In what things Renoise is better than other DAWs

General Discussion
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  1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?

For fast rolls, it’s much easier to enter “0R03” instead of drawing all the notes in a step sequencer. Also, It’s a bit like Vim, the workflow is more focused on the keyboard so It’s faster. I also like the fact that it’s got an old-school flavor to it. I used to use Buzz in 1999-2000 and stopped doing electronic music for a while. When I discovered Renoise a year ago, I was really surprised at how complete it is. Also, the fact that scripting is in Lua is really cool.

2 Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?

I’ve been playing drums since I was 12. I played in many bands and still do, I’ve always been into electronic music and experimental, noise stuff.

  1. What other DAWs you try?

Fruity Loops, Reason, Ableton.

  1. What music styles you prefer?

Nowave, postpunk, freejazz, miami bass ,dubstep ,future garage,footwork/juke ,bleep techno(old warp records),old-school hardcore/jungle.

  1. What music styles you compose in Renoise?

future garage-y postdubstep footwork-influenced bass music

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  1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?
    For my way to approach composing. You see, tracker background. Was never quite comfortable with typical horizontal scrollers, and as it’s quite common for me to enter notes rather than do live recordings, for that you just cannot beat Renoise. It’s only later on that I may humanize the result. And it doesn’t matter do I happen to have whole song idea at once, can always build around some basic ideas. And arranging… it’s so easy with patterns. It’s not even that much of an issue to form idea of song via pattern matrix and labelling abilities.

  2. Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?
    Not really.

  3. What other DAWs you try?
    Cubase, Reaper, Cakewalk.

  4. What music styles you prefer?
    Everything, and all in between.

  5. What music styles you compose in Renoise?
    No matter the style, just as long you got the style.

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Easily the best way to do percussion - especially sampled percussion.

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Yo what’s your SoundCloud?

1 Like
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It’s as solid as a rock and never misses a beat. It’s interface is a class military grade act, for getting at the most important aspects of individual sample control. basically it’s a class, sampler / VST player / Sequencer, with a no fluff interface. It has some limitations which imo stop it becoming one of the most outstanding software samplers yet devised, but I think having velocity, key range sensing, note off velocity and midi controllers to the instruments envelope sections would be a significant first step in that direction. It’s also the only softsampler I like the sound of. also the only software I can say I enjoy using. if you need precision access to sample level control, there’s nothing performs better I have found outside of hardware samplers. I wish I could use it in as a plugin instrument in other DAWs. it would be an utter joy. maybe even just a renoise file player plug-in with an edit it in Renoise function. the fact that it runs on other platforms and the saved files contain all the data make it a great portable system as well. I could go on, but a lot has been mentioned already.

I’ve tried lots of other DAWs and know the EXS24 and Kontakt pretty well. one good test for a sampler is setting up a drum kit with multi outs and hi hats performing well. then the amount of control you can bring to bare on transforming the individual drums. you can do that in EXS to a degree but the hi hats you can forget. you can do it in kontakt but it’s not much fun and takes ages, it’s a sampler which builds up too much resentment for me, even though it’s powerful. the scripting is what really makes certain things obtainable. to be fair this usage is also not something renoise is disposed well to either, but renoise never purports to be. you would think kontakt would be better for precision sample manipulation but most of the time it isn’t really. it’s actually flaky and you’re never quite sure if it is performing as accurately as it should be.
that is where re-noise excels. you are utterly certain when you have reached the performance of the engine in Renoise. and you are equally certain that it will do it exactly the same every time.

I’m self taught. I would attempt most music in renoise. though long multi-track audio recordings probably won’t be one of them. I like all kinds of music in some way or another.

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1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?
I needed a cheap alternative for my music, because I felt that I wanted to start making commercial music. It’s lightweight also.
My budget was about 100€ to get a program. I began to rumble around the internetZ to find a proper software for my needs. I tried all the free ones first that I could find, such as; MilkyTracker, LMMS, MadTracker, Rax’n’ tracks( This was a cool one, but it wasn’t very user friendly so I bailed it), reaper(free for 30days I believe). Can’t remember the rest. From those I felt that reaper was the most quality software, but it just didn’t fit my workflow as I was used to the pattern workflow. I spent my time in Madtracker for a week. I really wanted to learn how the tracker works and bailed after 1-5 practice songs. I just thought that “Yo, it’s year 2013. There must be a easier ways to do these things” And began to search for “modern trackers” from google and found renoise. I downloaded the demo and tried to do a few practice songs in it and one of them is the “Skydive”, which you can find from my soundcloud if you’re intrested. The sample editor and Track DSP’s were a sellout for me, so I went and bought renoise.

