Opinions about Renoise

[gentleclockdivider]

Renoise is the Bomb , been using it for 2+ decades .
It's the best integrated sampler -sequencer combo and a pretty deep sampling synthesis engine .
Learn the effects commands and you're good to go .

[eLawnMust]

I don't know why anyone would want to keep looping same 'stuff' continuously no matter how many bars you got to work with.. Point is to make it more musical & looping to death doesn't do that...

As far as Renoise being stable & excellent as of 'current version' no it's been that way for at least 15 years & much great music was made by Renoise Freaks many years ago... The plugin grabber was a great addition where you can sample the output of a VSTi to XRNI Instrument I made a whole tune out of 'grabbed' instruments years ago in 2.5.1-

It's still up on soundcloud account I closed over 6 months ago-

https://soundcloud.com/waxing-and-waning/soylent-greed

Really nothing in the way of FX on that I sampled Trilogy, Kontakt 5, SampleTank & another I can't remember...

But even before plugin grabber it was quite awesome here's 1.9.0-


Would've been nice if they had added a nice fluid piano roll early on like they were supposed to, something like Arguru's Aodix 4.2 which is very slick with a vertical piano roll right there with the tracker not some 'duct taped' shite...

You can see for yourself 20 years ago a planned piano roll-

https://web.archive.org/web/20030207123 ... om/wip.htm

However TakTik hated them but Phazze did not...

https://web.archive.org/web/20020803155 ... php?id_p=3


Perhaps Ableton & the like are better for those who like 'fondling' with clips hoping for a happy accident I never liked that workflow & for so many years ableton nothing but crap for plugin scanning whilst Renoise the best...

The whole 'spreadsheet' with all info right there upfront a big boon & being able to make a selection fluid across pattern of different tracks then copy-paste seeing EXACTLY what's being done plus being able to work down in sample mode with precision including pattern effect commands Renoise is for the craftsman for sure...

[mholloway]

I don't know why anyone would want to keep looping same 'stuff' continuously no matter how many bars you got to work with.. Point is to make it more musical & looping to death doesn't do that...

Tell me you don't understand how matrix sequencers work without telling me you don't understand how matrix sequencers work...

Just because a workflow doesn't suit you doesn't mean it can't suit other people... and Ableton's session view is entirely based around this idea. It works wonderfully for me, and I have this hunch I'm not the only person on the planet who has clicked with Ableton's matrix

Frankly your post just suggests you've never meaningfully worked with Ableton's clip launcher, as you clearly don't seem to understand it. Having a scene of clips of varying length looping while you try out & then record new content, whatever it may be, bass lines, lead solos, melodies, chord progression into a new clip while the rest of the scene plays continuously is incredibly powerful and useful -- it's absolutely a tool for creating musical performances, and your comments on what "looping to death" does or doesn't do miss this point completely.

[THE INTRANCER]

Trackers were really the first composition tool I used to really capture what was in my head and to be able to program it with sounds I liked along with learning a particular set of skills. Composing with trackers to control external midi synthesizers, was an interesting divergent from the usual samples and general quality albeit without the flexibility of sound design samples would bring. This was way back in the 1990s on my old but still surviving Amiga 1200 and of course when options were not as diverse or powerful as they are now in the DAW world. Going back to using trackers is difficult once you have progressed to more standard ways of working. For someone new to the world of music production, trackers provide the foundations of composition in a step-by-step way that gives you a partial overview at any time of the notes that are triggered and commands that affect them. It's easier than notation whilst providing an advantage in seeing more than what you would in a normal DAW like Studio One, so it's quicker to correct mistakes. Daws like Studio One provide a broader range of features whereas trackers like Renoise are more like bespoke production tools with an easier transfer of songs between people.

It's a different mindset, like going from Photoshop to Cinema 4D.

[eLawnMust]

Renoise has plenty-o-features and is ONLY compatible with others if you are using sample-based workflow as it's all stored in the song file... If you are using external VST-VSTi it's only good for you unless another user happens to have exact same plugs installed... Other like Impulse & FT2 have mods that are compatible without prob.,..

And mHolloway I do understand the matrix sequencers I have tried ableton since version 2.11 and also Project5 which also has a matrix sequencer option and i could see how DJ types would like such for live use & 'fiddling' even Voyetra Record Producer Pro had a similar function...And I have watched many ableton videos & demo videos, people raving about how it ignited their creativity but when hearing what they have done I quickly deduce it could've been done in most anything else, most DAWs, most Sequencers, most Trackers...

That's the issue... But maybe you could impress me with some of what you have done... Let me hear your stuff as it's probably much better than what I heard several years ago on the ableton site which was beyond terrible...

I'll even pull mine out first, then you can pull yours out... Here's two tunes I made in the last year in a 22 year-old freeware tracker that's only 460 kb in size uniform stereo (no actual panning) one internal synth, the rest samples so it don't got much thickness-

https://alonetone.com/TalkOrBell/tracks/pulp-friction

https://alonetone.com/TalkOrBell/tracks/axs-jazzmonger

By the way the only two vocal hits were for BONES that were in Pulp Friction so nobody else get 'offended'...

This be the tracker-

[mek42]

In other DAWs, I miss Renoise's pattern sequencer the most. Trying different song structures on the fly is easy in Renoise and hard in most other DAWs.

Ableton and Bitwig's matrix grids do everything renoise pattern sequencer does, and far more (see below)...so I strongly disagree with this statement.

