As a sampler/sequencer, with 1337 scripting abilities at that, Renoise is awesome. Let me explain why it does not function as a DAW for several reasons.
No visualization of sequence
Sure, the hardware samplers like MPCs didn’t have too much of this either. But there have been DAWs for decennia now that visualize MIDI (somewhat) and audio (perfectly). For instance, in Ableton or whatever DAW, I can line up the transients of 3 kick samples and it sounds great together. Renoise can’t do this (not even with delay unit, because 1ms is minimum and there are no comma’s ?!), I’ll just keep messing with LPBs and Delay column values forever.
No MIDI routing
Ok there is midi routing, but just for input. MIDI plugins are simply not supported. You can’t have a plugin get one key, and output another, to anywhere. No choice.
No MIDI compliance
I have made several topics about this, which were probably all filed as a [nobug]. Notes go from 0-127 in MIDI spec. Renoise will just cut off everything above 119, even when that MIDI note is going to a plugin that is able to handle it. The option to ignore Renoises ‘octave’ for MIDI input is still nowhere to be found which can make working with both pc keyboard and different MIDI inputs disturbing. There’s also the velocity above 127 (with pc keyboard velocity option ‘off’) that makes certain plugins crash.
No proper live recording
Renoise. Great for step sequencing. Live input of staccato notes, not so much until you set LPB higher, and patterns become longer and longer.
I’m just using Renoise for some time calculation scripts right now, and mastering, because it hosts 32/64 bit stuff like no tomorrow. I’m not mad at all. More like sad because I can’t have the CV type routings in another program that might be better suited as an allround DAW.
I agree with a lot of this and hope to see stuff like a PR and better MIDI integration sometime. Even if renoises MIDI import/ export could be more complete and convenient, I could work around a lot of it by dragging and dropping MIDI clips between renoise and another DAW. It`s just super clunky at the moment requiring two instances of renoise then copy pasting etc.
Renoise can’t do this (not even with delay unit, because 1ms is minimum and there are no comma’s ?!), I’ll just keep messing with LPBs and Delay column values forever.
Glad I read this as it reminded me to check out voxengos sound delay again. It seems you can delay stuff down to the sample level, or 0.01 ms if you need to. Could be useful for lining up those transients, though visual feedback missing still:
I also wrote this tool recently to help with the monotony of typing velocity, pan and delay values in the pattern editor. I`ve found it really useful for nudging stuff around while looping:
In the pre-mixer section of each sequencer track there’s a delay property which allows you to shift the audio up to +/-100ms with 0.001ms accuracy. So you don’t necessarily have to mess around with note delays, the delay DSP device, or external VST plugins.
IMO, the single biggest, most important point in your post is “no proper live recording.” Recording live input sucks in Renoise, it doesn’t matter if it’s live audio or midi input. But then it just wasn’t designed for live recording. It’s designed to be the best fucking step sequencer that’s ever existed.
I would truly, truly love for Renoise to get major improvements to the live recording work flow, including audio tracks and a “takes” function. If you could record, save, and switch between multiple takes in a pattern, that would be amazing. And if notes in polyphonic play could automatically be sorted to be more readable (ever try to decipher a 2 handed piano recording in Renoise?) Just audio tracks alone though, would be enough for me to abandon my rewired Reaper solution and go back to Renoise full time (which is something I would love to do because I love Renoise).
In the pre-mixer section of each sequencer track there’s a delay property which allows you to shift the audio up to +/-100ms with 0.001ms accuracy. So you don’t necessarily have to mess around with note delays, the delay DSP device, or external VST plugins.
Good point!
Must have missed my coffee this morning as this method is something I was doing even recently!
I’d name this topic “Why Renoise sucks as an Ableton”.
All points are valid, but the biggest “problem” is that Renoise is a tracker. IMHO it’s just not intended to be used for live recording. It’s intended to be used for step sequencing and it’s pretty damn awesome at that.
My workaround for live recording is to play melodies on MIDI keyboard and then program them using computer keyboard. Pretty happy with that.
I’d name this topic “Why Renoise sucks as an Ableton”.
All points are valid, but the biggest “problem” is that Renoise is a tracker. IMHO it’s just not intended to be used for live recording. It’s intended to be used for step sequencing and it’s pretty damn awesome at that.
My workaround for live recording is to play melodies on MIDI keyboard and then program them using computer keyboard. Pretty happy with that.
You can also use Rewire or, eventually, Redux to get the best of both worlds where necessary. The “problem” might be more in branding, Renoise isn’t a DAW in the same sense that Live or Cubase are DAWs, it’s kind of closer to what Reason used to be. A kickass instrument and routing environment with a barebones sequencer. This can also be a good thing, as the DAW becomes more complex it can become increasingly difficult to do simple things. This was my experience with FL, eventually got back into tracking because workflow was progressively becoming more ass backwards with every version. Can’t say with regards to Ableton, I crashed the demo in under an hour the first time I tried it and haven’t given it much consideration since. I mentioned Reason, their userbase has become more and more agitated as the props have tried to turn it into a full DAW as well…
I don’t think it’s realistic to expect Renoise or any tracker to have the level of visual feedback that a DAW like Ableton does, it’s a niche product and likely isn’t a full time job. There are still things that could be better about it as a tracker and a sampler also
No proper live recording
Renoise. Great for step sequencing. Live input of staccato notes, not so much until you set LPB higher, and patterns become longer and longer.
