Hello
I’m using Renoise for several years now. I’ve released tons of music made with it, but it was all music without vocals (well some snipets here and there but not “real vocals”) . Now, i want to use vocals. How should i do it? any ideias ?
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What I do:
Create the backing tracks in Renoise
- Export to a wav
- Load the wav into Reaper and edit to remove extraneous sections (e.g., instrumanetal breaks), plus replicate the track a few times.
- Load the wav into a Tascam multitrack digital recorder (DP-008ex, usually).
- Record my vocals several times over multiple tracks.
- Export the wavs from the Tascam, load them up in to Reaper (along with the backing tracks)
- Listen to each vocal take, and start extracting the best parts (i.e. “comping”)
- When I have a complete vocal track I can live with, I export it as a wav, usually as sections
- Load the sections into Renoise as instruments (often one instrument)
- “Play” the vocal sections on their own track.
- Add/adjust fx as needed to get a better sound. Compression, EQ, reverb, whatever you think works for the piece
I try to keep the vocal tracks imported into Renoise as clean as possible (no reverb, EQ added during recording or comping).
However, while in Reaper I do try out difference fx to see the difference. Rare for me is the vocal take that sounds awesome as-is. Its useful to see how reverb, etc. color the take, but ultimately I want all that done in Renoise.
You could probably do vocal comping in Renoise but I suspect it would be awkward.
You could record the vocals straight into your computer (possibly Renoise) but then you have to sort out latency.
I like using a dedicated device because of the reliability and ease of use. Downside: Time spent moving files around.
https://www.amazon.com/DP-008EX-Portastudio-Portable-Multi-Track-Recorder/dp/B00B9060X6
The price has gone up since I bought mine (which strikes me as weird). I recently bought a foot-switch so I could easily “punch-in” vocal (or whatever) retakes. Very handy.
A cheaper Tascam: https://www.amazon.com/Tascam-DP-004-Digital-4-Track-Recorder/dp/B001JJFR8Q/
But along with fewer tracks it lacks some of the input potions of the DP-008ex.
I mostly use vocal samples, though Similarly to Neurogami I process them externally before importing into renoise. If recording vocals for a full track, I would also tend to follow a similar path as stated above. If just adding a full track length sample it can some times make it difficult to work on loops, it is easier to split it up into sections.
i just record everything directly into renoise, slice everything up in instruments, pick out the best parts and treat them as normal samples. works fine, though a better visualization/treatment of long samples in the pattern editor would be a lifesaver though.
cough audiotracksplz cough-cough
thank you all for the replies. my question is not how to record vocals, it’s how to sequence them. since this is a tracker, there are no audio tracks. how do you adjust a volcal tracks to the beat? i know there is tick delay and i can fine adjust the start of the audio. my question was in the hope of finding some new cool techniques that allow me to overcome the no audio track issue.
anyone knows of “audio track” plugins ? native instruments used to have Intakt wich had a bpmed time line, but the time stretch sounded terrible.
thank you all for the replies. my question is not how to record vocals, it’s how to sequence them. since this is a tracker, there are no audio tracks. how do you adjust a volcal tracks to the beat? i know there is tick delay and i can fine adjust the start of the audio. my question was in the hope of finding some new cool techniques that allow me to overcome the no audio track issue.
anyone knows of “audio track” plugins ? native instruments used to have Intakt wich had a bpmed time line, but the time stretch sounded terrible.
Any track can be an “audio” (i.e. vocal) track. Load the vocal samples as a new instrument, and use thatinstrument as you would any other: Enter notes.
How you record the vocals can make adifferencein being able to best slice them so that when you play a “note” form this vocal “instrument” it is correctly synced.
You can still use the various delay commands if needed (or if you want aparticulareffect)
Vocals are just sounds, like piano notes or sine waves. The (typical) difference with a “vocal instrument” is that the keys usually thought as C, C#, D, etc. become, for example, verse 1, chorus 1, verse 2,chorus2, and so on.
You’re just triggering the playback of sound files that happen to be vocals.
thank you all for the replies. my question is not my question was in the hope of finding some new cool techniques that allow me to overcome the no audio track issue.
anyone knows of “audio track” plugins ? native instruments used to have Intakt wich had a bpmed time line, but the time stretch sounded terrible.
Yeah you have plugs like Intakt and energyXT that can give you what you need here, but i stopped using them because it became a hassle whenever i renamed or moved a project folder, got so tired of it. Track delays, note delays and slices in Renoise turned out to be easier for me in the end. And i like to keep everything “in the box”.
