Hello everyone, I though I’d use this opportunity of the close of year to re-assess some community direction. We have been blessed with Renoise as a powerful tool to make wonderful sound and music, BUT: there still remains much confusion as to how to best use it and how to generally make great polished sound.
Firstly, I’d like to sum up the situation we have now:
1. Tips n tricks Forum = This has rather unfocused mass of threads that range from general Renoise-related trickery to other issues with using software and hardware. There isn’t much structure or sense to it all beyond the ‘forum format’ and often questions and answers get repeated. It is one of the least used forums of the Renoise boards.
2. Renoise InDepth = Started with multiple aims one of which was to bring a blogging engine to this website. It went generally well for a little while and then due to lack of contribution and lack of interactivity in the blogging format, it pretty much withered down to the official news engine for RSS announcements for renoise.com. Being ‘official’ InDepth didn’t provide much space for moving beyond 100% Renoise focused articles and thus prevented discussing general production methods incorporating 3rd plugins and software. Wordy blogs put off a lot of people due to low literacy levels.
3. Various off-site Production Tutorials = These roughly include the YouTube videos; a WIKI that byte started on general production; and various bits of media on Mick Rippon’s Loop Project website (which is now titled Renoise Resources). Again a combination of lack of interest, lack of focus and organization have generally meant that these bits and pieces have not had a sweeping impact. All these projects have good honorable intentions and perhaps lack official support.
4. The Renoise Tutorial Sub-Website = This appears to be run entirely by vV. Parts of this section are absolutely indispensable basic information about renoise and it’s features. But, the scope of this is limited to basic usage and doesn’t go into production issues etc.
5. General discussions on Song Threads and IRC that individually address artists’ production issues. This at best is haphazard and inefficient in terms of community energy (while at the same time encouraged because it’s a good thing that the community discusses these things). Again, good advice is stated over and over for things like basic mix practice.
Ok.
This is where I ask Renoise-official and the wider community “what do you want?”. We have a community of a limited size and energy but with inherently common aims of producing good music. Do we need a website that is dedicated to a community project of collectively bettering our production skills via Renoise (with the open usage of 3rd party tools)? Honestly, with the little energy we have is it possible?
If the answer is YES, then we need to consider the following: How is this best done? Via a WIKI? Video tutorials? A hybrid blog system of some sort? Another thing: would such a site be Officially part of the Renoise website (and therefore officially supported and hosted), or would it remain as a third party project?
Lastly, and probably most importantly: Just how well do people learn via reading/watching as opposed to actually DOING? The best intended messages can fall on deaf ears. Another aphorism that is appropriate is: “When the student is ready the teacher appears”. These are factors to consider.
I don’t personally intend to provide the answers for all these issues, but I did want to bring it up for possible resolution. There is potential here for a decisive direction.
) -> +1! All I personally can offer is web ninjitsu, otherwise I need to 
this wiki. Now I’ve got something constructive to do with my quiet moments at work.
