Renoise Mutant Sound and Processing Department

Alright everyone, let’s make something great…

I’ve wanted something like this for a while, and I don’t think I’m alone (I’m taking a big cue here from simulatedXen’s idea from the MBC14 thread). I am hereby electing myself in the coordinating role that was described :wink:

So…Why?

Renoise is a magic tool. It is an instrument, with corresponding limitations, excellencies, and culture(s) that influence it’s usage. iykyk

It is special among DAWs in this regard, as it lends itself to a more focused set of styles and approaches to music. In all seriousness, would we have half of the experimental EDM/IDM if vsnares hadn’t posted that legendary vache video, as just one example of the chain of influence?

I absolutely loved @SimulatedZen 's idea for a competition based around renoise-native sound design. Since the “resource pot” needs to conceptually exist before the competition (and has value outside of the competition), that’s why I’m starting this as it’s own project.

There has been a persistent culture of openly-shared experimentation on the forums. MOAR! But how . . .

Enter The Renoise Mutant Sound and Processing Department (alias’s welcome)

Chief export? FREE Curated monthly packs of sound design and composition tools…for your health.

So…What?

Each month, contributors will scheme up their most diabolical renoise tools (in the general sense, not the technical Lua-tool sense). All accepted contributions will be native-device only. This is for several reasons:

  • It’s more portable. To @lilith 's point, one can scroll through years of forum contributions and load up devices and songs that people have made with nearly zero compatibility issues.

  • It gives focus. As I stated above, renoise is a tool that lends itself to a specific set of approaches. The whole point of this is to make excellent tools for people who have similar aesthetic visions, in order to make even cooler music than they were able to before. If that isn’t the case after a few months, no worries, it was fun to try.

Somewhat more important is the end goal of doing this. I don’t think everyone needs to have the exact same reason for wanting something like this, but speaking for myself (and what I perceive from others), what would really be fun is:

World Building

For this reason, this is decidedly not a breakcore samplepack community thread type thing. Contributions won’t be pruned because they’re for the wrong genre. Hopefully we won’t need to limit or prune anything, but if we do, I would argue it’s because it screws with the focus of having as much fun as possible in building a collective cosmos of sound with you knuckle-heads.

e.g. I want to make things in a universe that has just the right amount of specifity. I don’t want to make an electro tune just like so-and-so famous producer, but I would love to make my own music with the exact tools that the tune in question was created with, for instance.

This is for the community of people that want to build something that starts with “tracker-friendly” genres, and goes somewhere way into hyperspace…the intergalactic outpost you build might be different from mine, but I got there using a ship I built with your custom hyperdrive-flux capacitor. Thanks, she’s running great!

Ok…How?

Each month, there will be a pot of $100. I am providing the $100. You can contribute to the pot and it’ll be a bigger pay-out.

Users will contribute .xrn_'s the pack, and the funds will be divvied up based on some hopefully fair but not necessarily transparent or even democratic process. The details will come, and I’d love to hear suggestions.

Because I’m providing the money, I’ll make some calls on standards/decisions, all in the name of being effective and moving things forward. If everyone completely hates my decision, I won’t make that decision. The point is to make something really cool, I will do my best to foster that.

The whole thing is elective. If you want to, do it. If you don’t, don’t. The packs will be openly available. If you don’t like something about the approach I’m describing, say so. We can see if our ideas can be synthesized :wink:

Alright…When?

Right now motherf***er. First round starts December!

Maybe it’ll be a little chaotic to start, but I think it’s good to just get started.

(If @slujr makes one generative-melody .xrnz and no-one else contributes. then he’s gonna have some pocket change in January lol)

Some more vague goals I have around contributions right now:

  • hosted centrally and resiliently or something. Everything should be available even if there’s another forum migration or everyone loses interest (after making tons of cool shit, of course). Getting on the backstage would be cool too >:-)
  • naturally aimed towards experimental/power-users, but would ideally contain documentation/help to give insight to newer users, or the simply baffled.
  • All said, if you made something really cool that uses 3rd-party software to generate a sound, it would be great to render what you can and share the native version/sample.

As bit of a side initiative, I’ve also organized some of the threads that I’ve perceived as contributing to this nascent culture below. Hopefully this will be a good resource in its own right – please suggest additions!

HELPFUL LINKS:
Zensphere’s Renoise tutorials
Official Instrument Thread
Generative Sequences with the Formula Device
Post Your Formula Device Code Here
DSP FX Chain Stepper
simulatedXen’s Clockdrifter BPM formula
Tuned Devices
Native Monophonic Synth
Native Granular
More Granular
Even More Granular
Native FM
Native Mid/Side
Portamento
More Generative Music
Vocoder
Old Forum Instruments
Benchmarking

(Please suggest more!)

