Renoise - how to

Renoise is so much fun. I still struggle with my music sounding too mechanical however.

I just bought it. Hope it's good! As long as the workflow for working alongside reaper is better than how I do it already in Buzz (ie, dump entire song to wav, put it in reaper, then if I need to change *anything* in the song I need to render the entire track again augh), then I'll be happy.

I love Renoise. I grew up with Scream Tracker 3 and Fast Tracker 2 so I'm quite familiar with the tracker editing style. In fact I hate the piano roll that most DAWs use. Give me top down tracks and those lovely hexadecimal effect columns and I'll be happy forever.

My workflow is currently that I use Renoise first as a MIDI sequencer for analogue gear, record the audio back to Renoise and then chop and mangle the stuff up, maybe put through some VST effects and add filters and EQ for mixing.

  On 3/16/2012 at 4:29 AM, modey said:

I just bought it. Hope it's good! As long as the workflow for working alongside reaper is better than how I do it already in Buzz (ie, dump entire song to wav, put it in reaper, then if I need to change *anything* in the song I need to render the entire track again augh), then I'll be happy.

My regular setup is Reaper rewiring Renoise and it's so smooth !.. You should try

  On 3/16/2012 at 3:31 AM, NoResults said:

Renoise is so much fun. I still struggle with my music sounding too mechanical however.

Renoise have imo a lot of things that allow to get rid of that. The pattern effect commands, for example, can bring very soft pitch moves, or whatever else that will make your sounds sound more living.

I'd like to have a less "cheap" sound sometimes but I don't think the fault is from Renoise

  On 3/16/2012 at 7:57 AM, mokz said:

I love Renoise. I grew up with Scream Tracker 3 and Fast Tracker 2 so I'm quite familiar with the tracker editing style. In fact I hate the piano roll that most DAWs use. Give me top down tracks and those lovely hexadecimal effect columns and I'll be happy forever.

Yep! I was considering looking into Ableton but I can't live without a tracker interface.

i just updated from renoise 2.6 to 2.8 final (i haven't bothered with it until now because of the altered pattern effect commands), and goddamnit, they removed the instrument editor and put it in a tiny ass window down at the bottom of the screen! everything else looks great, but ffuuu why'd they have to do that. ;|

I was loving the new matrix editor, but i was getting sick and tired of clicking and pasting everything around. I'm really happy they made those handles on the bottom of the boxes so you can drag patterns down to make them repeat. That shit is fucking awesome.

The new bridge actually made it so I could run a lot more plugins then I was able to use before, but if you are a pure laptop user (i'm on travel) I do have some problems with the 32 bit versions focus'ing correctly, and can't use my qwerty keys to play notes. Not a huge deal tho, and I'm sure there is a work around (beyond having a midi controller).

I actually really like the new pattern commands, I find them more intuitive. Even tho I've been known to rock them like crazy, I adjusted in about 2 hours ... however, I was not able to find offset -09. Any ideas?

I like the new exciter, it could be me, but I find the native effects in renoise to sound way better then Ableton's.

The repeater still doesn't really appeal to me, but grouping a bunch of stuff and then automating repeater seems far too IDM. This isn't a bad thing I suppose. How are you guys using the Meta Mixer?

Destructively rendering slices is perhaps the most awesome thing ever invented.

I still haven't had a chance to use it yet, but i opened it and had a look around lastnight and was overwhelmed. I think there will probably be a pretty steep learning curve since i'm used to the super minimalism of Buzz, but a few things are exciting me like the inline resampling and ridiculous sidechaining/automation options.

I will miss my precious Infector though. Then again, hopefully i can finally put my legitimate copy of Reaktor to good use!

  On 3/16/2012 at 11:02 PM, acid1 said:

I was not able to find offset -09. Any ideas?

It is 0Sxx now, from 'Slice'.You can type in offsets or slice numbers (if your sample is sliced)

Ahh, thank you!

I have a question if anyone is game to answer (other wise I'll just ask over on renoise).

Is there an easy way to do automation?

I really like how in Ableton, in the arrange window, if you move a knob on a VST/AU it will auto-select that automation lane, so you can either immediately start recording automation or drawing it.

