I only use 1 pattern per track, so for 6 tracks I use 6 patterns and improvise the transitions…
You can also open 2 instances of Renoise and mix with the master signals. You can even sync it internally if you want to. 
I’m currently preparing a liveset, mainly based on Renoise. Renoise will be joined by a couple of SoundForge instances and one or two CD decks.
Basicly I will be improvising in Renoise, around pre-built patterns: I’d be looping a single pattern and opening/closing channels, recording and layering automation, adding or subtracting stuff along the way, etc.
SoundForge will aid for some of the atmospheric elements. I’ll be mixing field recordings, some prepared piano sessions, etc. Mixing several binaural field recordings has the potential to quietly drive anyone insane. Space wraps nicely.
And finally, the CD decks: One of them will be playing a long prerecorded ambient textural piece. It will be running silently during the performance and will come forward only at transitions (while I open the next Renoise file). It’s also a perfect fallback mechanism in case the laptop freezes. Or in case of a fast-kicking severe performance paranoia. 
For either of these cases, I have a set of CDs with my music and, as a last resort, I’d proceed with a DJ set on both decks.
Once I’ve done this performance (it’ll be in July) I’ll let you know how it went.
some time ago i made a topic about a live-mode in renoise
you can follow the topic here
please chime in if you got ideas
I don’t think Renoise, or indeed any tracker, has a place in live music. It’s sort of a bizarre notion really. Cubase or any other high end DAW is an equally poor fit for a live set.
I had this kind of freakish urge to use Renoise as part of a live set before, and what it really boils down to is flipping switches and tweaking effects. Big f****ing whoop.
Here’s the real kicker though, and i truly believe this. Nothing you can do with Renoise in a live set is going to make your live set better.
Live music isn’t pre-sequenced music transposed into an environment where people push the buttons rather than programmed events. Live music is expression, timing, fundamental alterations. None of these are really doable through effects tweaking or pattern swapping.
What you wind up doing on stage is wanking off for your own pleasure rather than positively influencing the experience your audience is having.
If i hear another breakcore dude “play live” with instajungle or glitch again i’m going to f****ing explode. This “look what i can do” bullshit is what really separates true live musicians from software-based electronic musicians. Forcing your technical cock down the throat of your audience doesn’t improve anything.
What i think Renoise can do though is complement a live set. Used as a drum computer or throughput effects unit it’s got incredible brevity. It can also run as a midi master clock for whatever else you want to pipe through it.
For me, music to be effectively played live has to be created with live performance in mind, or to be able to be recorded as a live performance and published that way. It needs more than an extra interface window and the ability to hotswap patterns and sections from different tunes to be anything but technical masturbation or a pointless spin on the DJ set.
Nothing i have ever made in Renoise can be played truly live. So i’m not going to pretend any other way, or willingly compromise my art by shoehorning it into different software for the sake of appearing like i know wtf i’m doing on stage.
I’ve produced next to nothing in months now as i transpose my mentality from the supercontrolled step sequencer tracker environment to the one where pushing a key produces different results every time, my voice may falter and fail and the sound guy may not know wtf he’s doing, and i have to rerecord the song over and over and over until it feels right. It’s taken me out of Renoise as a do-it-all package and into integrating Renoise with hardware solutions, and it’s incredibly rewarding, if slow and frustrating.
On stage i want to be different, spectacular, awkward. I want to be able to fail spectacularly at what i set out to do yet come out of it with a new sound.
Listen to Sigur Rós, David Bowie, The Who, Public Enemy, listen to Dean Martin, Benny Goodman, ABBA, Nina Simone. Go to a concert and listen to a string quartet play Beethoven, or even Arvo Pärt. Then go home and think about what it means to be a live musician, and that you may actually have to work with other people who are physically able to assist your sound to create a result that is truly organic.
It takes more fundamental reinvention than rendering to tracks and turning them on or off in Ableton, or piping the whole shebang through a midi clock synced effect unit.
This is, of course, if you still think it’s worth compromising your work to be a live musician. If not, you’re fine with Renoise as it is. Run two instances through separate sound card outs and crossfade. Or what i’ve done, play a song. Stop it, load the next, play that. It doesn’t have to flow if the pacing is right.
Very well put Sunjammer.
Sort of agree and disagree at the same time with you SunJammer…
It sounds like you have alot of pent up malice towards the idea of using renoise live on its own… remnants of a few cataclysmic failures you’ve already experienced perhaps? However, you make a few good points about what it IS capable of doing. I would take out the rant at the top though and just include the fact that renoise is a good throughput procesing device, midi host and sequencer. Sequenced music is not live music, we all know that, but sequenced elements can make up a great part of a live performance… and its still live in my books so long as you are not sequencing the whole kit and kabootle, or merely filter tweaking as you complain of… Alot of bands utilise a sequencer on a synth instead of an extra keyboardist, and nobody complains…
On the other hand, I think its just as bad to wank on about the fact that you dont wank about on stage and dont like people who wank on because you are so far above and beyond them… it doesnt paint a very nice picture of you with that shoving cock down audience throat comment. What are you trying to achieve anyway, if you’re correct, then you have nothing to fear from these people? Why not leave them to their personal enjoyment? Not only that but it takes the reader’s focus away from the good points you made about what it CAN do.
Luckily, most people don’t care whether you play a CD, run a sequence or play it by hand. They just enjoy the music that you perform and that’s what it’s all about.
Nah, i’ve never had fundamental failures live beyond one time i got too drunk to sing. That was a great one.