Ok…Epic

11 Likes

fuck yeah! let’s go! :metal: :fire:

So, do we just post samples and xrn_s in this thread, or do you have some hosting worked out?

2 Likes

Thanks for taking the initiative! I bet this going to be amazing! :metal: :sunglasses:

Could we use this thread as a sort of brainstorming platform? I think it would probably be best to have some discussion around this before we get going, just to ensure the most effective way to go about this.

I absolutely love your idea about the price money! It will probably get more people in and get people to really do the best they can! And obviously with you providing the prize money, you can sort of curate the pack/packs and filter them to have a curated selection of the creme de la creme of what will be contributed. It probably is for the best that a single person is responsible for any possible filtering that might need to be done.

I propose that this thread will be used as a brainstorming/announcement/planning discussion platform, and that we create separate threads for each months competition. Those threads could remain open for submissions even after the compos have ended, just if anyone wants to contribute something they didn’t finish on time. And I really think we should have a separate, very specific theme for each month, just to really get to the best of the best in each category. That wouldn’t mean you can’t contribute anything outside the theme, but maybe the compo for the prize money could be focused on the theme of the month. If it will be just open for anything every month, it might get really chaotic and separating the wheat from the chaff might get really labour intensive. I propose we brainstorm some themes in this thread, and you @uncle_c could could call the final shots on what the themes for each month would actually be. Or what do you think, sounds fair?

I also think it would be for the best, if there was one separate thread with the singular purpose of keeping everything centralised, easy to find and download. There, in the very first post everything could be downloadable and up to date, including any possible documentation, link’s to any tutorials etc. Once we get this ball really rolling, we could ask that thread to be pinned or something, so the resources would be as easy as possible to find for anyone lurking around the forums.

My original dream about this was that we would sort of build the ultimate community resource pack over the course of a year, and then put up a compo where the submissions would be allowed to use only the resources in the pack. And as @slujr said previously elsewhere, if the pack turned out really outstanding, we could try to ask if it could be added to the backstage downloads too. That would really be one hell of a testament to the awesome wits and skills lurking in these forums! We could really make Renoise history that way too! :clownstep:

If you guys want to put up just a single pack each month, that’s absolutely cool too. But in any case, I propose we set a long range goal for the next year, and aim for the best possible quality resource pack to be completed by the beginning of next year’s December, with artwork and documentation included (we could have a small “tournament” with the artwork too, voting for the best). Then we could have Mutant Breaks #15 with that pack, sort of the ultimate Renoise-centric compo!

I also gotta add that I’m not sure if the best time to start is right this December. MBC14 is coming up, and people might have very limited time in their hands (I know I will for one). I feel it would be better to actually start after MBC14. But maybe December could be some special month? Like “what are the best old, already known techniques” -type of month. Sort of collecting and putting together all of the already known stuff from around the forums (doofers, FXchains, XRNIs, templates etc.) But obviously, if you want to start straight on in the beginning of December, go ahead! :blush: :+1:

What do you think? Do my ideas sound reasonable? Do you disagree on anything?

I’m really happy we’re actually doing this! :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Can’t wait to see what we can actually put together! I bet this is going to push Renoise forward. I certainly have some techniques up my sleeve I’ve never seen discussed anywhere, and I bet I’m not alone! :walkman:

3 Likes

Ideas…

A month focused on each of:

Bass

Kicks, Snares, Hats & Breaks

Auxiliary percussion

Leads

Pads and atmospheres

Fx

Transitions (risers, impacts, etc)

Melodic phrases

Rhythmic phrases

Audio fuckery

Vocals

Foley

DSP/Doofers/FX chains

Templates (mixing, mastering, etc)

???

2 Likes

Crap, sorry guys, had some crazy things go down in the last week! Apologies for the absence

@SimulatedZen Yes, some planning is good – and I like the separate thread for each month/theme/etc. – focus is good, I’m totally in agreement. Likewise about the central thread, with the OP getting updated.

I think you’re also right about timing, let’s get a good plan going for heading into the new-year and then have a good rhythm with it. I would love to keep compiling the resources that we have now (like if anyone knows any major threads that I missed in the OP).

@slujr I like this division. Anyone have any issues with it? I think we could flesh these out for each month, maybe pare the list down to 12 for the year?

But yeah, it sounds like we’re all of the same mind that the idea is to have created an entire framework/ecosystem that you could have made out of all of these tools – I think it’s a matter of deciding on a good sequence for how those elements get built up? Personally, I’m not one for generalist tools, so if the project takes on its own aesthetic tone I would personally consider that a good thing, though others may disagree.

More thoughts coming soon

2 Likes

Great question lol – I agree with Xen that it’s probably most useful to keep this thread for planning.

When it comes time to actually upload stuff, I’ll probably have a solution – I have a server that could host quite a lot, I just need to set up some sort of file-upload UI or something.

2 Likes

ok, how about this for a tentative schedule?

