Upgrade from renoise 2.1?

General Discussion
1

Hello everyone. I’ve been out of it. I’m looking to get back in.

That is to say, I made a bunch of songs in 2008-2009 or thereabouts in Renoise 2.1, which is the last build I have a licence for. I love that piece of software and have pretty much internalized the workflow of it, meaning it’s not too much of a threshold for me to start working with it again. I certainly don’t have the time of patience to learn a new piece of software. The only other option would be upgrading Renoise to the latest version, which I gather is 3 point something. My question is, should I?

I use samples and VST/VSTi:s, record some electric and acoustic guitar. I don’t use midi or any external controllers. I don’t really miss any features in v.2.1, but maybe there is something I need in the newer version that I don’t know about? Would I be able to use it in the same way I’m used to, interface-wise? What’s the biggest difference? Does it sound better? Anything else to consider?

2

Quite a lot has changed over the years since 2.1 was released.

The Pattern Matrix arranger was added, the Lua scripting API was added, the instrument system received two big overhauls, the sampler was improved and upgraded with stuff like slice markers and autoseek, phrases were added, a bunch of new devices were added, track grouping was added, the pattern editor commands got completely rearranged, and so on…

You should really check out the release notes page for the full run down.

In short, going from 2.1 to 3.1 is probably going to feel pretty weird for a while, but I don’t think you should have any major problems readjusting if you’re patient and willing to put in the effort.

As always, the best thing to do is simply check out the demo version and make up your own mind.