How Does Renoise Compare to Live 4, Tracktion, or fLstudio 5

[stale bread]

i was reading about renoise on gearjunkies just a small description but i thought on paper it looks good but i never hear anything about it, are there any users here who use it regularly, whats it like?
how do you compare it to those mentioned above and is it a stable application?

thanks for any insights, i know its a tracker but i'm more interested in how people are feeling about it.

[hjack]

stale bread
.. i know that renoise is fully skinable

[rokkon]

well i don't think it makes much sense to compare it to the mentioned apps because they have a different approach.
Like any other program, renoise has it's design determined strenghs and weaknesses, and it's just a matter of personal taste & need if renoise is better or worse for you than other sequencers... I think nobody but you can answer that question. Just give the demo a try.

It's very stable and has good vst compability, at least the current official version. the current beta has some issues here and there, but that's why it's still beta.

[stale bread]

thanks for the response rokkon, i wasn't asking if renoise is 'better or worse', i agree with you on that concept, i was just asking what folks who are familiar with those other apps think about renoise, as well as indepth renoise users opinions.

[tha_man]

Renoise is very different, because it's a tracker, not standard midi/audio sequencer. So there's no piano roll and such things, instead you have a tracker interface with all it's advantages and disadvantages. It's a true tracker with integrated sample player and all tracker effects (improved), but also has real automation envelopes which is very cool. Otherwise it has pattern based sequencer like FL Studio, just not as flexible, although I like it this way. No audio recording (well, it's a tracker ), but it supports VST's and you can also automate them, eitehr with automation envelopes or in tracker editor itself. It's pretty stable, VST support is very good, and it is a joy to use (if you like trackers ). I personally love it and it is my tracker of choice. Can't wait for 1.5 final, which looks even better.

So it is a bit similiar to FL Studio because of pattern sequencer and the general look of the interface (which you can change like in Live), but very different from Live and especially Tracktion.

[rounser]

are there any users here who use it regularly, whats it like?

Renoise is the dark horse of dance music production hosts, IMO.

The big thing I like the most about it is the level of integration. Where you'd usually require two applications and a plugin to do wav editing, sampling and sequencing (and flip screens accordingly), you can load an mp3 track directly into Renoise, chop out a breakbeat from it in the sample editor, apply envelopes and LFOs and effects to it and sequence it, all in the one application. So the workflow is awesome for a samplist, IMO.

Secondly, the envelopes in the inbuilt sampler are extremely powerful, going far beyond ADSR, and include pitch and panning envelopes alongside the usual filter cutoff, filter resonance and volume. They're based on Fasttracker 2, and allow you to draw them manually or "connect the dots", and incorporate sustain points, loop points (which allow for some insane custom LFO action if you like, although regular LFOs are available too), and there are about 16 or so different types of filter to apply, including not-so-filter stuff like ring mod and distortion.

Thirdly, the pattern editor offers all the tracker advantages of step-input in sequencing, and like all other trackers they're great drum machines. In a tracker, it's very easy to make a big ruckus by just holding down keys randomly, as opposed to a piano roll where doing the same thing would require a whole mess of careful mouse clicks. The pattern editor also allows easy automation of sample offset, which is great for chopping up samples on the fly (and you can find the code for the correct sample offset in the sample editor).

Still on the pattern editor, Renoise has a "Beatsync" feature which forces a sample to last a certain number of rows (each row is usually a 16th or 32nd in length), which is very convenient for use with breakbeats. The other advantage of the pattern editor is that it renders you "blind" and forces you to listen where you might otherwise be watching bars of colour on a piano roll. (That said, Renoise is going to incorporate a piano roll in an upcoming version which they've shown prototype screenshots for, and it's intended to be the first piano roll which will be fully computer keyboard controlled if you like).

Fourthly...Renoise has very powerful resampling features such as "Apply track effects to sample" in the sample editor and "Render selection to sample slot" in the pattern editor, so you can permanently apply, say compression to a sample, or render a sequence you've made (complete with effects/envelopes etc) to a sample in the sampler/sample editor for further chopping, sequencing or effecting. This includes VST plugin output.