At first it was like a actual hell to learn how the tracker works, but the music theory which I’ve been studying out of the internet by myself helped a bit in the journey. After a week or so I learned the most critical hotkeys and it boosted my workflow a lot.

I wouldn’t say it’s better for me, i would go back to pianorolls anyday. The rhythmic patterns are easy to make in renoise tho. ctrl + 4, ctrl + 8 etc. ^^

2. Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?

Yes and no. I’ve learned stuff out of internet. Watched “lypur” videos from youtube and read the book called " Music theory for electronic musicians", which can be found with that exact name from google if anybody is interested.

3. What other DAWs you tried?

I’ve used FL studio, Cubase, Studio one, reason and Guitar Pro 5 and 6 in the bands I’ve been.

4. What music styles do you prefer?

I’m huge fan of electrofunk, Acidjazz, jazz, different styles of metal( power and progressive ), original funk, electro house (mostly deadmau5) and game music. Mostly.
5. What music styles do you compose in Renoise?

Not sure, every song is different.

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Personally there are lots of reasons but the main one is that I prefer the tracker workflow.

Another thing that is good is that it doesn’t require a dongle or other POS-device.
There are lots of ProTools users that can’t use their DAW because of a serious f-ck up by Pace/iLok.
They did some update which had a bug/error in it, which rendered all licenses out of date if you updated to that version.
There is some 4-5weeks now for some studios (incl. professional studios) without the software/license working :)
This affects/affected all iLok licenses.

Nope.

Spent a bit of time taking piano leasons in school but it didn’t workout with the schedule so I skipped it after a while.

Cubase, Logic, Reason.

I like most music but have trouble with death metal :)

Mostly electronic-music.
What genré the songs fit into?
I have no idea most of the time :)

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everything

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all of it

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Renoise is better than nothing, and nothing is better than renoise. It’s just a tool. Try it out and see if this tool works for you. If not, move on to a different tool or better yet, keep using the tool you have.

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  1. Amiga trackers, Madtracker, ModPlug tracker, Acid Pro, Reason, Ableton, got a Cakewalk disc somewhere too.

It looks similar to my music software history.

Protracker (Amiga), Modplug, Renoise(i was using the demo), Fruityloops(before is was named flstudio), Cubase, Reason (for a long time) and now back to Renoise.

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I love the renoise gui (except the slowdowns), it’s concept. This gui feels the best for me and I tried quite a lot daws for periods of time. I am pleasuring in the integrated analyzer. No other daw still has this. And It is quite fast and precise. Doofer concept and meta devices. I like the minimal dsp device concept. And last but not least renoise tracker view, it’s the best tracker view available. Edit: and the mixer view, imo also the best of all.

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This is what I call necroposting. However those questions are interesting.

  1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?

I fell in love with it almost immediately. It just feels right for me.
Programming drums in Renoise is fast and efficient, sample editor is really nice here, it’s stable and pretty, I can go on and on.

  1. Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?

Yes, I did.

  1. What other DAWs you try?

Plenty, e.g. Ableton, FL Studio, Reaper, some more esoteric ones like Radium.

  1. What music styles you prefer?

IDM, ambient, post-rock, shoegaze, downtempo, a lot of them really.

  1. What music styles you compose in Renoise?

Nowadays I’ll describe it as dreamy downtempo stuff with glitchy beats and post-rock vibes.

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it was the answer for question no. 1. the others do not interest me. the answers are boring to read.

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Renoise is better than anything else when it comes to chopping bits of baguettes.
And I know what I’m talking about.

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i recently purchased my license for renoise/redux and here are my reasons

  1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?
  • top down approach

i simply can´t stand the left to right sequenzing of instruments and to look at little wave packages on, what i call, a modern slick and rational new notation system.

  • its affordable and has a pretty nice licensing system, which in my case, i will support.

  • i liked the overall UI in a matter of seconds

  • feels like i can compose like in old times,therefor im keen to get a magic midi-file in- and export in the future (im writing stuff in MuseScore2)

  1. Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?
  • yes, i played mainly guitar (almost studied it), a bit of piano, a smaller bit of sax and trumpets and i got lessons about composing
  1. What other DAWs you try?

