A beta releases of Renoise version 1.8 is now available for registered owners.

Main changes:

• Added a Mixer, for a fast access and total control of all used DSP effects and volume levels within Renoise. DSP effects can be easily accessed and modified (copied/pasted/ moved/deleted by keyboard shortcuts or drag'n'drop). Mini sliders (DSP parameter controls) can be optionally shown in the mixer strips for those DSP devices parameters, that you want to control via the Mixer. All components of the Mixer (mute/solo, panning, faders, volume, routings) can be hidden to get a better overview.
• Introduced PRE/POST volume/pans: All tracks have now two sets of volume/pan parameters: The first one (PRE) is automatable, and will be applied prior to all other DSPs (how it used to be in earlier versions). The second one (POST) is not automatable, and was introduced for the final mixing/mastering process: It will be applied after all DSP devices, giving you the final control of the tracks volume without having to worry about already created automations.
  All volume and pan parameters can also be MIDI mapped.
• Recording in the Sample-Editor, which allows to create new samples on the fly, directly in Renoise. Signals can be either recorded cleanly (with no DSP FX), or be routed in realtime through any tracks DSP chain.
• Added a "#Line-In Device" (registered users only), which allows you to directly route any of your sound-cards physical input into a DSP chain in Renoise.
• Undo/redo is now available for all operations (with no exception).
• New open (XML) file format for all exported Renoise files (except samples). To view the XML files for songs or the other documents, simply open the newly saved files with an unzip tool. Songs and instruments are still self contained, so nothing (except the new file extensions) has changed for those who do not want/need to edit/view the file contents. The new open file format will allow third party developers to easily write extension (Instrument or Pattern generators) or converters (from / to other file formats) for Renoise.
• Unicode support: If you have the "Arial Unicode MS" font installed, nearly all characters you can think of can now be displayed in Renoise (for example in the Disk Browser). Japanese characters are supported without the "Arial Unicode MS" font, as soon as you have installed the operating systems default fonts for Japan language support.
• Patterns can now be rendered into separate files as well (registered users only). This way you can easily create sample loops out of your songs, to use them in other programs.

Full change log is available here.