I’m a new Renoise convert so a lot of the discussion here is above my head but I do want to say that tutorials were/are the biggest hurdle for me.
Many years ago I spent a lot of time using Coconiser which was a Protracker-inspired program for the Archimedes (8 channels, suck it Amiga/ST users!) but after abandoning the Archie platform I struggled with the PC offerings such as Fasttracker II/IT as I wanted more from them than they offered. My hobby of making stupid music died for years.
A few months ago I stumbled on Renoise when 3 was still in beta. I looked at a few vids and being very familiar with the tracker concept that part of it was pretty much a given but the DSPs and all of the other bits were exactly what I was looking for so I splashed the cash immediately. The first time I opened it up my first thought on clicking around a bit was “It’s beautiful!”.
I started tinkering with a few patterns to get a feel for how the pattern editor and sequencer worked and withing a few minutes I was pretty comfortable so following the manual and some vids I started on the more complex stuff. The learning curve was a little steep as guides were a bit basic and there weren’t many but I knew it wouldn’t take me long figuring the rest out through experimentation. I was already part-way through a track and I hadn’t even spent a full weekend on it!
Then v3 was released and I (maybe foolishly) upgraded and quickly found myself lost with anything beyond the pattern editor really. No guides or vids were available to help so I just kept hitting it until I re-discovered what basics I had already learned. I wasn’t giving up but I will admit that it took me at least 2 weeks to get back to where I was.
Given that I was already pretty familiar with the tracker-end of it I can fully understand somebody completely new to DAWs, making music in general or coming over from a simple looping package (which seems to be all the kids these days understand) would see a very steep learning curve indeed and it could easily put them off. The basic tutorial would give them the pattern editor and sequencer but beyond that they are adrift in a very vast sea.
Some of you might say “shut up and make some vids then” which is an entirely valid answer. At some point I intend to but at the moment I don’t feel my skills are good enough to be teaching others as I am still a bit of a caveman banging rocks together.
TL;DR - Renoise is really awesome but it badly needs documentation to help newbies.
I’m loving RENOISE 3.0 . It’s my main DAW . Why? well, I want to get LOGIC PRO X but I promised to do an album soley on RENOISE 3.0 because, well, I’m use to it.
I’m actually proud that I was able to do my first track using RENOISE 3.0 . For the type of music I make, it’s perfect. It’s straight to the point. Plus, I like step sequencing.
But, a thought about something else the guy you replied to said: it seems mr. skrillex often said he was in general an fm8 hed but used massive sometimes. I think some people see that, look at fm8, and are, like, ‘wtf is this crazy…? nah, i think i’ll go with massive’. and they end up picking up massive off of a skrillex trip despite his fm fetish being a central thing that separated him somewhat, sound-wise.
renoise would have a similar problem?
(forgot to mention i didn’t even know about r3 until a few days ago… so… no, wiat i did maybe download it during beta i think but i forgot about it man i must need constant adverts to remind me of stuff )
I know that this is slightly specialised, but it should be possible to write a gentle introduction which could also serve as an outline for tutorial videos.
If any of the technical writers for renoise has a background in instructional design, it shouldn’t be too hard. If not, we the community could have a crack at it.
If anyone using renoise is a music teacher, it might even be easier.
Yeah…there is also a review in the current issue of Computer Music where Renoise 3 gets 10 out of 10 points…
And why they chose to name “time stretching” of all things when it comes to limitations was also quite puzzling to me…
if anyone talks to vsnares, tell him to get a Realtek RTL2832U it’s an RTL-SDR, inside a TV dongle, buy them from ebay. some guys found it can be used to read RF, and there is a whole community for it, using SDRsharp.
They’re like $20 and he could use it to narrow down and locate where that sine wave is coming from in his studio.
If you compare the “timestretching” in Renoise to Live i suppose it looks/feels outdated… So they’ve got a point, event though i never really considered it bad…
Well, that goes for many other things as well of course. E.g. if you compare the Renoise sampler with a hardware sampler from the 80s, then Renoise is also a bit lacking in some areas. So the time stretching seemed a bit random to me Anyway, good to see they liked the new Renoise.
Bravo Danoise, glad someone on the team got out of the dugout, stepped up to the plate, swung for the fences, and is doing the impossible task of “talking to people,” all the while avoiding baseball metaphors.
)
Anyway, good to see they liked the new Renoise.