Renoise: worth it?

General Discussion
41

I cant understand LUA scripting yet but I find that an app for android called “piano companion” by a company called songtives is really good to keep handy for cycle of fifths, chords progressions, scales.

There is another app for android which is simply called “chord progressions”…it has loads of chord progressions with labels describing their mood (eerie, spooky, happy etc) but there is older software for PC called “musicians training center”, that is great too.

Thinking of chords in terms of Arp commands is good for speeding things up for me…

047 = Major

037 = Minor

057 = Suspended 4th

036 = Diminished

047B = Major 7th …like that, makes it easy to remember chords.

42

It’s funny, I bought Renoise about a year ago and haven’t really used it since then … had kinda been thinking about buying a Digitakt, then I remembered that it does pretty much everything the Elektron does, in terms of tight, focused work on samples, give or take modulating sample start/end/loop points and probability/modulo in the sequencer. Definitely going to give it another proper go, a lot to learn, but a great sample mangler.

43

I think the weakness and strength are the same with Renoise: It shoves details into your face. I have no problem entering chords in it. The main problem (for using it as a main DAW), is the lack of speed when using a top-down approach for songwriting. No real birds eye view or arranger. That’s the issue… not more details.

The workflow for tracking a pattern is great. The workflow for tracking a song - not as good :wink:

Right now I was tweaking a song about 7 minutes long.My monitor is 1080 pixels high.With these two data, the song is possible to see it in 4 parts in the matrix panel. It is clear that Matrix makes short because it is vertical.But I have no problem with this. Mastering the matrix well saves you many headaches. Simply with the mouse wheel up and down you see the song. Selecting boxes and copying or duplicating them is easy.In my case, I need 2 monitors 1920 wide to see the whole song horizontally.I imagine a horizontal matrix and it would be a luxury.

Something related is to have a full wave of the song, or track with horizontal layer overlays, in combination with the automation editor. This is very good to control the whole song, through a window or plugged, but that could occupy 2 monitors in horizontal.

A partial solution would be to use my monitor 27" vertically, it would be 1920 pixels high. Or an improved GUI to see the largest fonts and icons on higher resolution screens. This would allow you to see smaller things in vertical with more zoom range. On the other hand, a removable matrix that could be placed horizontally, occupying 2 monitors would be very good. I think I would have no problem in associating horizontal matrix with the vertical pattern editor, same as the automation editor.In any case, it is still a topic related to the GUI.All this has to do with the GUI!

In short, as Renoise is now, if it were compatible with 4k/5k monitors without going blind, it would improve much in vertical.If Taktik finally improves the GUI for higher screen resolutions, there will be more room to see the entire song in vertical.Although I expect improvements that have to do with zooming, with matrix and with the automation editor (especially here) as well as larger size bars in the mixer.

Well! I just got into a fight with the automation editor again. It is desperate!Seeing the complete song at bird’s eye is not the only theme that can be improved.

Piano Companion:

:slight_smile:

44

At the same time… I’m not sure any longer why some people want to make Renoise into something that it is not. There are other softwares that are much better at arranging and mixing, and nothing is preventing you from rewiring when you need the tracker capabilities.

Expecting Renoise to become a holy grail, covering all paradigms, is expecting a bit too much.

I use Renoise with Studio One and I highly recommend it. There were a couple of initial frustrations, but now that I know what can and can’t be done, I’m perfectly happy.

45

At the same time… I’m not sure any longer why some people want to make Renoise into something that it is not. There are other softwares that are much better at arranging and mixing, and nothing is preventing you from rewiring when you need the tracker capabilities.

Expecting Renoise to become a holy grail, covering all paradigms, is expecting a bit too much.

I use Renoise with Studio One and I highly recommend it. There were a couple of initial frustrations, but now that I know what can and can’t be done, I’m perfectly happy.

IMO it is possible that many who use Renoise prefer to only use Renoise, and not have obligation of the need to migrate to other software to cover some of their shortcomings. I believe that’s why the forums are full of suggestions, the vast majority are details here and there. But there are some things that are of greater weight, like the bird’s eye view to see the whole song, or retouch the GUI in greater depth for high resolutions, etc.

In my case, I’ve used FLS extensively, but ended up using only Renoise. There must be a reason. Because in the end I finish composing the song faster, and that makes forget the FLS features that I could miss…

But do not confuse some user requests as something that will transform Renoise into something it is not. For example, There was a user a few months ago simply asked to improve the automation editor. You have not seen it again in the forums. It’s over. Did he ask for anything out of the ordinary? Of course not. Simply improve this editing panel. This does not absolutely transform Renoise into something that it is not. And like this, a lot of details or greater features. Would you have any problem in improving these things?

