Anybody else here find yourself solely using renoise with no VSTs or external programs? I try to do everything in renoise. Anybody else?
Yes, It mostly happened when I got better at tracking(memorizing effects, knowing what commands actually do). I also always got annoyed at having to move between vsts and native dsps to set levels, way easier for me just to use samples and native dsps. All of the great old, and new tools also makes it a pleasure, custom wave tool ftw.
95% of what I do in Renoise is pure internal. Tried using some VST’s on a couple of… projects, but I think I’m too old-school to be using any external input.
Feels like cheating… 
I’m new to Renoise and did my first track yesterday. I found that I could quickly get a chipsound I wanted with unknown64 VST but that the limitations inherent with using a VST slowed me down, kind of making it a wash. For the simpler sounds I wanted I just used generated waveforms and DSPs and accomplished much the same, and then got the advantages of samples… I was planning on experimenting with the plugin grabber a bit to see how useful that is.
How is that cheating?
Some may say that samples are cheating because there are no real instruments. 
But seriously… I couldn’t live without vst(i)'s. Samples are too “destructive” for my taste.
I may make all vst(i)'s into renoise instrumets in final track but vst(i)'s are important while writing music and creating sounds.
Renoise internal fx are mostly nice but some things are just faster to do with vst’s, like multichannel compression.
i try to keep it as much i can with renoise only , when i use vst it’s usually free like Tal bassline and Tal dub2
I used to do everything purely in Renoise but now there are a few external tools I simply cannot live without. It all depends on what tools you feel the most comfortably working with really. Whatever that gives you the most control over expressing what you want to express.
No chance.
I paid a lot of money for those synths, compressors, EQs, reverbs etc.
I’m damn well going to use them!
yep
I am so happy that RENOISE offers me the possibility to use AU/vst-instruments and effects (and i include the internal renoise-fx like delay, filter and so on). These things are everything that i missed in protracker, ocatmed and ft2!
regards!
D.
The only thing I don’t do in Renoise is master the final mixdown. I use some VSTs, nothing fancy though. I would say about 85-90% of my workflow is all Renoise.
I always make the final product all inside Renoise, usually using lots of VST instruments but no VST effects; from time to time, I do everything using samples only
I’ve bought a few synths, some VST and so on. But I catch myself each and every day, trying to do everyhting in Renoise only, sampling from softsynths to XRNi or using some VST just as a monitor to counter check values and ranges. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But usually I try to keep everything Renoise native only. To make it sound then like it’s not just native Renoise, that’s the actual challenge to me. 
You can accomplish a lot with only samples, but if you pick synth vsts like String studio (emulation) it is very hard to accomplish this with samples in native Renoise format. And it saves me a whopping few gigs of samples what you would have with a commercial sample library.
I try to leave most vst effects out though, in very rare case i need Senderella (to send output to other tracks inputs, because that’s the only thing you can’t do with send devices).
intesesting thread… the longer i produce, ( in terms of years of life spent on music production, ) the less tools I am using. right now, renoise is my main software for writing, arranging, and creating tracks. having some other vst effects/synths and tools is very nice though… some ni stuff, some ik stuff… i have licenses for so much more, but its so weird… longer i produce… less brands, less software, less tools I am using… focusing more on actual music, rather than which company is trying to sell, “brickwall buster 5.0 multiband super comp, with enhanced algorithmic dsp emulation of a pulsar 12. vst/au and group buy! $199”
No, it’s not cheating. Didn’t mean that in a serious way. Hence the winking smiley.
But coming from tracking on the Amiga and always have been using samples VSTs make it so easy to sound so good. Like you have an expensive rack-module or synth via MIDI. So, it’s a good thing. I just don’t use 'em for some reason. Maybe just a matter of habit.
I noticed that you weren’t too serious about it, neither was i. Even though, idea comes from somewhere. I have Amiga / tracker background so i kinda know where that comes from.
I could say that not using virtual instruments is same as saying that guitarists cheat if they don’t build their own guitars. My approach is that everything should be easy as possible without using other peoples intellectual property. (I know, this concept isn’t simple as that)
Of course it matters how you make your music but in the end result is the most important thing. Samples and vst(i)'s have their own strong and weak points and should be used based on purpose.
Renoise instrumets are good in idea level but problem is that there is not that many quality instruments available, unless you make your own. I’m not saying there is only one right way to do things. What is confusing to me is the reason behind that decision.
I do “purist experiments” sometimes for kicks and used to do more in the past but i realized that it only slows things down. For me fast production is important because if i can’t get stuff done soon enough, there is high risk of losing the idea.
I’m coming from Amiga, too, and I used to spend tons of money to make the sound good. Bought expencive soundcards (Toccata, Prelude and Delfina DSP in one A4000), external synths and expanders and mixers.
Today I get that all in Renoise plus a few VSTs. That’s progress. 
I guess it depends on whether you are serious or a hobbyist. As a hobbyist I find that I focus a lot more on the process than the result. It is super fun for me to figure out how to do things and how things function; researching and fiddling with techniques exploring new sounds and musical paradigms. So for me a tool that allows as much dissection and tinkering as possible are much more enjoyable whereas if was serious about the outcome I would be far more concerned with the quality of the tools than their frankensteining abilities. And it just happens that Renoise is extremely tinkerable and still makes really high quality results so for me it is perfect to play around with. The only downside is that it is very labour intensive and time consuming which means less finnished compositions and more 30 second experiments but for me as a hobbiest thats not really a problem. (✿◠‿◠)