hi i’ve had renoise for a couple of years and have tried it a little, but i can’t wrap my head around a vertical sequencer without any wave forms. i’m coming from reaper,and studio one pro 2. i want so bad to learn trackers, but i have been taught using a horiziontal way of recording. anybody know any tricks? thanks in advance.
You mean you can’t cope with the autoseek function in the sample properties panel of the instrument settings because you don’t have a visual orientation of where the current pointer is at in the sample?
Reaper is a multitrack, and multitracks are used for mixing of prerecorded material.
What waveforms are you going to see when you are only entering notes in a sequencer?
Do you have a midi keyboard? If you ask Renoise follow as you play… You can tap away on your keyboard and begin to see how notes take shape in the Matrix. Obviously with Renoise, you can also do the same thing on your computer’s QWERTY board.
It all depends on the style of music your are making… That basically determines how you are going to use any of your tools, and how to attack the learning curve. Sometimes I notice, that the easiest way to conquer a DAWs Learning Curve is to go to the essence of music. If breath is the essence of life; rhythm is the essence of music. Start with the beat, and the bass. Maybe just a kick sample… and a bass preset… Instead of thinking about a song, decide that you are just trying to grab an understanding of programming into the Pattern Matrix… Click on the metronome, and program your kick and bass…
If you focus on Renoise, you are going to get it. I actually have trouble now, with DAWs and arrangement, if its not Renoise…
thanks!! i’m not used to playing my guitar and not seeing a wave form!
In this case Renoise is not the best tool for your needs. If you play mainly live instruments you’d better stick with a multitrack where you can record and rerecord.
Renoise is really a sequencing tool rather than a virtual recording studio tool.
However, you could just do both, sequence your drum track in Renoise, bounce it down to a wave and then record your guitar along in Reaper.
You can track and record audio… Depends on style of music. Obviously killing yourself if your client is the New York Philharmonic. Doing yourself a damn favor if you are selling tracks on Juno Records.com.
So… also… plenty of ways to mix in Renoise.
That said,
I think, Rewire is good option here too. Choose which one you like more, “reaper or studio one.” and Rewire Renoise… Instead of bouncing to audio, you can now continue to sequence, and change and arrange your beat where needed. <— The only problem with this, is now you are arranging horizontal and vertical at the same time. This is very tricky… I know, cause… erm, I have a tendency to use Rewire.
Rxn is right, in that, for lots of audio work, your going need a collection of software… When you add everything together, you get your, “swiss army knife.” But you know… the big advantage is you choose your synths, your daws, your sample packs… you add it all together, you get your studio. If you had 1 option, than a lot of folk would use the exact same option, ergo boring world…
Don’t forget Renoise is also a sick sampler. Amazing way to sequence, but that is only part of the story!!!
imo, Renoise just has a particular way of working. it changed my workflow around because i started thinking more about samples. in a way, this is limiting, because you don’t just have synth working away as you press stuff. but you can build your own stuff, and working around limitations gives you all sorts of new ideas. the approach i have taken towards certain types of sounds or recordings or whatever, is radically different from the way i looked at them when i was still using Reason. the idea that you can just take a sound and cut it up and make more sounds out of it is one of those things that was a ‘revelation’ to me. also, i immensely enjoy the flexibility Renoise has. you can just program in notes, then play them faster or slower. you can change effects on the fly, with a simple command. when you increase the BPM but build a lower-speed track, you’ll increase the detail in your working area, allowing for more and faster and more detailed edits and effects.
i am trying hard to explain it here, but it’s really a feeling or mindset to get into. indeed, Thinking the Renoise Way. someone ought to write a book for that title 
I don’t think it’s the Renoise way as much as it is the tracker way.
If I want a guitar bit in a tracker song, I record the one guitar phrase and trigger it in its place with a c-4 note. While it’s possible to sample your guitar playing the whole song, I don’t think Renoise is the best tool for that.
I work with vocals a phrase at a time too, usually.
There are no rules of course, just suggestions.
In short, what everyone else is pretty much saying.
Renoise is a really awesome tool but like any medium it nudges you in particular directions by making certain things hard and others easy. At the core it’s a sampler with a built in sequencer (or the other way around), so if you want to work with recorded sound you need to think in terms of samples, not tracks per se. I’ll often press play on my song and then start a new recording in the sample editor, jamming for a while. After you’re done you have a sample instrument, which you can then trim and trigger with C-4 wherever you want to hear it in your song. It’s not as immediate as seeing a track pop up at the right point as you’re playing but it gives you the freedom to edit and place your recording in numerous ways. Chop it up or process it into new samples, play your guitar riff as a drum kit, whatever. With Autoseek turned on it’s really quite a nice way to work.
It all depends what you’re trying to achieve at the end of the day, and like others have said, there are better options if all you want is to lay down some guitar tracks more or less live. If you don’t mind Renoise taking you in a more sample based, electronic direction, keep experimenting and just remember the stuff you see scrolling vertically is instrument note events, and the instruments hold your waveforms, which you can still edit horizontally. Separating the two in your mind will bring you closer to the tracker way
I record guitars and vocals all the time while composing with Renoise. Here’s how I do it:
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Start playing drum and bass (background) patterns. That might just one pattern if I am recording a part of solo, or 10 patterns if it is a long verse. Set looping for patterns. Metronome could be enabled too with count-in.
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Plug in guitar, Open Renoise sampler and start recording.
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Let the loop play, try as many times as you need.
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When finished, cut the right take in sample editor.
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Add the sample in Renoise with C-4 note. I usually start the sample just a line or two earlier (end of previous pattern) to capture slides/breaths whatever natural sound I want to include.
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Use delay notes by xx ticks “0Qxx” to finetune the beginning of the sample.
I may record sometimes with Audacity (Renoise playing still the background) and just import the wav into Renoise (just select instrument slot and click that wav).
I don’t know if this is the best way to do it, but works for me, don’t want other DAWs here. Finetuning the beginning of the sample is sometimes a bit tedious, but this allows me precise control of what is included in the sample.
yes, the overview information simply isn’t there now. you have to keep a mental map or name things to get an overview.
i agree that seeing wave forms is nice… it’s easy to see what kind of track it is by just the “audio signature”.
(just throwing something out there with this…) would be nice if renoise had some way of making multiple take recording easier. for example: specify something like “record over these patterns with a count each time in until i hit stop” and then you end up with a number of sliced up takes from which you can choose one. or even “punch in windows” where audio is recorded and outside of it there will be silence.