Comment on the forums what could change and what not, not bad at all.In fact, to compose songs you do not need much more than what Renoise offers. Buying other software like S1 or FLS12, or another DAW to accompany Renoise is not feasible for most who only aspire to buy Renoise because it is the cheapest and complete there is.Probably people who know Renoise a little, realize their potential and think, ooh, it’s a shame they do not have this better, or this other feature, would be super.

If you look at it from the point of view of being able to buy what you want, look:

Renoise ~80€ + S1v3 Artist ~100€, Pro ~400€

or

Renoise ~80€ + FLS12 Producer ~180€

or others…

Many people using Renoise can not buy several VSTi, most minimally decent are even more expensive than Renoise.They end up using free samples.But at the same time there are users who would be willing to pay much more for Renoise if it were superior and with a wider support. Ok everything is ok…

But there is no problem in all this.People can ask or wish whatever they want. But these forums would be boring and much more empty.On the other hand, to use two DAWs to complete a song is to complicate the life, only for experts. Most people do not want that. You want to use only a DAW, your samples and your VSTi and end of story.

Thanks to all this, people still have hopes with Renoise, and that’s why they continue to use it. They think that deep down it will improve, but would be a complete waste in the history of DAWs.On the other hand, new people enter the forums and think that everything is great, and that there is a complete and continuous support. So all the things help keep talking about Renoise and make it in a actual topic, not something buried in the past.

In short, I think people do not want to turn a Renoise into “something that it is not”, but they want a Renoise a little better, a v3.2 version, and then a v3.3 and so on.So, nothing new…

Finally, a user who has great experience with trackers looking for a primary DAW, I would not recommend another DAW based in pianorroll. Uses Renoise, which is a fairly complete DAW based on a tracker.Most seek to compose music by hobby, not to become a planetary star. It is not necessary to acquire so many things to compose music.

Here, of course, Renoise worth it… is very worthwhile.

46

…

47

Renoise lacks of some common standards, that is sidechaining, proper midi recording, OS update bugfixes and proper high resolution automation/recording. Doesn’t need to be the perfect DAW or something outstanding nor a holy grail (it already is by concept, the last usable tracker).

Please fix those mentioned problems and make Renoise at least reach a today’s standard. It is doable, and a lot of people can help you, if you want.

…It is doable…

Very agree with your comments!

48

@ffx, You forgot vst3 support. Oh… and BIAB functionality. And a vectorized GUI.

:stuck_out_tongue:

49

@ffx, You forgot vst3 support. Oh… and BIAB functionality. And a vectorized GUI.

:stuck_out_tongue:

AFAIK vst3 is no DAW standard at all. Instead Renoise could be slightly improved, so kind of MPE / multichannel midi input per instrument was supported. For GUI imo a simple double sized bitmap graphics was enough, using a downscaling gfx engine.

50

@Joule. all that too would be magnificent! …even with all that added, Renoise would still be Renoise and its appearance would be very very much the same…

@Renoised.The key thing here is “Instant Gratification”, may be valid at first. But in the end it counts the ease of learning because the end goal is to finish a complete song and that is the gratifying thing (the complete song, even if it sucks and very short)… All this reminds me of the reaction of my brother-in-law, when he wanted to learn some DAW and started to compose some music.In the end he preferred FLS12 because there were video tutorials in Spanish on the Internet (Youtube) that he understood, and also because he sees that there are more people using it. That was how he felt in a current community.

To him the result is easier to understand FLS12 than letters and numbers running vertically.The hexadesimal numbers confuse many novel people, and the user want everything fast and with the least effort, the time is gold. Try to explain to a rookie why we use hexadecimal numbers, so that they only occupy 2 digits, and they will put you face of map :huh:.Learning a program without support is like doing the fool, as learning something that is useless because it is obsolete.My brother-in-law asked me about Renoise’s support, and I did not know what to say.I told him I did not know anything. :ph34r:

My brother-in-law now uses FLS12 as a rookie, and I mock him because he’s slow :DWe laughed a lot!

51

Renoise doesn’t have to be a standard daw for me. But a bunch of things simply are annoying and not really working. I really don’t understand how you can write that renoise was good in detailed automation?? The graphical automation is really rudimentary and limited. It often feels like a pain. Hex automation for vst doesn’t make that better at all. With little additions and changes you heavily could improve renoise. And that’s what makes me angry every time: stopping at 80% and blaming renoise as niche product. What a Bullshit.

