Ben, Renoise encapsulates the freedom, anarchy and technique geekery oriented computer subculture when tracker software and computers were truly geeky machines and only the best of them could hack it inside out. It’s like playing chess. It’s not that the chessboard needs to be remade or decorated but it was always about gameplay and tactics. Tracking is a unique art form on its own just like extreme sports, but for geeks and musicians and programmers and circuit benders and creative people in general. However one thing sets trackers apart from more conventional music software, forget the term digital audio workstation for a moment, you still needed to be a computer geek to get anything out of tracker software and read hex in your sleep and be fully adept at using your computer keyboard without even thinking about it. You also got to be a musician and a creative, it’s not all math btw. Pretty much nothing changed all this while but Renoise came to exist in parallel as an evolutionary process which Taktik himself mentions as he wanted a software tool that was fast and easy to use (as a geek and musician himself) and that is when he started to look forward to build one at around age 25. It’s a young man’s dream and it’s realised. The tracker music subculture was never about making money but making art and expressing it through display of skill and mastery over ANY piece of electronic machinery, it could be a graphic chip used for audio or making audio on a defunkt circuit board and still making it sound interesting. The Demoscene is a creative and technical scene, it’s not an industrial convention like NAMM. Money is not really a motivation for the hours of time spent by everyone of them contributing all these years.
There may be some pros and cons to having a relatively young but resilient art form that is electronic in nature and a thriving scene with no commercial focus as such. But it’s perfect in its beauty the way it is. There are a gazillion tools and software plugins that will do what you want. Hell, I use a pitch shift MP3 player to slow down fast solos on my phone, and stuff like that, nicks and nacks. I still use Renoise do all of my music excursions and creative pursuits. I am looking forward to personal project of mine where I am using malware sonification using Lua scripting and reverse engineering a PE file using Renoise and making music out of it, and I just might be satisfied with my efforts enough to submit it to Defcon for next year’s security conference if I do it successfully. Guess what, it’s a geeks conference and this idea can be done in other tools too like JavaScript but most security folks won’t be playing music the way we musicians do it and that is where combining tracking culture, security expertise and pure fun will be my modus operandi for the time being…
Doing it for money, hell no. If everyone was suckered into being motivated by money then we would not have had trackers, Demoscene and Renoise to begin with. I really like the kind of cultural detachment where money is not an incentive at all, even if corporate commerce has a say in market matters. Let’s just put it this way - Renoise comes from a very different community and aesthetic, not just the unusual interface or skillsets required to use it. This sort of tribal unity (Scandinavian cultures are tribal in origin and a lot of that brushes off on the early origins of the computer subcultures) and lack of corporate selfishness is a breath of fresh air in a world where everything DEMANDS money.Finally even with its ‘free for all’ roots, YOU can still use it for ANY purpose you want and make money off using Renoise or any one of the 100 tracker softwares or computing platforms of your choice and create recordings, loop CDs, sample packs, license your stuff in publishing deals, use it at live gigs, program vsts and test it, use it for academic research or demonstration, or just to relax and look really cool doing it in the office, or DJ gig as NO one in the general audience will ever get it and will look esoteric to them:)
You really cannot complain about something that is as good as what Renoise has come to be and at this price, especially at a time when the market place is totally dominated by money makers(first priority money!), kick backs and endorsement deals and in general a very exploitative but well oiled revenue generating machinery we call the music industry, it has its good and bad sides, but the folks at the top seem to have some truly devious aims in general and take pleasure in corrupting everything and controlling everything.
Be happy that something like Renoise even exists in the current climate where it’s really easy to just cop out and be a sell out or pay money to the mafia than rather take a bullet in the head,or something to that effect. I like the audacity and sincerity around the computer subculture scene and this one is my favourite right beside the computer hacker subculture. Some things in life need to stay virgin and pure. Art for art’s sake works well too, not everything is for sale btw on this world.
When a doctor releases a vaccine for free without licensing it to a pharma company or say Picasso gives free painting seminars around the world, would you be complaining about the transportation expenses at that point to reach the venue or buy a little vial of vaccine for a buck? Some people have a big heart and soul and it’s nothing wrong to stay that way. The world is crumbling around us anyways, it’s time for some massive change. If we humans survive it then we can all go back to our daily retreat of using one of the best music softwares ever.
If crowdfunding comes up, I can sure contribute money from my end and my share, but it would seem rude to just send money to Taktik randomly as if he was even asking for it. The one thing we can do without offending anyone is to open a Patreon page and ask everyone to chip in with their share and see how it goes. All proceeds can be saved in a Renoise fund bank for future development. We are not getting all old and stingy so soon, so even if we really play the money game, we will be here for our entire lives really. Thing to think about.
And for the rest of us who plan to use Renoise as is forever, playing chess or practicing martial arts might also be a good distraction side by side. Life is too short to get hung up on money, even if the landlord needs some.(lol)