BotB, did you find the magic draw button at last? 
one of the many sidequest that still require my attention… but indeed do I need new equipment!
bontempi rhythm king, guitar ‘borrowed’ from school, 4 track tape recorder.
if she really wants software - give her pure data and laugh.
srsly - renoise is a good choice but maybe something like ableton or fruity loops may be a better choice to start off with?
I’m 22 and have a few months’ worth of experience using trackers in general, and about 6 years of using a number of piano roll-based composition programs, as well as tablature and standard sheet music…
And there’s no way in hell I can envision a 14 year-old having the patience or technical knowledge to be able to use Renoise well… or to even want to learn how to use it, really.
Let’s face it, to a newbie, Renoise is absolutely daunting to look at. Same goes for the vast majority of composition programs.
Fruityloops, Garageband, or EnergyXT would all be better options, IMO. (Or if she’s on Windows, the program Orion Platinum is also fantastic)
Don’t know… I started out with trackers when I was 12 and back then comparing to nowadays, I think the trackers - gui wise - were far more complicated. But I still managed it to come around with the stuff.
Assuming (which is very far fetched now) if I would just start at this age with renoise and no backround, I would come around better with the program.
However, let her try - if it’s not working; leave it.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, Renoise is by FAR the most pleasant-looking and -feeling tracker program I’ve ever seen or used
But it’s still just that - a tracker program. And by nature, in my opinion, they’re all hideous and complex to use.
Which is why I’m saying that something based on the piano roll is a better starting point.
I started 19 years ago with computer music. My first contact with sequencing was using a Sound Blaster 1.0, which used Adlib for FM synth. The program used was Voyetra’s Sequencer Plus, you still can download it here: http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/kb_ftp/340.asp
My first try was to record “Another one bites the dust” and also “Billie Jean”, introducing the notes with the keyboard (it was MS-DOS, mouse where rarely supported) and had no midi keyboard.
I also think that the easiest way to record music is with a pianoroll type secuencer and with a sound module that sounds by itself. Start sampling around or ripping samples is a more advanced path to follow afterwards. Also I always thought that trackers were easier to use for programmers and computer-literate people, but less intuitive for laymen.
That’s what I think…
Group two would become dropouts within a matter of minutes.
tits or GTFO
srsly - if she can buy anything = ableton live, surely that is the most all encompasing newbie software out there?
come on renoise devs - elastic audio and clipz - now that’s a tracker!
I don’t get why pianoroll is more simple to use. I remember grasping the tracker concept well under a minute. While I struggled using pianoroll for few years. Pianoroll is not a good invention, just like the piano keyboard itself is not really a good invention. Trackers ARE simple.
I started music with the DMC3 on C64, I had no documentation whatsoever and no one I could have asked about it. I was 14 and I stuck with it.
Anyhow, regarding piano-roll software : Magix Musicmaker has become pretty okay in the latest versions, there is VST-Support, a Pianoroll, Drummatrix … and it comes with a shitload of samples. It’s kinda like Fruity Loops some years ago.
Me 2,
Started on the Amiga but can’t remembr which tracker it was but I got the concept without much trouble.
Just loaded a .mod and it was then quite simple to see how it was made and start plonking away on the keyboard. Not very well sounding I’ll admit that 
I was also 14 when I first tried FT2, and I understood it in a few hours, just by opening some old .xm files.
I’ve tried Reason, Cubase and Friuty Loops, but haven’t been able to make squat… and I was in my twenties.
Trackers are logical and easy to use.
Disagreed on all accounts.
I prefer the pianoroll 100% of the time. Being able to physically SEE the placement of notes on a piano keyboard is infinitely more inspirational to me than simply seeing the note name and octave.
When it comes down to it, I honestly can’t even write melodies from within Renoise. I either use tablature or a program with a piano roll to write a melody, and then have to move it into Renoise.
shrugs
Yeah, except that those prefering a text editor are right.
Renoise is as hard as you make it.
Show her the very basics. Let her practice for a few weeks and then when and if she needs more instruction you can give her some more.
I don’t even user pattern commands for christs sake. Sample offset? What’s that? I haven’t use that stuff since the Amiga days. You are talking to a guy who still painsfully pixel edits photos. Ok so I am a little old school…
Seriously, looking at renoise in its entirety to any new user is daunting. Just give her a few important bits and she will be fine.
Yes, let’s agree on that! 
I started with a tracker.
I fail to see someone else couldn’t start with one?
I learned in a basement, when the internet was a series of BBS connected via Fidonet and one person logged on at a time. When I got to university in the late nineties (high five me for my fine arts degree in electroacoustics) everything they were teaching I already learned because I used a tracker. Everyone else were amazed at computers in general/
If you are personally tutoring her, and she has access to much more info than I ever did, and youtube, I don’t see a problem learning Renoise, at all. Times have changed for the better.
It’s a matter of being interested. If she wants to play a lute and sing in a choir, well then no, Renoise ain’t it. But if she is interested in computer music… Renoise, no problems there.
Ignore the wimps who didn’t start on a tracker.
Hey im 27 years old, feel pretty old skool too, and guess what?
The more you use “old” ways like pattern commands in stead of vsti and drumloops (easy drumming), the more creative you get, and the more unique everything sounds.
Its true, the KiSS protocol still works and the more people use Renoise as some looping program with some fancy effects are picturing it WRONG.
Sure, i used a drumloop here and there, but only if i couldn’t get the sound i wanted “manually”.
But try listening and immitating a drumloop, your own creatings could sound better 
As for VSTi’s, they are high quality and flexible, but there are certain things you can only do with some good samples and hardcore patterncommands!!! 
Whoops, forgot the little girl in this story, she first really needs to split up the music in:
Drums, bass, melody, soundFX, etc.
Play the melody, write it, guide it with a little drum and pimp it further… 
Possible dumbest quote of the day?