Where did the notion that Renoise is "bad at mixing and mastering" come from?

I always see this mentioned in forum posts, but I’ve never really understood it. The only non native mix/mastering plugins I use and Neutron and Ozone Elements from iZotope and when I started using Renoise my mixes were no better or worse than my Logic mixes.

Does it have any specific mixing weaknesses?

Lack of vst audio sidechaining support is probably the main thing. Also, nowadays vst3 might be a requirement for some folks.

I don’t think they would prevent you from making a great mix in Renoise though.

First off, I’ve never seen or heard this said anywhere. I guess I can take your word for it that you’ve seen it, but since you didn’t even say where you’ve seen such sentiments, this feels a bit like setting up a straw man argument.

Regardless, if you DID see it, I’ll tell you where it came from – straight out of the ignorant ass of whomever was saying it.

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Yes, I would like to know where you get that from, too? Of course Renoise is not bad here, and it comes with a good compressor set and a great maximizer, too. Then you can use the usual suspects of mastering plugins. I only think Renoise can be annoying regarding some aspects, e.g. fine editing vst automation or even per note expression for vst3 (not possible). Ever tried to fine edit a virtual guitar plugin so it sounds really real using Renoise? Such tasks will be way more easy in another DAW. If you stick with Renoise sample instruments, you will get most of these features - if you love pattern commands. But the VST part is put quite a bit on second place.

I think there are some parts in Renoise - depending on your personal workflow and goals - which could under circumstances be a handicap. If you like it, then use it.

There is no technical reason why Renoise should be worse in mixing / mastering than any other DAW. I would even say there are some productions out there, which can convince you of the opposite opinion.

Then again, some mastering legends seem to heavily automate the stems while mastering. Such automation job then is more easy and precise in a usual DAW.

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Concerning Quality of Renoise: http://simonv.com/tutorials/quality.php

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I’ve never heard that notion either, but I have heard (and experienced) that Renoise is a pain to use if you’re mixing long audio files like in a traditional DAW.

Not that the result is any better or worse, though, just that the process takes more patience as you have to treat each track as a sample and you can’t easily jump around the timeline and have all your tracks playing together at whatever point you jump to.

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Ah, re reading the thread people were complaining in, this seems to be their issue. Not a problem.

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I find mixing difficult with Renoise but I think it’s probably due to my own inexperience to be perfectly honest.

I find it quite easy to Mix in Renoise. Label your tracks. Each instrument has like 2-3 ways to gain stage (per sample, instrument global, and in the Mixer; Vsti: in the VSTI, global GR per VSTi, and in the Mixer), not to mention the many ways to automate all this. The in-built Compressors, Filters, and EQs are quite good, especially for mixing. Mastering is also pretty straight forward in Renoise, though I’m using Reaper for Masters because I recently bought a license and had gotten use to doing final Masters in separate software. I just kinda like separating the Mixing from Mastering, though if your mix is solid you don’t have much to do in the Mastering phase.

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Only thing I can think of is that the faders are a bit small and there is no extensive metering. I don’t even know what 0 and +3 means in Renoise. +3dbu?

I guess it’s dBFS. I question if Bitwig or Ableton are better with respect to the mixer. It least Bitwig I find comparable.

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Isn’t it impossible to go over 0dbFS?

Here: https://www.audiomasterclass.com/newsletter/what-is-the-difference-between-0-db-and-0-dbfs

Enable autoseek on the samples, and you have it? I guess you still can’t “scrobble”, but with block loop you can at least keep repeating a section for tweaking fx as it repeats, which I often do with the de-esser.