Let’s share TIPS that makes us work FAST in Renoise in 2019 even those you may think are obvious.
In the lower effects panel. Right click the spacing between effects and Add Favorite effect. Up until today I have actually used the search bar, but that’s just slow and stupid for selecting favorites hence this thread.
Do set up a full template song with all the essential tracks and groups you know you always use, even insert a couple of your most used instruments and kick samples.
If you must have a mastering chain on when composing then make a rudimentary using only native effects as they are low latency. Even effects that are turned off on the mastering chain still add their latency to the song and with commercial effects usually adding quite a lot of latency that quickly becomes an issue. When you are finished fiddling with your song do a proper mastering job.
I’m not sure if this thread is only dedicated to workflow tips, but here is a tip that may be useful for people who complain about the missing side chain feature in Renoise. Actually there is something better than simple side chain, it’s called Signal Follower. You can nearly map any FX parameter as long the track comes after the actual track where the Signal Follower is placed. So for a simple Kick/Bass side chain/ducking effect it’s just:
place your Kick at Track #1 and add a Signal Follower
This is how I set up a fake sidechain to get a uniform ducking that most EDM producers use. I learned using the hydra method from a casual comment by IT-Alien way back.
Place a silent sample on a track every time you want to trigger a ducking, usually I just make it follow the kick.
Add a Key tracker, LFO and Hydra effect devices.
Make the key tracker reset the LFO, set min to 0 and max to 255.
Make the LFO control the Hydra input, set Amplitude to 100%, make a custom shape to your liking and click the One shot option.
On the hydra device you can control the Gainer for many tracks at the same time.
Something that I do often is I make duplicates of low file size samples with different qualitative effects such as some have more Decay for a longer pad effects, or short for a tight little pluck with extra compression, that way when I make synth leads it has some character.
I also take multiples of a lead and replace it with new wave forms. Say I have a saw, I add a square or sin wave, or draw my own until I can get clear resonance from it, then analog filters in the track and fade them in and out to create sweeping effects with my synths.
Finally a big time saver for me is to make templates for things you need (I saved rhodes, pianos, saw, square, triangle, sin waves, two drawn waves, fretless / slap bass, kick, snare, snare reverb, clap, hat closed, hat open, percussions, toms then fx.) and knowing where all the keyboard shortcuts are. Opt + Tab is great for navigating windows, getting comfortable with F9-12 with song sections helps tremendously. Saving modulation tabs and your own FX is amazing. Do it often.
For trills and quintuplets, triplets, tuplets I use:
For Velocity, Pan, Delay Automation, I use this:
I also fiddle with keyboard shortcuts like Saving instruments with CTRL S, Loading with CTRL L, things of that nature to make right clicking through menus less tedious.
Chopping samples with the splice tool is great and setting it to keyboard ranges helps tremendously for making vocals in raps or dupsteps super easy with the new beatsynch capabilities.
Sampling and rerendering samples after reversing, time slow / speeding up with fx in Renoise can make a lot of cool audio fx. Play a lot with that. Don’t be afraid to record your own samples with even a crappy microphone. Renoise can do a lot with a little.
Finally one of the final things I do is I try to make all my synths within Renoise after learning how it works in a plugin because it reduces CPU usage and size by so much.
My main plugins outside of Renoise I use are Tal-4 Reverb. If someone can show me a way to make Reverb like Tal-4 using a mix of compressors or something with mpReverb that’d be great.
I also use Camel Crusher for Compression / Distortion. I used to use Sausage Fattener until it’d reset its preferences every time I’d open up Renoise.
I’m still looking for ways to replicate FM synthesis, or synth qualities to wave shaping without Serum or Massive. If Renoise user have techniques for similar sounds with that, it’d seal the deal for me.
I’ve made about 6 hours worth of game music (250+ songs) in the past 3 years with this process.
Hope this helps and would love to learn more from you guys or make a Youtube video on my process.
You can have a Hydra device move the Key tracker’s Dest. Min and Max at the same time. This will give you control over the LFO start point (offset). I use either a *Key Tracker or a *Velocity Tracker for this purpose. Just create a Hydra to control both Dest. Min and Dest. Max simultaneously.
