Hey - I recently challenged myself to create a Renoise song using one mono synth and as many effects and drum samples as I like.
I then posted it onhttps://www.reddit.com/r/BedroomBands/ and a Reddit user called /r/stormlyte hopped on and really finished the track off with some sick vocals. We’re now looking to do an EP together in the same vein.
I’m super stoked on the song and the “sound”. But I know the mix is a little off – too much dynamic range lol. Thinking of sticking it through Audacity and mastering there. But any suggestions in this regard would be really helpful.
Definitely nice, but yeah, your treble frequencies are like a poke in the eye!
I get great results by adding either an Analog or Digital Filter (depending if you want a dirty or clean sound) to reduce the extreme highs and lows. Analog Filters give sounds more character, while Digital Filters are good for cleanly removing unwanted frequencies. I’ve heard from many engineers that taking away frequencies is almost always better than adding them (or leaving them in). Less is more, and I think of these filters as a nice curved knife blade to sculpt your sound.
Also, check out the presets on the Renoise Noise Gate. I had been struggling to “smooth out” the jagged edges of my sound like professional recordings, and I found that a gate with a longer release often just adds a nice shaping to the sound.
Finally, another big breakthrough to me was the MultiBand send tool, which allows you to split up a rich complex sound like your synth lead – sending the low, high, and medium frequencies to three different signal busses. That way you can add different effects, filters, and EQ to each buss, giving you greater control over the overall mix.
Thanks for your feedback. There’s a tonne of good advice in there and I’m looking forward to trying some of these tips - try and reduce that poke in the eye factor haha.
I like the sound of the “dirty” filter. I’m guessing you mean the analogue one?
The MultiBand Send tool sounds really cool. I like to programme my synths in one track and automate changes throughout the song - so volume, different distortion settings, delay, EQ and stuff. MultiBand sounds like it could be really helpful since the bass and highs are all in the same track. The benefit of this is that the notes “mingle” in a way they don’t when you use different tracks. MultiBand sounds like it may give me the best of both worlds - all the little happy accidents that come from cramming everything into one track as well as more control. Will definitely be trying that.
