I just want to share some of my thoughts and my story about Renoise and trackers in general. Been using them for so long and it’s so in the blood.
My journey with trackers started in '90/91 at the age of 14. First was, if I remember right, Soundtracker on Atari ST. I did Techno and Trance (Hard Trance) with that setup. Then I moved to Amiga 500 a couple of years later and it had the Protracker. I tried to use Octamed too, but it never worked properly for me for some unknown reason.
In 1996 I moved to the PC world and my first software was a Scream Tracker. It was so amazing to have 16(?) tracks on it. I remember it was like there were no limits anymore, and now I can do anything I want.
Then I found Fasttracker 2 and oh boy, that was another big leap forward in music making. The first time can used a MIDI keyboard with a tracker and a few years later I got some hardware synths in my arsenal to send MIDI to them. Fasttracker didn’t have VST’s, so all effect processing was done externally, on synths or external effect units.
Oh well, at one time I did have 11 hardware synths in my studio. It went a little bit overkill. (Nowadays all external gear I have, is just a 3-octave MIDI keyboard and an audio interface).
Then in the year 2002, I found this ultimate tracker called Renoise and I’ve been very happy with it since then. Using it with various VST synths and effects. I must say that Kontakt has changed a lot my music in general. It has its quirks, but it has the best libraries for orchestral compositions and guitars and basses for every kind of music.
I’ve never had to use any other DAWS than tracker for my music making. Though have tried Fruity Loops, Reason, and Cubase, but I just hate those pianorolls…
I like the way in trackers, you can input notes and other stuff just with a keyboard and you can use it without a mouse if you want. With pianorolls is all about clicking with the mouse those tiny little boxes. When watching on Youtube when someone is using a pianoroll, I always think how slow and awkward that look. Those boxes are never in the right place and then they move them around like they don’t know what they’re looking for… Seems so weird to me. I like to play everything live first with a keyboard (most times just a computer’s own keyboard) before putting notes to a Renoise sequencer. Then tweaks can be done there just with a keyboard.
And this whole pianoroll thing is really bugging me. In here forum just all the time someone is whining “Why doesn’t Renoise have a pianoroll, blah, blah…”
IMHO, when every single DAW out there has a pianoroll, then why not just use one of those instead? I just don’t get it… Seriously people…
Renoise is a tracker. Period.
Then there was this, I don’t know how it is in other countries, but here in Finland has been a mentality that music that has been done on a tracker, is not a “real” deal. Maybe it’s from the Amiga era or something, I often hear people saying that trackers are just for a chiptune and other “low-quality” stuff. Not for a “real” music.
There are so many times when I’ve been defending Renoise and telling them that you can do everything in Renoise than every other DAW.
But no, people are always belittling and dissing trackers here.
Like: " Are you STILL using Renoise?"
My answer is: “Yes of course I use. What else tho? I can do with it everything I want.”
I don’t know a single thing that I can achieve on any other DAW that Renoise can’t do.
In 1995 one of my tracks was played on the radio and my music was on a couple of compilations here in Finland. My artist name was “Moonraver” then (I didn’t know then that there was another one with the same name in Germany).
In the early 00’s I got one of my remixes on a label, my project then was called “Finsane”. There was another bloke involved in it too.
2017- 2021 I had my own production company and I made many works for different clients, including a couple of soundtracks (all the music and sound effects) for a theatre and some video work (commercials, short films, etc). I did all the audio work with Renoise.
Nowadays I make music and videos just for a hobby.
Btw, really hope to get those audio tracks to Renoise someday.
I mean where you can see the waveform next to a track. That would be so awesome! It would make things so much easier.
Well, I really don’t know the meaning of this post, but just wanted to share some of the old boomer’s thoughts from all these decades using trackers. Maybe I’m having some kind of nostalgic trip to memory lane going on… Time flies.
I love this Renoise community. I haven’t posted much here, but been reading and learning so lot from here in these years.
Thanks to all and keep making music with Renoise!
-Janne-