52

Renoise doesn’t have to be a standard daw for me. But a bunch of things simply are annoying and not really working. I really don’t understand how you can write that renoise was good in detailed automation?? The graphical automation is really rudimentary and limited. It often feels like a pain. Hex automation for vst doesn’t make that better at all. With little additions and changes you heavily could improve renoise. And that’s what makes me angry every time: stopping at 80% and blaming renoise as niche product. What a Bullshit.

The alphanumeric tracker specific automation paradigm is well suited for detailed editing within the context of sample sequencing.

As for the rest, we’ve already had these exact same discussions a year ago in these forums. Maybe this is a “summer vacation” phenomenon?

53

@Fsus4,I have shared many comments with you. But once again I disagree about some of your comments.

I firmly believe that Renoise only needs a minimum of support and maintenance, which is not so difficult. To do it free seems to me out of place and of little control. If Renoise today is what it is, it is because there has been someone behind controlling it. I think it’s free enough for have the API available to create tools. With a little more polishing, it is that you can make many very good tools, but of course with serious people who know of code, not like most who create tools that we are novices with little experience, and of course then tools come out with a pair of mistakes that in the end does not use anyone, and are more a personal thing than to believe that something intended for the whole community. People are not to learn the manias of each creator. So, if you want some added, do it yourself. That is the philosophy, thought years ago precisely to alleviate the current situation, and is that the support is “paused”, so to speak.

Free ? but if people do not even deal with the API tools for LUA.There is a whole world there. In the end it all sounds great, but it’s thinking deeper and you start seeing problems everywhere. If it were free with a manager behind overseeing every change or added, then it would be something else. But that is impossible.

Recently a Renoised has suggested the inclusion of a feature for Reniose, something like the Cubase Chord Pad. This might seem so complicated, you can build it with a tool, at least to enter the notes, instead of writing 1 note parent, write 3 (a father and two childs) in a line. That is very simple to do. Then buttons to trigger groups of notes and chord pad, made in an afternoon of code.

A little reminder…

  • Airman protested long ago about the lack of information, and rightly so.The man is now with another DAW.
  • Andrey Marchenko had to endure as some contradicted him, when only asked for an improvement of the automation editor. He ended up fed up and left. You will not see it any more in the forums.The same users of Renoise are stoned among themselves, when everyone should think that Renoise’s evolution will always be positive.
  • Roppenzo is up to the balls of the situation and it is not unusual to feel that way.
  • FFX he does not stop saying truths like fists, like his last comment.It is that most of the things that are important are not many and are feasible to be solved. But Taktik is not here, he’s on another project. As long as he does not appear, there will be no news. And when he appears he will look astonished, as if everything that moves in the forums were abnormal.
  • Fsus4 wants Renoise with free code, apparently because there is no continuity in the support …
  • etc, etc…

But they all have one thing in common. They see that Renoise has enormous potential, and is not being squeezed entirely by its main developer.Now it seems that continuing with the development of Renoise is a problem, but is not…Composing music, creating tools and waiting for Taktik, there is no other way.

Well, I don’t want Renoise with “free code”, what I’ve suggested is a new _ commercial _ license model that involvesa specific developer license of the C++ code (or some parts of it). Maybe something like “Renoise developer version 1.0”, costing $999. Taktik just needs to strip away “problematic” stuff such as DSP code by 3rd parties, and only license what’s necessary for others to compile newuser-tailored products – or just learn more about the history of Renoise coding. Remember that Renoise itself was based on the code of Noisetrekker.

54

The alphanumeric tracker specific automation paradigm is well suited for detailed editing within the context of sample sequencing.

As for the rest, we’ve already had these exact same discussions a year ago in these forums. Maybe this is a “summer vacation” phenomenon?

alphanumeric automation’s resolution is too limited for exact automation. That’s where graphical automation should kick in. But strangely, the recording resolution also is limited here, for no reason. Also when it comes to midi cc automation or vst parameter automation, alphanumeric automation simply will be almost unreadable and also not combinable.

So a bunch of areas were improvements could highly improve tracking experience. Not that much effort, but a lot of benefit.

55

A well the thong yes, one day ppl will make a song about the thong on a rainy day, it will suck big time.

It was raining, and yup it isn’t good.

56

Edit: I think the RAS system and instant gratification deserves a separate thread. Topic split.