January: All things PERCUSSION: kicks, snares, hats, breaks, auxiliary percussion, and drum fills

February: fucking BASS

March: LEAD sounds: whatever that means in the genre(s) you work in

April: PADS & ATMOSPHERES: soundscapes, lush textures, tonal pads, ambiences, whatever

May: FX: unusual sounds, glitches, one-off hits, interesting impulse responses, etc. Weird shit

June: TRANSITIONS: risers, impacts, builds, breakdowns, downlifts, etc.

July: MELODIC phrases

August: RHYTHMIC phrases

September: VOX: singing, rapping, speaking, vocal chops, processed or unprocessed

October: FOLEY & ACOUSTIC: break out your recording devices and let’s hear what you can play/bang on in the garage or out in the world, found sound, processed or unprocessed. I’d love to hear some instrumental tracks submitted that ppl can use for sample mining

November: DSP, Doofers, FX chains

December: TEMPLATES and UTILITIES: for mixing, mastering, song templates, workflow enhancement

Everything submitted should be original and royalty-free, of course :slight_smile:
This has the potential to be a really awesome community resource, especially if a bunch of people contribute. I know there are some VERY talented sound designers in this community

1 Like

I wrote a list of my own ideas for the monthly themes. Lots of overlapping with themes @slujr proposed:

• doofers
• FX chains
• instruments
• templates
• impulse responses and convolution trickery
• phrases
• bass design utilities and starting points

• samples in multiple categories:
-kicks & snares & other percs
-basses
-pads & ambiences
-databends & glitches & SFX
-risers & impacts etc.
-foley
-loops & breaks
-textures & noises & layering utilities

• innovative new tricks (we could could have separate month just for the most creative new tricks with somesort of basic tutorial [text/video] and an example XRNS required)


I kinda feel we maybe should keep doofers, FXchains, phrases and full instruments as separate months since this is a Renoise-centric collection of resources. And there’s plenty of possibilities in each of those areas.

Yes, this should be explicitly stated in each thread for contributions.
I also think that just loading a preset from a plugin synth and playing a note and sending that as a contribution isn’t what we’re after. So some kind of instructions and requirements for the contributions would be appropriate for each thread.

Regarding the licensing, what do you think? I’m honestly not totally on par with all the licensing stuff, but probably some Creative Commons type of license for the pack would be the best? CC0 is basically the same as giving it into the public domain if I’ve understood it correctly.

1 Like

Sorry for my absence! I’ve still got a lot of excitement about collaborating over this
– apologies, my life got a little screwey for a while!

I’ve thought about the timeline, and here’s my proposal (starting in February, to work out any more kinks or whatever)

February - Percussion instruments / samples
(I think I would get a little bored making only kicks and subs for a month lol)

March - Synths
(i.e. any tonal/quasi-tonal, non-bass renoise instrument)

April - Bass
(nuff said)

May - Transitions / Risers
(not really a description of sounds but of use-cases, as I take it)

June - SFX / Glitch / Noise
July - Breakbeats and Loops
(nuff said for now at least)

August - Phrases
(especially with an eye for “utility” phrases like the ones I’ve seen for granular effects)

September - Doofers, and Effects Presets
(any doofers / effects presets that involve sound processing)

October - Utilities / Tools / Control-signals / Formulas
(any doofers, presets, and especially formulas, that operate on the control-signal level)

November - Device Chains
(nuff said)

December - Foley / Ambiance / Vocal samples / tags
(would be nice to take a break from “programming” and just collect sounds…that said, maybe december isn’t ideal for this? I like winter sounds though lol)

January - Templates and Hacks
(I was thinking this would be used to “get everything in place” to have the competition that’s been mentioned. Also, given the work done for all the prior months, there are probably “exploitable hacks” that we might be aware of, that would be good to formally compile.

Again, apologies for the absence, I really love this project and I’m really excited to see what we can have put together in a year from now :slight_smile:

Also, I do have a reliable hosting service, but I think for original sharing, we’ll have to post files in the forum (I can’t remember what the limit is, but I think we’ll be good for at least the first few months). Then for each month, I can compile the entries and host them.

2 Likes

Oh yeah, and licensing. I’ll look into that today – personally, I would like everything to be as open use as possible, including commercial. But I don’t have a strong stake in these things.

edit: this would be my vote: free for all use, including commercial, as long as any re-worked versions also share the same license.

Creative Commons License
Renoise Mutant Sound Pack by Renoise Forum Community is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://forum.renoise.com/.

3 Likes

sounds good to me, i’m in :slight_smile:

1 Like

Sounds like a reasonable timetable and licensing policy. I also agree that posting directly in the threads is probably the most straightforward and hassle-free way for anyone to submit. The nitty gritty of centralised file hosting for downloads shouldn’t be too complex either once we get that far. :+1:

I’m excited to get this ball rolling!