Renoise Sound Quality

Hi,

This was one of the reasons I moved from FL. The main was that I just prefer a tracker interface, but until I discovered Renoise, there was nothing that would support VST.

I used MED on the Amiga with a bunch of Midi gear, and then on the PC but I found that midi timing was getting worse and worse as I bought newer & more comlicated gear.

I then decided to dump Midi altogether because of timing problems (particularly at the begining of every block) and used Dreamstation for a while, but found it limiting as far as instrumentation (although this has had the best quality playback so far)…

As far as Renoise goes, I just haven’t had enough time to test it fully and make a finished song, but I will soon!

I am honestly begining to think it is a combination of both soundcard and host, as the results from Dreamstation were far better than from FL, and this is using the same soundcard (Audigy).

So far, Renoise sounds pretty crisp and easily better than FL, but a full finished song will be the true test…

Monotron

Well i can tell you this monotron, as all the other programs, renoise is no different if you stack up too much sound at once, only way to get a clean sound is to limit your usage of sounds, get phatter sounds and then limit the usage.

I know i struggle with this on a daily basis.

I couldn’t agree more.

Most of the synth music I like the most is very simplistic: Kraftwerk, Human League (Travelogue & Reproduction era), Hexstatic, FC Kahuna etc (even the old C64 game music)!

I guess the less instuments used, the more your brain has to work to fill in the gaps, and the music has more longevity (?!)

Cutting back on tracks AND multiple VSTi types is something I am making a conscious effort to do all the time!

We are in an age where we possibly have too many options, and it is easy to spend time playing with VSTi’s whilst no music ever gets made!

Monotron

Yey! :yeah:

Amen to that… (although I’ve read that our brains are under stimulated nowadays)

VST deals only with 32-bit float samples. They should also be able to cope with arbitrary sample rates, and any that can’t are victim of bad design.
Any resampling/bit depth changes that would be done would be done by the plugin, not the host. The host just won’t accept anything else.
I find it amusing that some vst/vsti descriptions mention “32bit floating point audio” as a feature. They’re just trying to make their feature list longer and thus look better.
NI do this often.

Thats good info :D

hi monotron :)
au contraire, i did understand your point, but i think you didn’t get mine ;)
wether you play a mp3 on winamp or a 20+ tracks song in fruity - your soundcard only sees one stereo channel. because the host is mixing the tracks. at least in your case.
if your mixes sound muddy, and other songs not, then it’s not the ‘fault’ of your soundcard.
I also really doubt that the host makes a difference. sound is nuthing but numbers in the digital world, mixing just means adding those numbers.
remember, you can always get a demo of cubase or samplitude or whatever host you think is a reference in quality. renderer every synth down to wav and let the tracks get mixed by that host. then you can compare.

I wasn’t trying to say that there wouldn’t be a difference between a ‘pro’ and a consumer soundcard. my point was that the difference might not be as big as you seem to expect. and most important, the difference won’t be the solution for your specific problem.

The benefit of a card with very good DACs for mixing is -IMHO- getting the most neutral, uncolored playback of the sound. good monitors provided, of course.
you don’t want to countermix a special coloring of your equipment, since you want the sound to be good on all hifis in the world :)
but your problem (mine too, most often btw) is to achieve a good mix at all, as long as you did not get that right, you don’t need to worry about how it will sound on various stereos.

i hear you… while i cannot look back onto years of mixing hardware expierience, i do have made some few expieriences, and i perfectly understand what you say. My experience is, that when mixing hardware synths the analog way, the result out of the box, without doing anything is more mature, while in computers one has to work to achieve the same.
I’ve no idea why this is, but maybe as bantai already wrote, it might have something to do with the fact, that during analog mixing there is a lot complicated stuff going on, much more than just plain adding.

I also think that due to marketing reasons, most vstis come with terrible HUGE show-off presets, that sound awesome when played solo, but are just too wide for being used in a busy mix.

trying to give you a different perspective - do you know any early 90ies tracks that have a good clean sound? i bet so. from an early 90ies point of view, your audigy is absolutely high-end. same probably is true for a lot of the freeware effects out there.

hehe being a piss-poor student myself, i have a lil’ sblive in my own computer :)

Hi Marc,

How do you guys do multiple quotes from selected parts of a message? I can’t do it and it’s driving me MAD :angry:

Anyhoo, in response to your last message:

  1. If it is the host that is mixing the tracks, then that would suggest that it ‘could’ be accountable for a muddy mix(?). I am not trying to be pedantic here, I am genuinely interested :)

I had a proper chance yesterday to experiment with Renoise, and it DOES seem to sound better with mutiple tracks than FL, suggesting that whatever FL uses to mix/generate its sound is somehow more (or less) coloured than Renoise/Dreamstation.

That said, I noticed right from the outset that the Audigy didn’t sound as bright as my SB live from the moment I tested it by playing a CD. I guess I was in denial for a while, or just couldn’t believe that a ‘better’ card would sound inferior, but I am sure it does now and I’m gonna bite the bullet and buy a new card…

  1. I totally agree that you have to work harder to mix soft synths than hardware. I even find that new hardware l (ike the Novation stuff which is usually just software emulation anyway) sounds just as bad!

Maybe I have been a bit spoilt by my old Cheetah MS6 and Roland D110, but I can’t go back to these - I just don’t have the time to program sounds using their crappy interface’s!

As far as VST presets - BLEUGHHHH!! I never touch 'em!!! Why have all that control and use a preset, right?!!! :P

My next move is def to get an Audiophile soundcard. If there is a difference, I will hear it. As far as hosts, I think there is something very wrong with FL’s architecture and that it is a combination of hardware and software that is colouring the sound. Time will tell ;)

Monotron

If you preview the post, you will see the QUOTE= tag. Copy it and use it several times and be sure to close it with /QUOTE. Voila! :)

Oh the humiliation… :unsure:

OK - I will experiment with the preview. Sorry for going off topic!

Monotron B)

LOL!

OK - now you’re just showing off ;)

M