Where can I find quality Renoise XRNI instruments?

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

I absolutely love Renoise. I come from a digital composing background, with fond memories of AdLib Tracker 2. I haven’t once regretted my decision to purchase Renoise, and I recommend it at every opportunity.

Although I started out making chiptune-style music, I’m interested in branching out to other genres. I’m looking for polyphonic and realistic instruments that make use of more effects. I’d like to explore composing classical music. But I don’t know where to start looking for good XRNIs. The ones that come with Renoise are so limited.

Some people out there might suggest that I pick up a commercial DAW with more marketshare, but I’d rather work in a familiar tracker interface that even gives me API access to write my own interface extensions (I could go on with many of the other wonderful features in Renoise). I’d like to test to see if the tracker workflow can be applied to music of high quality classical music.

Here are some examples of some of the types of instruments that I’m looking for:

  • Realistic orchestral instruments: Brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion.
  • Hip-hop instruments: lead, drums.
  • Dub-step instruments: lead, drums.
  • Synth instruments: lead, pad, bass, drums.

One last thought regarding VSTs: I much prefer working with XRNIs wherever possible because they’re more portable (I’m working on a collaboration with someone who may not have access to certain VSTs). Also, with XRNIs there’s no configuration necessary to ensure that an external plugin is set up properly.

I’m willing to pay for quality XRNIs if that’s the best option available. Thanks for your suggestions, and I hope you’ll pardon my rant.

1 Like
2

For orchestral sounds you could use the samples from the Sonatina sample set and load them in to Renoise and make your own instruments with them, possibly looking at the sfz files for hints about key mapping and stuff -http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/

There are quite a few other free and open source sample sets like this around:

http://download.linuxaudio.org/musical-instrument-libraries/

http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/soundfont_collection

http://www.bandshed.net/sounds/

3

I don’t think renoise instruments are well-suited for acoustic instruments. But since renoise is a sampler, the obvious answer to your question is “use samples” and fuck around with the instrument-capabilities to get the sound you want.

When 3.0 came out, I thought I’d give the xrni-format another try. I wanted to create a sample-based instrument for my favourite ZynAddSubFX patch (dxrhodes 2). Now, ZynAddSubFX’ envelopes have a stretch parameter that compresses the envelope (in time) for higher notes.

This models the behaviour of acoustic instruments that produce sounds via a resonant-body that is excited by strings. (A piano or a guitar, for example.) Since a short string vibrating has less energy than a long string vibrating, the higher notes on a piano/guitar decay faster. (I think that’s why, at any rate.)

I couldn’t get this effect in renoise, since you can’t adjust envelope-decay by key-tracking. I tried a workaround by using two key-trackers after the envelope: the first one subtracting, the second one multiplying. That roughly emulates the effect, but to my knowledge it’s impossible to fine-tune this properly, and the coarse effect was just too much.

Here’s the patch without the key-tracking hackery: 5351 asdf.xrni

The low- and mid-range is perfectly playable, but the high-end sounds like an organ.

If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know.

(One obvious way would be to use longer samples. I.e., actually sample Zyn’s volume envelope at least for the higher notes. But this seems a bit clunky.)

So, long story short: xrni is still fairly limited depending on what your needs are.

I much prefer working with XRNIs wherever possible because they’re more portable

I would say Kontakt instruments are the most portable (excluding the poor folks stuck on linux). You can use them in almost any DAW, and the Kontakt player is free.

And in terms of versatility/features/available libraries: there’s a reason Kontakt is the industry standard. (It’s the same reason Kontakt costs more than 5 times as much as renoise.)

4

For orchestral sounds you could use the samples from the Sonatina sample set and load them in to Renoise and make your own instruments with them, possibly looking at the sfz files for hints about key mapping and stuff -http://sso.mattiaswestlund.net/

Sonatina is an awesome library - if you’re planning to use them in Renoise they already got converted:

https://github.com/jbbourgoin/renoise-instruments/tree/master/Sonatina

3 Likes
5

Sonatina is an awesome library - if you’re planning to use them in Renoise they already got converted:

https://github.com/jbbourgoin/renoise-instruments/tree/master/Sonatina

Oh wow, thanks for that link.

1 Like
6

…
When 3.0 came out, I thought I’d give the xrni-format another try. I wanted to create a sample-based instrument for my favourite ZynAddSubFX patch (dxrhodes 2). Now, ZynAddSubFX’ envelopes have a stretch parameter that compresses the envelope (in time) for higher notes.