Fifthly...Renoise brings sequencer features like automation, VST(i) support, MIDI in/out, alias-free rendering, send tracks, ASIO and a 32 bit 96khz audio engine to trackerdom.

Sixthly, and again on the workflow thing, everything's there in front of you, with keyboard shortcuts for everything - very little is hidden in menus or such, so it's very immediate and fast to use once you've learnt it. If 9/10ths of dance music is throwing around samples and effecting them, then Renoise delivers on that count.

Anyway, enough raving from me.

how do you compare it to those mentioned above and is it a stable application?

Renoise 1.5 has undergone extensive beta testing (which I was a part of), and I now think it's more stable than ever.

i was asking for opinions of people who use renoise and are also familiar with the other apps, as well as those hardcore renoise users opinions.

I'd fall into the hardcore Renoise user category. I learnt dance music production in Reason, and sometimes miss the routing possibilities that that app offers, but Renoise's immediacy and workflow are more than enough to compensate for that. Besides, Reason (and most other sequencers) can always be MIDI-slaved to Renoise for the best of both worlds...

[rokkon]

stale bread: sorry for the "better...worse", probably just my limited capability of expression in the english language, i think i understood right what you wanted to know.
My point simply was that renoise doesn't shine with sheer number of features - it's the last from the bunch in this respect - but it's different paradigm - the tracker paradigm. And that can either mean great possibilities or killing limitations, depending on your needs.
You seem to be familiar with the concept of a tracker, so i don't have to write about that.

I like renoise a lot, I'd say if you make electronic music, don't care about humanisation and like to program your beats rather than play them in, then check out renoise, you might love it

[hubi]

Have a look at this excellent tutorial to start goin:
http://tutorials.renoise.com/index.php/ ... ookAndFeel

have fun

edit: oh btw, Renoise rocks!

[stale bread]

thanks very much all of you for the info, your post really put me on the right track regarding this app. I am a samplist and it sounds like it could be very valuable, i especialy like the part about the 'rendering effects in place and the rendering of sequences to sample slots i think its worth looking into for those things alone, not to mention the ability to load up mp3s directly. I think i'm gonna ask jorgen for those features in ext as well.

[stale bread]

oh one more question i have though is does anyone know about that program skale i think its called, or
are there any other apps like renoise that you like better?

[Shamanix]

Try Renoise with EnergyXT, trust me you wont regret it, that way you can have a tracker like sequencer plus all the advanteges of a modular interface, and piano roll, etc, etc found in EnergyXT. It works wonders for me

[gizmo]

Took a look at Renoise as a result of this thread. Wow. That's an awful lot of programming sophistication for very little money. Very smart interface, gives me confidence to try it out. Thanks folks.

[ztutz]

I also took a look at Renoise as a result of this thread.

I think that I need a week off after 4 hours with it...it is a very different way of seeing the world, and it made my head hurt!

I think that I'll stick with Live and a bunch of plugins. I wore out the kicks that you get from typing in hex numbers as a primary input method about 30 years ago?? The workflow aspects of the app are cool, tho.

[quincy]

I'm a renoise user, and all i can say thats really useful is that i believe its by far the best tracker (haven't tried aodix 4 though, to be fair).

It does pack a lot of punch for the price, very simple and useful automation and sample editing etc.

If you can get round the "alternative" methods that trackers use (which really isn't that hard with a few hours playing around) then it is a very capable host.

The tracker interface can be confusing for beginners to tracking, but don't be fooled into thinking they aren't powerful. If you like sampling, you will have more flexibility than with MANY other hosts.

For example very simple to feed any instrument through any track, in that respect it does what few hosts can. For something like glitch/IDM styles it can be a very serious tool for all that insane cutting up and mashing of sounds.

Worth remembering that the demo version is FULLY functional except ASIO support and mixdown, so you can test it as much as you want without any of that 30 minute session or save-disabled crap that most demos have.

[stale bread]

how do you guys compare renoise to this

http://www.skale.org/