Renoise: to buy or not to buy

[ffx]

Good points. But also I believe the Renoise project is not a millionaire’s cashcow. It’s really nice by Taktik and his team to keep this running, and if you use it more or less over a long time, supporting as in paying some money is a good idea, even from an egocentric point of view. But I get your points, and nobody is forcing you to do anything.

Btw. I recently made some Amiga tuning/scale, taken from the Protracker replayer code. Do you think this is a accurate, valid, Amiga-style tuning?
amiga_protracker_accurate.scl.xrns (883 Bytes) [RENAME TO “.scl.zip” after downloading]

If I put this scaling onto all the harmonic samples of a protracker tune in Renoise, it sounds a lot more Amiga-like.

[sesheta]

And here I was under the impression I was late to the game by buying Renoise recently after mucking with it on and off over the years. OP: just buy it already.

Do not let perfection become the enemy of sufficiency.

[esaruoho]

tbh i think what the original poster is after is that we crowdfund him the license or whatever. it’s been what… 20 years.

[Reactor]

Kinda already explained why I didn’t buy it years ago…

[FZ99]

I would just buy what you use regulary to support the development. I bought renoise when it came out for 49 EUR, skipped v2, because I was using Live, then bought a full license again for v3. Recently bought Redux with a 20% discount, because I sometimes use reaper to dub/score videos. I think all is very reasonably priced compared to other software, like FabFilter Q4 for 169 EUR which is really a lot for an EQ., but it’s also really good. So i would just bite the bullet and buy it, if you like it and want to to support it.

[tkna]

I am drawn to organizational designs that rely on community support to reduce the burden on developers, as I appreciate the independent business models driven by small groups and the collaborative nature of open-source communities centered around developers.
In such communities, such as those around Renoise, REAPER, and many other open-source software projects, users need to be able to articulate what they are doing and what they want in a concise and friendly manner. In short, it’s high-context. Users need to learn the culture of the community, and it’s certainly a high barrier to entry.
However, for someone like me who is familiar with that culture, it often feels like a comfortable environment.
In short, I believe that to receive support in such a small community, caution and respect in self-expression are necessary.
Those who deviate from that are either criticized or, more often, ignored. Personally, I find such an environment more comfortable.

[Trackerjunkie]

Well, I can say from my experience which started in the ‘90s, it is worth every penny/cent.

It has all the basics which I already know from Protracker, Oktalyzer, OctaMED, etc. And later on Fasttracker 2, Mad tracker, you name it.

Renoise have also a beautiful team with real enthusiasts, the community helps a lot. Of course, all other platforms do have the same, but the difference is that Renoise, I think, is more underground, not commercial. And I like that, really.

You always see the same path, when a company gets too much commercial, the fun is over. It is from then all about the money, the most.

Renoise is a small group, more underground, less commercial. The power of this DAW is the simplicity, the use of less to get more out of it. And that is also very important, because nowadays DAW (like Ableton, BitWig, FL Studio, etc.) have too much possibilities, that can kill the creativity.

And you hear that back in the commercial EDM nowadays. Not everything is bad of course.

Renoise is for users that will and can find out themself, howto. Because of the workflow, and the intuitive interface, like I already experienced with Protracker, you come into that flow of creativity. And yes, in the early days, because of the limitations like expensive RAM, and so on, it helped a lot to get somewhere. Tweaking, experimenting, you know….

Nowadays?

Everything you think of is there! No limitations with things like sample RAM, or how big your sample might be. The 64K / 128K sample RAM limitations, patterns, etc. are gone. There is so much you wish it was already there in the ‘80s and 90s.

The Amiga computer helped much people to get started also. In the time (80’s/90s era) where I cannot afford to buy the Roland TR-909 drum computer, the TB-303, and so on. And things like the Akai samplers! It helped me to start, with minimal things.

Everything is now, today, here, in that software, which we called DAW.

And if I compare, to come back more on topic, the prices, for what you get? Yes, Renoise is worth every penny. I can use Renoise on any platform! Windows PC, MAC OS, Linux.

DAW like Cubase? No linux. Their beautiful Retrologic plug-in? From Steinberg? Only on Windows or MAC. Ok, no problem, I switch into that OS, but Linux fits me better.

DAW like Logic X Pro? Only MAC. Ok, this DAW is not that expensive also, it does a lot, and have nice plug-ins from scratch. But the workflow is different, pianoroll (which is that horizontal workflow, nothing more or less).

For me, Renoise fits. But it depends also on what music you make.

For a type of music like EDM trance?, with long chords, I suggest to get Cubase or pianoroll based DAW. But that is my opinion. For music like Drum & Bass (I like to say Jungle, because it sounds so nice! Wicked!), or hardcore, techno? Yes, Renoise fits!

I saw this already on the Amiga. Back then, most good D&B producers from the UK using MIDI on their Amiga’s with OctaMED & Akaisamplers. If RAM was not that expensive and Amiga has no chipRAM limitation of 2MB, I bet they used their Amiga’s only!

Ok, long story. I’m sorry for that. In the end, the same answer: yes, worth every penny.

[esaruoho]

@Trackerjunkie could you describe your top20 OctaMED features in greater detail, so i could have a look at what else i need to script into Renoise. would appreciate this very much.