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
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:
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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.
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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
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