I make a backing track in renoise, render it into wav, load into Reaper or PT, or whatever, then I load the DAW as a ReWire slave, which allows me to edit and process the vocals in sync with Renoise. If the backing track wave was put at the beginning of the session I used for recording everything stays in sync. I wish ReWire wasn’t as limited though. Being able to use both Reaper and Renoise in sync and with both programs having access to the soundcard’s inputs would fix the lack of audiotracks for me. (basically - jackd for Windows is what I want)
Make sure to turn on “autoseek” in sample properties-playback-autoseek.
Maybe you’ll want to use “oneshot” as well.
For further adjustments you can delay the start of your vocal track by ticks with:
0Q - delay note by x ticks
Or by 256ths of a line by using the delay column.
You can also put a delay command in the volume or panning columns if youve already filled the effects columns
volume or panning column - Qx : delay a note by x ticks (0-F)
You can jump through the sample to a certain point with sample offset command:
0Sxx - offset by xx (256ths of the full length of the sample)
You can add slice markers to non-destructively chop your vocal track into individual parts and then jump to each slice marker with 0Sxx - trigger sample slice number xx
You could also destructively render each slice to a separate sample and trigger each sample with a separate key.
Audiotracks is the feature I have wished for in renoise for such a long time…I dont really want to use reaper and rewire…like someone said earlier, “in the box” is so much better and less hassle.
This is the best video I’ve seen about processing vocals. Yeah its in reason, but the fundamentals still apply
Simple answer panning and doubling up on vocals. I honestly hate doubling up but most vocal samples that I find are so crappy that after I edit them, the volume level drops drastically.
sometimes a decent recording from a good mic needs no processing at all.
My main advice would be if you are using reverb - on anything for that matter - roll off the low end with a HP filter
^^ Or use the abbey road reverb trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lNckK8N3to
Too much reverb will push the vocals back in the mix and I reckon unless it’s for intended fx, it sounds better up front. Rolling of the lows is good advice, in fact any instrument where there is little useful info in the lows, rolling off will increase headroom.
I don’t do much vocals for various reasons, but when i do i record directly into Renoise by using headphones and singing through my Tascam DR-05 and into Renoise by “Record New Sample”.
I usually just record not synced to patterns because i find it to be less accurate and it seems to compensate for latency that isn’t there. I could turn off the compensate thingy, but then i’m afraid i lose something the other way so i simply just record non synced and adjust it later.
This will probably not work well if you have too much latency though. Here it sounds pretty much instant when i use the ASIO drivers and late as ftcsht**u*t using directsound.
I think @hcv242 may referring to something I’ve also been a little challenged by - having clear visualization of a loaded/recorded audio sample in the default track view next to other tracks. I use a Focusrite ISA One to record relatively clean vocals directly into Renoise, tracking the tempo and music from the current project over headphones while the monitors/sub are turned down to zero in my little studio.
I’ve wondered though what it might be like to have a ‘sample lane’ for a track that shows the sample waveform vertically (works for the piano roll, why not raw audio? ^_^). Ideally the waveform displayed would align with the note trigger and cutoff, and maybe eventually even audio manipulation parameters like volume control, delay, retrigger, etc. Not sure what kind of perf hit you’d get like that though trying to maintain real-time visual processing for one or more lanes.
I suppose an alternative might be something like what @hcv242 seems to be indicating though - an actual audio lane/track that directly represents what will be played next to sequenced tracks - in theory, all of the same track controls could still exist under the covers to represent offset data, etc. calculated from placement of audio in that lane.
Just thoughts though. I have found myself at times wishing I had better visualization of vocals and other longer audio samples in track view.
I think @hcv242 may referring to something I’ve also been a little challenged by - having clear visualization of a loaded/recorded audio sample in the default track view next to other tracks. I use a Focusrite ISA One to record relatively clean vocals directly into Renoise, tracking the tempo and music from the current project over headphones while the monitors/sub are turned down to zero in my little studio.
I’ve wondered though what it might be like to have a ‘sample lane’ for a track that shows the sample waveform vertically (works for the piano roll, why not raw audio? ^_^). Ideally the waveform displayed would align with the note trigger and cutoff, and maybe eventually even audio manipulation parameters like volume control, delay, retrigger, etc. Not sure what kind of perf hit you’d get like that though trying to maintain real-time visual processing for one or more lanes.
I suppose an alternative might be something like what @hcv242 seems to be indicating though - an actual audio lane/track that directly represents what will be played next to sequenced tracks - in theory, all of the same track controls could still exist under the covers to represent offset data, etc. calculated from placement of audio in that lane.
Just thoughts though. I have found myself at times wishing I had better visualization of vocals and other longer audio samples in track view.
like this; https://forum.renoise.com/t/some-kind-of-horizontal-transport-timeline/34400 ?
I’ve found that using a vst such as http://products.zplane.de/vielklang greatly reduces the headache when working on vocals in Renoise.