This models the behaviour of acoustic instruments that produce sounds via a resonant-body that is excited by strings. (A piano or a guitar, for example.) Since a short string vibrating has less energy than a long string vibrating, the higher notes on a piano/guitar decay faster. (I think that’s why, at any rate.)

I couldn’t get this effect in renoise, since you can’t adjust envelope-decay by key-tracking. I tried a workaround by using two key-trackers after the envelope: the first one subtracting, the second one multiplying. That roughly emulates the effect, but to my knowledge it’s impossible to fine-tune this properly, and the coarse effect was just too much.

…

I never thought about combination of substraction and multiplation, thank you! Something fresh…
My workaround for simulated acoustic instruments (mainly brass) was linking macro to a decay of volume (or another parameter) and then assigning a key-tracker to this macro.

7

Sonatina is an awesome library - if you’re planning to use them in Renoise they already got converted:

https://github.com/jbbourgoin/renoise-instruments/tree/master/Sonatina

Didn’t know about these. Thanks for the link!

8

For synth instruments your best bet is probably just finding quality samples and sampling plugins rather than look for instruments already in XRNI format, since it’s not a widely used format (but everyone uses .wav’s). Do check out our downloads section though, there is a lot of cool stuff in there.

If you ever need acoustic drums, Drumdrops offers all their kits in .xrni format. I built them myself actually in exchange for getting the samples for free. They have a free kit (the Yamaha single hits kit which has 3 velocity layers per articulation as opposed to the full version which has like 12-16 depending) you can try, and all their kits are pretty cheap.

The Sonatina is cool but it’s not exactly going to be a complete scoring solution. Unless you just need something quick and simple, imo you’re going to have to spend quite a bit of money in order to get good quality orchestral instruments, and they’re going to be plugins not XRNI’s.

9

Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the Downloads section? You know the absolutely incredible source of goodies at the top there on the left?

It has 56 instruments at the moment and new ones are added all the time. :wink:

1 Like
10

Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the Downloads section? You know the absolutely incredible source of goodies at the top there on the left?

It has 56 instruments at the moment and new ones are added all the time. :wink:

Well quality NASA sounds, quality Computer Code Generator, quality My Voice, quality Granutella, quality Alien White Keys and such might not mean exactly the same ‘quality’ as the subject line. Even the Sonatina sounds, while being nice, are not so much good. I would also pay for high quality sounds, but by that I do not mean high quality door slams, squirrel squeaks and C64 beeps. :slight_smile: I rather mean real instruments, expressive and top notch sampling.

11

Well quality NASA sounds, quality Computer Code Generator, quality My Voice, quality Granutella, quality Alien White Keys and such might not mean exactly the same ‘quality’ as the subject line. Even the Sonatina sounds, while being nice, are not so much good. I would also pay for high quality sounds, but by that I do not mean high quality door slams, squirrel squeaks and C64 beeps. :slight_smile: I rather mean real instruments, expressive and top notch sampling.

Most of them are probably not made by professional audio engineers, but how do one really define high quality samples?

Danoise just released some high quality waveforms here:http://forum.renoise.com/index.php/topic/43519-instruments-elements-1/#entry324819

It would be nice if more professional sample companies released in xrni format though. Drumdrops are the only ones i’ve bought from that releases xrni, but i think it’s pretty high quality.

12

sorry to bump an old topic but i too have been searching high and low for normal GM/ JV1080 type sounds for renoise

www.dskmusic.comhas a nice selection of sfz formatted sounds. $25 might be worth it. i’ll give it a try next month

13

I know the answer is probably completely obvious but I can’t seem to find a ‘downloads’ section anywhere.
Can you point me in the right direction? :grin:

14

The downloads section ( files.renoise.com/forum/downloads/instruments )
has been down since the recent, catastrophic, forum upgrade.

Now, there are just some instruments in ‘backstage’ for paid users.

Not sure if the instruments area will be restored; although, im sure some of us have backups of it.

1 Like
15

Thanks for letting me know. I thought something like that must have happened.
Too bad! If anyone sees this and has some interesting backups please let me know.

Renoise is amazing…

16

Here you go, this should work:
https://files.renoise.com/forum/downloads/

5 Likes
17

Excellent - much appreciated!

18

Doesn’t work for me (=> “403 Forbidden”). :roll_eyes:
I believe it used to work some time ago though.

19

Really weird it was still working when I posted. Also getting a 403 now.

1 Like
20

Does this work for you? https://web.archive.org/web/20230523165207/https://files.renoise.com/forum/downloads/Instruments/

7 Likes