Wow all along I thought I just really sucked at hitting my key’s on time! Glad it’s not just me. It’s me AND renoise! we’re both fuckups suited for a long life together of brainpower overload and meaningless letters and numbers flying around all willynilly.
I simply LOVE Renoise for layering sounds. You can get tons of different sounds and options if you just listen for happy accidents instead of lining up transients perfectly. You can also do it pretty fast using the delay command line. One thing I recently enjoyed doing is using the delay command in phrases with high LPB. That’s great for more microscopic stuff.
Visualization isn’t always a good thing in my experience.
Through scripting a lot of effort has been put in tools to hack Renoise into Ableton territory, anyone remember Cells!? ( http://www.renoise.com/tools/cells ) Anyone actually used that tool?
Wouldn’t mind seeing more native live recording facilities, first things first though, pimp the instrument editor & dsp!
Click and drag in scripting is all I’d really want concerning lack of basic midi editing, otherwise pattern zooming and ‘line-independent’ note length click and drag is all I’d really want concerning lack of basic midi editing.
fancier native effects is waste of time, just get a free vstthat will do it much better(or switch to windows then do that)
fancier native effects is waste of time, just get a free vstthat will do it much better(or switch to windows then do that)
Disagree that free VSTs are always better, I think Renoise’s native distortion, exciter, and lofimat are better than any of the free alternatives I’ve come across. CMT bitcrusher is the only freebie I’ve used that is even that close to those actually, most free bitcrushers are pretty mediocre compared to that or lofimat IMO. I think I’ve seen two or three free exciters and they sounded like shit. Aside from waveshapers I haven’t seen a really good versatile free digital distortion plugin either, there are more good free guitar amps…actually I don’t think I’ve even seen a freebie with foldback distortion, only in paid software like Renoise, Reason, or Bazille
Payware is of course another story, most native effects for any DAW are inferior to what can be bought from outside developers. Still arguably not worth it because the sequencer and sampler can always be improved, and these things are what makes Renoise special, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that free VSTs will always give you an improvement…and there are workflow reasons to using native DSP, as well as making XRNS’ more shareable. And how many free plugins are old synth edits that were buggy back in their day and even buggier on newer OS’…
You should try http://www.meldaproduction.com/plugins/product.php?id=MFreeEffectsBundle, particularly the waveshaper, since you’re interested in distortion, exciters and bit crushers. Not sure why you’d want to put waveshapers on the side. It doesn’t have endlessly folding distortion, but you can do far more than that.
My friends think I’m crazy when I tell them I use a Tracker… I always tell them I do a lot of step sequencing because it’s the type of music I make. Renoise makes my music tight. and you can’t play it by hand.
I treat RENOISE as a DAW but I think, adding better FX like the Soundtoys bundle will change things for the better…
I’ve been wanting to change to Logic Pro X finally but I’m really scared of changing again… Why change when it’s not broken. But but but, I’m not sure if RENOISE is a remixing tool? This is why I want to change to Logic so I can work with other people. When will RENOISE become a plug in?
Great that my rant was taken as a set of serious points too. Had not expected that!
The track delay is indeed a solution for the first ‘problem’ I posed. What still sucks: you need to go to that field with mouse, double-click, and then type in some value. No way to adjust in any sort of gradual way (mouse is stepped by 1ms). A tool for a midi binding (for current track) might fix this in a very neat way (relative midi signal, from a ‘endless’ encoder, would be great: some precision and still some reach).
One more point to add: the *devices and that whole system, that no other audio app has (Reason might come close), is really awesome. After a while, with a musician’s mindset tho, you start to think, “cut it already with the endless drop-down menus… this is wack…”
So what I’m actually saying is Renoise is an awesome sampler+sequencer, with great FX too. Could do with some heavy usability improvements.
For me renoise is everything what other daw are not ! It was not the first daw i used but for sure the firste daw i fall in love with !
To be completly honest, i have 2 thing that for me should be a priority for the renoise team :
First : A better communication between the programmers and supporters ! Because we never really know what is being develloped at the moments. i understand that developers has to make their own roadmap but they could at least give a better overview of their work and plan !
Second : A window ! Because lets be honest here ! We are in 2014, today all good daw at least support Midi Load/Save (We can’t save in midi at the moment), Audio tracks and internal midi routing ! Please keep in mind that i am not complaining here, i just do not understand how long and why those feature were not a priority for the team since the begining.
In the end i love renoise and i won’t change for any other daw ! I think that this is for me the best daw that suits with my style and production, i just hope that someday the roadmap won’t be kept as a secret.
Well we all know what Renoise is and what it isn’t.
Just use it for what it is, and if you can’t find a work around for the thing you want to do, then just use another program altogether or just learn to live without it. The OP and others have raised some great points, but when I checked out how long the Renoise wishlist was, and what has been implemented so far, it’s safe to say that many of that stuff just won’t make it into Renoise. I mean anything can happen. I’m not a Renoise dev, but instead of complaining of what Renoise can’t do, just find another program that can and use it either along side Renoise or as a replacement.
For me; Renoise is becomingmore and more of a scratch pad for ideas.