With Renoise, it seems like I have pull up an Instrument Automation meta-device and then hope to find the parameter from that pulldown box. Then once its assigned to a slider, I either have to enable it's automation, or view the track commands at the bottom. Is there an easier way to do this?

Right click-and-drag the buttons while in record mode?

  On 3/22/2012 at 5:00 PM, psn said:

Right click-and-drag the buttons while in record mode?

Correct me if i'm wrong, but that seems to only work after you've made an automation device and assigned one of the sliders to a parameter, and you have to right click drag the slider instead of the knob/button in the vst external editor?

  On 3/22/2012 at 5:00 PM, psn said:

Right click-and-drag the buttons while in record mode?

He's talking VST/AU though. Though from my experience, moving a knob on a VST plugin in Ableton doesn't auto-select that automation lane. That only works for native plugins. Same goes for Renoise.

If you want to go to the automation lane for a parameter, click this little rounded square dudad:

If you want to be able to right-click native plugins and have it record to the automation lane, click this button:

The only time I've seen something do what I think you're saying is in FL Studio with the "Last Tweaked" option up in the (I think) Tools drop-down.

Nah I swear its there in Ableton.

You have to be in arrange. Just tweak a knob, and its lane will be automatically selected in the arrange window (not the clip/track at the bottom).

  On 3/22/2012 at 5:29 PM, acid1 said:

Nah I swear its there in Ableton.

 

You have to be in arrange. Just tweak a knob, and its lane will be automatically selected in the arrange window (not the clip/track at the bottom).

I just tried it... Maybe it only works for certain plugins?

Edit: Looks like it only works for some, but it does indeed. Nifty.

Yeah it is there in Ableton, really handy feature!

Does anyone know if it's possible to copy midi/pattern data into a new mixer lane, then quickly change which instrument it's triggering? Not a big hassle, but it would be great if you could drag data into a new mixer strip, right click and change instrument. Hope that makes sense.

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:07 PM, rev85 said:

Yeah it is there in Ableton, really handy feature!

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to copy midi/pattern data into a new mixer lane, then quickly change which instrument it's triggering? Not a big hassle, but it would be great if you could drag data into a new mixer strip, right click and change instrument. Hope that makes sense.

By "mixer lane" and "mixer strip" do you mean tracks in the pattern editor? If so, all you have to do is select what you want to copy and either copy and paste or just Ctrl+Drag it to the new location. You can then open the advanced editor options pane to the right of the editor and use the instruments section to remap the notes to the new instrument. There are also some tools (Lua add-ons) that add quicker ways to do this as well.

Yup that advanced editor has some cool stuff in it. You can copy, (mix)paste various data from either selection, columns, patterns etc, change instruments. Love it!

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:16 PM, wahrk said:

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:07 PM, rev85 said:

Yeah it is there in Ableton, really handy feature!

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to copy midi/pattern data into a new mixer lane, then quickly change which instrument it's triggering? Not a big hassle, but it would be great if you could drag data into a new mixer strip, right click and change instrument. Hope that makes sense.

 

By "mixer lane" and "mixer strip" do you mean tracks in the pattern editor? If so, all you have to do is select what you want to copy and either copy and paste or just Ctrl+Drag it to the new location. You can then open the advanced editor options pane to the right of the editor and use the instruments section to remap the notes to the new instrument. There are also some tools (Lua add-ons) that add quicker ways to do this as well.

Ahh there it is, nice one! Completely failed to see that you could scroll down on the Advanced Editor section.

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:32 PM, acid1 said:

Yup that advanced editor has some cool stuff in it. You can copy, (mix)paste various data from either selection, columns, patterns etc, change instruments. Love it!

Yeah, been layering a lot more recently so gonna come in handy. I like the group function in this new release too.

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:37 PM, rev85 said:

  On 3/22/2012 at 6:32 PM, acid1 said:

Yup that advanced editor has some cool stuff in it. You can copy, (mix)paste various data from either selection, columns, patterns etc, change instruments. Love it!

 

Yeah, been layering a lot more recently so gonna come in handy. I like the group function in this new release too.

Oh god, I know. The grouping is a godsend.

Ctrl + G has already become second nature to me.

A little example on how to use Renoise with a controller..

Jules da man!