  • cos i setup a little homerecording thing, i got a license for studio one artist (i wont use it, dont like it somehow) and bitwig 8track

  • i will stick to bitwig for recording audios of all sorts (the daw looks and feels awesome)

  • all others are simply too expensive (and i hate left to right sequenzing :D)

  1. What music styles you prefer?
  • not really fixed. universe of sounds is too big to fail ^^, but: zappa, blues, jazz (came from that background), bossanova, flamenco, drumnbass, techno, classic stuff (mostly bach or modern composers like scelsi, ligeti asf) and a ton of instrument sounds from all over the world)
  1. What music styles you compose in Renoise?

actually i am gimping around with all sorts of sounds and noises to get used to renoise/redux etc…

btw

hello to evryone

just in case someone is interested:

my small budget stuff is made of:

an 8 years old win7 PC

Nektar LX7 Keyboard (B-Stock)

Sennheiser HD7 DJ (B-Stock)

Yamaha AG06

Tascam DR05 (B-Stock)

Sony SRS67, i will replace in the near future with:

Mackie CR4

or, if i get the money…,

Yamaha HS5

not sure which mic i will buy, but maybe the

Blue Yeti

Renoise/Redux

Bitwig 8 Track

Audacity

and a ton of VSTs for free

MuseScore2

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Please try to answer 3 questions. It is really very interesting.

  1. Why Renoise? In what things it is better for you?
  2. Do you have musical education (know traditional notes, harmony etc) when you first try Renoise?
  3. What other DAWs you try?
  4. What music styles you prefer?
  5. What music styles you compose in Renoise?

Thank you!

  1. Renoise appeals to me because it’s the most interesting software sampler out there at the moment – not the most comprehensive or deepest, but definitely the most interesting and creative – and it has a unique sequencer that has turned out to be very creatively freeing after my initial resistance to it. It does and facilitates thing that no other DAW does or likely will any time soon.

  2. I teach music theory (jazz theory specifically) as an adjunct instructor at the local university.

  3. Logic for years, then Reaper, now Reaper and Renoise together.

  4. I don’t have a genre. I know what I like when I hear it and it varies a lot. I’m attracted to unusual approaches to song writing and composition.

  5. Odd experimental stuff. Lately I’m working on a series of small XRNIs to make up a 1930s jazz ensemble using old royalty-free samples. Amazing how good they sound (when you veil them in vinyl noise and such to age the result, anyway!). I like trying to make Renoise do “normal” composition and then using sample commands and such to mess with the result, very interesting stuff is possible.

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  1. It’s fun

  2. what is edumacation? I know notes though, every note from C-0 to B-9

  3. I tried a few trackers, Cool Edit Pro, Cubase, Fruity Loops, Reason and i have peeked at a few more. I currently only use Renoise.

  4. the audible ones

  5. i don’t even know

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For me Renoise is a beautiful marriage between tracker heritage and modern software innovation. That ticks two big boxes for me: the ability to continue the DIY nerdy hyper-technical patterned vertical editing that I have grown up with, and love of the tracking culture; and the having the modern digital class with qualities and options you find in other serious DAWs. For me, it’s not a complete solution, so I use it very closely in conjunction with Reaper, using both attractive packages strengths (Reaper for recording, Renoise for sequencing, etc). I work hard. I get results. And why else Renoise? I’ve got some friends here - it’s good to share experience with them, use our common language together, and remember the old days of tracking.

I had a lot of formal music education before even touching a tracker in the 90s. I’ve continued that education outside of software. If I can’t play a part, I’ll find another excellent musician to play that part. Whatever is necessary for the art. To me, the pattern editor and vertical editing make sense to me visually - much more so than a piano roll, or even scored manuscript. My point of view is biased because I grew up with tracking, so I’m glad there’s a product that allows me to express myself musically and have all the modern technical qualities as well.

I think I’m like most people here and have had experiences with other software. For me, I’ve had extensive experience with some expensive software during commercial production projects I’ve done. Sometimes I’ve been astounded at software that asks for a lot of money to use it, but has awful bugs and illogical feature restrictions. It is a breath of fresh air that software like Renoise and Reaper are very reasonably priced, offer great support, are largely bug free and continue to evolve. Those things inspire loyalty.

I think djeroek put it well, that we’re into good music from any style. The kind of music I want to make requires a blend between interesting audio recordings of instruments/voices/sounds, and interesting programmed sonic material. A balance between the organic and the mechanical. As I’ve explained above I’ve found a solution to meet those needs.

BRAVO! Well said ! :yeah:

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@robohymn

i am very interested in point 5 of your answer