I have no malice towards the idea of using renoise live on its own as much as i worry about the idea of live music being lost on so many people, to the point where it stops being about the expression of the musician and more about justifying the personal appearance.
Personally i applaud those who are totally in touch with that and just play a DJ set of their tunes rather than try and mangle their own art into something they can swiftly alter in a live context.
This is exactly my point. Renoise as an element of a live performance is useful, interesting and completely doable as is. It doesn’t have to become a pseudo-ableton live to fill that role.
Yeah that was pretty harsh. But i get honestly upset when i see people who produce brilliant music degrading their sound to fit into some imaginary notion of what live music is, to the point where their labors of love are broken apart and retrofitted to a context in which it doesn’t actually work. It kills the soul.
When you play live it’s for the paying audience, sometimes they travel far to see you, sometimes they’ve wanted to see you play for years and finally they can. Reducing your art is disrespectful to everyone.
What is the point of any rant. Obviously i feel strongly enough on this subject that i’m not worried about working it for popularity? My point all the way through was that compromising your vision to base your live set around Renoise is a bad thing, and i’ve seen it done so many times i feel it’s worth shouting about.
To take a step back, obviously there are genres where loop swapping and filter tweaking actually has a real place. I’m mostly concerned about music where expression, dramatic flair and subtlety has immediate and important value.
I totally agree. Sunjammer made some good points. It’s a refreshing perspective.
I just hope that his audience will appreciate his efforts in a manner that accurately reflects the articulation of his efforts…
None of those musicians make electronic music. One of the purposes of electronic music is that it doesn’t have to played live, or in otherwords it requires no physical ability, its all sequenced. I don’t need 10 years of experience playing piano to compose a piano part. If you were to write songs around your playing abilities, I think it would only limit what you could do compositionally.
What I like seeing live is on-the-spot programming. Autechre does this with a few drum machines and synths: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Ig3nHtWJFQ . They probably have the sound sets already picked out and a rough sketch of what the songs should sound like, but the rest is all improve.
I am guilty of repeatedly coming up with suggestions for new features, and using the term “good for live performance” - that said, I largely agree with sunjammer.
However, his points are only valid when we are talking about solo performances. If you happen to play music together with others, you are constantly challenged and need to respond. I write my own performance software to get those abilities, but those home brewed patches are never actually sequenced, but played 100% live.
I think Renoise is something like 80% of the way towards becoming a killer live sequencer, something that more “compositional” music creating methods would surely also benefit from ?
Fair enough, I’m just advocating for good vibes and constructive criticism…I read it slightly differently, perhaps misread, to see it as an attack against instajungle-kiddies because of inferiority annoying you or something. That is what i see rants as, an opportunity to be misunderstood and have an argument. But I guess thats just me. Anyway, as the original instajungle kiddie, the hairs on the back of my neck instinctively prickled for a fight (I didnt make it… but he never really used it… and for the record, I begged him not to go public with it!)
Aye… though if you replace those band names with bands such as Nine Inch Nails, Atari Teenage Riot, Mindless Self Indulgence, Skinny Puppy and Throbbing Gristle, you will find that musicianship again enters the picture, even in an electronic context.
First off, see other thread: https://forum.renoise.com/t/about-live-performance/22242
Second of all, the reasons I personally want more live features in Renoise aren’t so I can play my regular compositions, but instead to use Renoise to compose brand new things in a live environment. I want to chain my guitar, synth, and a mic through Renoise, and it would be nice to be able to loop like ableton does, or to be able to do other neat stuff (better routing plz kthx!) with live inputted sound. Currently it’s impossible to do things like lay out a new pattern while another pattern is playing… this would be nice to do. For those that have a multi-out soundcard especially, it would be nice to have one set of patterns playing to the audience, while the ones you’re working on are piped to another output, where your headphones are plugged in. These are just some ideas I’ve had for live composing on the fly. True live composition, not simply muting or effecting channels. Renoise is one of the fastest tools for composing, and I’d beg to guess that it’s fast enough that you could compose entire sets on the fly if you’re fast enough… you’d just need to have the right features implemented, and a lot of practise. Renoise could revolutionize live electronic music in a way ableton never could with the right changes 
Or KCS never did. Point being: the challenge is to implement such features. Feature-wise, KCS was way ahead at it’s time (mid-80’s), but it was really hard to learn.
Nice danoise… Renoise could learn from that
How do you run copies of Renoise simultaneously? Is this possible on a macbook?
I have it all working
Now i cam expiriment for a live setup 
How are things on this topic? Are there any people still doing livesets with renoise?
Tip & tricks?
Its possible if you duplicate the Renoise.app in the finder first. Then you can launch the original and the copy side by side.
Or you start the Renoise.app twice in the terminal.
I’m preparing 2 live sets with Renoise. One is a hardware set with loads of analog/vintage stuff where I can do improvisation but maintain the drum patterns, bass lines and chords. The other is a laptop set with loops from tracks I made earlier (I have to go by plane so I can’t bring the hardware with me). All my tracks are single-pattern based so it isn’t hard to implement that in a ‘live’ setting. The only problem is the sound of the analog effects, since I can’t use them I try to compensate it with effects I can’t possibly do with my analog stuff (like a LFO chained to the Mixer EQ and oscillating the mid frequency for some nice variation in the overall sound of the chords).
sunjammer is so right!!!
a live is something acted with hands, knobs, pads, risks, sweat, freedom, improvisation, surprises, livemade beats and breaks etc…
previous/next/filter/cut is not live performance, it s just wanking… with renoise, ableton or anything else…