recording multi-channel audio and Renoise + Logic are perfect partners in my book, running in tandem seemlessly. Imagine a toolkit - if you were building a house you would probably want to use a screw-driver, saw, chisel, as well as your favourite hammer - even if it is a bloody great hammer! Suffice to say you don’t have to (maybe shouldn’t) do EVERYTHING in Renoise.
Anyway, I just wanted to give a couple of examples to support my previous comments and I realise part of the community-driven development of Renoise involves an open forum for users suggestions, but many users often seem to be concerned about technological specifications for the sake of it, rather than for executing well developed musical ideas to produce great compositions.
As you can probably ascertain, I am not from a tracking / demoscene background and I approach Renoise with a fresh set of eyes / ears. I hope this is not offensive to anyone and I have probably shown my relative ignorance, but thought I’d chip in my cent’s worth as sometimes it’s difficult to see the woods for the trees!
Cheers, and happy music-making everybody!