So I may be super stupid but I’m starting to get my feet wet with Renoise and I can already tell I love it coming from FL Studio,. My question is can i basically drag and drop samples onto specific alphabet keys to build a drum set and if so is there a quick way of doing that? Basically I’ve had to just go in and type out everything which seems like a pain in the ass for breaks but at least the left ctrl + # for steps is super useful. Any sort of help, insight, future life planning is welcome haha! Thanks!
Not sure if I understand your question correctly. So I don’t know if this what you’re looking for:
Yes, you can drag multiple samples from the disk browser on the right, or your OS’ file explorer, into a sample instrument. Then go to Keyzones tab and hit Drum Kit button (CTRL+D) to arrange the samples unto an individual note.
part of my workflow which someone might find useful: layering drums is very easy in renoise if you ask me:
example:
you have kick or snare which does not sound punchy?
do the following:
duplicate sample in the samples list
create separate modulation set for each of kick,
create envelope to your liking
what i’ve done: i’ve just discarded everything except short transient which blends with original kick. It would appear as you have some sort of transient shaper on initial kick, but like this you have more control. You can filter out this duplicate kick to your taste, to get punchiness in certain frequency area, which can blend in with original kick nicely… This goes to anything… drums… bass… hats… anything really
for level control of two kicks you can assign instrument macros to volume like shown:
or you could assign samples to individual output within the effects tab; send to separate tracks, or create parallel chains within single instruments, or whatever…
one more creative example:
you can use 2 snares (two same samples routed to different output, one should stay dry, another can be reverbed completely. Sidechain so that reverbed snare is being ducked by original snare. Like this you have snare which is punchy (dry one) and it still has great ambience in background, while not confronting the punchy part…)
layering drums is Renoise/Redux is very easy and straightforward. One of cool tips is to use phrase to create snare hit (consisting of multiple snares both filtered out and shaped individually, combined with claps, noises. etc…)
Good idea, thanks for that. I often do the same in a different way. Instead of using the same sample in two different tracks I put a send on the snare track and route it to a fx track, which contains a 100% wet reverb. Then I adjust the amount of the send the way I need it and keep the signal. The result is pretty much the same the way you do it. But the advantage of this method is that you can put several sends on several instrument tracks and route them to the same fx track with the wet reverb, so you can save time and CPU usage as well.
Furthermore I’m not convinced of the Renoise sidechain device (I mostly prefer the signal follower). Either the effect is too soft for most cases or I’m doing something wrong. Anyway, many roads lead to Rome…
to continue the (sort of) hijack, I like to use a signal follower to duck reverb wet amount on snares. quite easy to dial in just the right amount of dry punch without a static predelay. save it as a doofer & voila
while i wrote ‘sidechain’ i actually meant ‘signal follower’. For my use-case it’s more versatile than plain sidechain compression…
well, i tend to have every processing for drums - within the drums instrument, so effects panel is really a way to do it - at least how i see it… so i can further process drum group in parallel for both various creative fx, be it parallel compression with slight eq changes before/after comp or whatever…
this is true for ambient/spatial fx, but i would not share parallel compression track between snare -and bass, or piano, or whatever except single element… at least not for the goal of making snare punchy… since other elements can trigger compression and ruin that initial idea of making parallel punchy snare, to blend with original one…(or distortion, or really anything dynamic-critical wise) but i would approach your suggestion in further mixing stage, for example creating parallel track which will serve as a form of ‘coloration’ of multiple instruments/elements, or combination/group of various tracks… it really depends on what you want to achieve… there are multiple ways to achieve same thing, and then some more
I would like to know more about the doofer thing. I’m clueless and I would like to learn how to create something like a de-esser, but for bass and mids. It’s probably pretty easy, but I’ve never dealt with it.
Me neither. But we didn’t talk about parallel compression at this point, right?
I would separate kick, drums, bass and everything else from each other regarding any sort of parallel processing, So I would use this reverb method only on the desired drums, primarely snare,and clap, but also on other types of percussions. Besides of that I like having different reverbs (and delays) on different instruments. And of course I avoid having a reverb on any kind of bass in 99% of all possible cases.
Anyway, thanks for the input. Learning never stops.
easiest way to make a doofer is to make an fx chain (whatever you want) either as instrument fx or track fx, right-click on part of the dsp chain (an actual device at the bottom of the screen) and select “DSP chain > Combine into Doofer” or shift+command+D
If your making drumkits…
it pays to come up with “a standard”
as in
C = kick
C# = closed hat
D = snare
D# = open hat
E = clap
etc etc…
if all your drumkits work like that… you never have to look for your sounds… it be muscle memory…
same with phrases… if your “main loop” is always phrase 01 and your "pretty snare build up is always phrase 01… you just grab it… if done right… you can magically switch between drumkits with a simple find and replace …
This is exactly what I’m trying to do precisely. My main objective is just figuring out how to do it haha. Tons of videos have helped me get started so I can do a bit now, so just knowing that this is a possibility is so nice. Renoise so far has been the most welcomed frustration in terms of just learning something new. Plus everyone o. Here has been so nice that it’s refreshing.
I dont say i got the perfect method… however:
lets assume you got a gazillion folders with funky drumhits of various flavours…
You could just make 1 awesome drumkit worth of samples… with all sounds in the spots you want, like mentioned before. standards be your friend (whatever they might be for you)…
tune your drums etc etc…
then create modulation for your drumkit… each voice its own modulation thing…
make it all sound really really really nice…
add your "absolutely minimum drumpatterns as phrases… u know the bread-n-butter of your genre…
write a tiny song with that kit using your phrases…
hooray… you got yourself a perfect drumkit-instrument… you can save in your library as preset 001…
Now go back to your sample library…
select the sample you wanna replace in your kit…
double click the sample in your sample-folder…
tadaa… THAT sample will be loaded in THAT sample-slot… with all settings it had in your perfect kit…
ha… replace everything…
you might gotta retune a bit… but
preset 002… and it should instantly be able to play your test-song… as it has your bread-n-butter patterns…
So each time you wanna make a new song…
just load up your kit-of-the-day… and spend your time into altering your bread-n-butter phrases… your song you can build very quickly… as your favorite pattern is pre-loaded…
"every house song is kick - hihat - kick+snare - hihat… " type idea