It's great that renoise has the pattern sequencer, sure, but it's got nothing on the scene based clip-launchers of Ableton and Bitwig, and is far less powerful. In those, you can have different length clips all looping together in a single scene. in Renoise, every track is forced to have the exact same length within the current pattern, which means in the pattern sequencer, you can only arrange 'sequences' in which the content of every track is exactly the same length. Which, for someone coming from the grid workflow of Ableton, is a massive, massive limitation -- and why I strongly disagree with your assertion above. If you're just comparing to Cubase, Studio One, etc. then sure; but compared to Live / Bitwig, the Renoise pattern sequencer alone offers little to nothing.

I tried to type in an illustration of what I mean but the text editor undoes all my formatting, I'll share it as an image below...

Screen Shot 2023-11-12 at 10.04.41 AM.png

obviously the number of bars is arbitrary, but the point is that in the renoise sequence, every track is locked to a single length for the given pattern, whereas in the grid matrix of the other two, every track can be looping a clip of a different total length per scene -- absolutely common, everyday behavior for using these kind of sequencers, e.g. having shorter drum loops playing along with much longer synth passages, etc.

Is this limited to bars, or can you have one looping element be, say 3 bars and 1 beat, so that, in 4/4 it would repeat at beat #14? This would be good for Berlin School. Will Bitwig do this?

[skyscape]

Renoise is absolutely worth your time if the workflow clicks. Been using it from the beginning, 20+ years now. It's stable, inspiring and deep.

[koalaboy]

I grew up with trackers, and at the time they were everything I wanted. Then I slowly realised that I didn't like the limitation of a pattern having to contain all 'instruments' (so a lot of copy/paste of patterns to create variations for just one 'instrument').

I started getting into Cakewalk (v3) and a few others, enjoying the 'pattern lanes' of Propellerheads Reason and Synapse Audio Orion, as well as the Fruity Loops way of things, but they didn't really settle completely.

The best tracker I got into was Jeskola Buzz, which worked in the way my head did, but by the time it arrived I had become more used to the more common track/clip views. I do also own Renoise, and it's great, but I rarely find myself drawn to it.

These days, I tend to use Studio 1 or Bitwig, with Reason Rack and others. I think fondly of my days absorbed in trackers (Octamed was a big part) but they are just too much 'work' for me these days - maybe because I use a MIDI keyboard a lot more, and want to quickly move things around and experiment. I also like being able to easily record a long melody line and then chop it up. Automation is much nicer with graphical curves, etc...

Trackers are awesome, and Renoise is definitely one of the best... but not for me any more.

[VOODOO U]

And mHolloway I do understand the matrix sequencers I have tried ableton since version 2.11 and also Project5 which also has a matrix sequencer option and i could see how DJ types would like such for live use & 'fiddling' even Voyetra Record Producer Pro had a similar function...And I have watched many ableton videos & demo videos, people raving about how it ignited their creativity but when hearing what they have done I quickly deduce it could've been done in most anything else, most DAWs, most Sequencers, most Trackers...

Disregarding the music created, your last point is true.
Clip based recordings are convenient, and that's all there is to it.
Pretty much any pro DAW can do what clip based recordings accomplish; t's just more copy/pasting, dragging/dropping etc.
If, say in Reaper, i have a loop going and i jam over it realizing what I came up with exceeds the loop, i just copy/past the items - or the whole region - and voila good to go.

As far as exclusive settings like tempo, sample slices etc on a per clip basis etc, at least with Reaper, all that can be done.

I do like the idea of Renoise having exclusive settings per track. It's something i requested before.
Precyne has an Ableton like clip section though Im unsure if its exclusive settings per clip (ie tempo, length etc although i can't imagine it wouldn't be).
I havent tried it because the app doesnt work for me for whatever reason. Can't get any sound out of the instruments.

[mholloway]

Is this limited to bars, or can you have one looping element be, say 3 bars and 1 beat, so that, in 4/4 it would repeat at beat #14? This would be good for Berlin School. Will Bitwig do this?

It is not limited to just bars, you can have each clip be any length you want and it will loop at its endpoint. Yes, Bitwig will do this, and yes, it is incredibly useful for Berlin School style composition, among others.

[mholloway]

That's the issue... But maybe you could impress me with some of what you have done... Let me hear your stuff as it's probably much better than what I heard several years ago on the ableton site which was beyond terrible...

First off, is it so hard to understand that what works for you might not work as well for someone else, and vice versa? We're talking about art, here. There are infinite avenues to reach the destination. Why do you assume that if a clip matrix isn't a wonderful tool for you personally, it can't be for anyone else, either? That's how your posts read, fwiw.

Since you asked, sure I'll share work -- all of which was done entirely in Ableton live. I've been signed to a Canadian label called ArtOfFact records since 2010. They've released and distributed my industrial albums physically, but here's bandcamp links simply for convenience. There are 4 full length albums for this project, plus a covers album and 2 EPs...

https://deadwhenifoundher.bandcamp.com/

I've also released 2 albums of so-called 'dark jazz' or 'doom jazz' independently...one of my songs for this project was licensed to Lincoln Motors and used in one of of their automobile adds for two years, both in North America and China...

https://michaelarthurholloway.bandcamp. ... guilt-noir

I've also released an IDM album, though this is the least 'known' of my projects...

https://tvhwy.bandcamp.com/album/starship-interiors



Thanks for asking, hope you enjoy the music.

All of these were made in Ableton, all of these were composed in the Clip Launcher, then later arranged in the arrangement view. The clip launcher is my favorite compositional tool of all time. A couple of KVR posters asserting that it's "just a convenience, nothing more" and can be "recreated entirely by copy + paste" and so on is... not enlightening, to say the least. But to each their own.

[xbitz]

Is this limited to bars, or can you have one looping element be, say 3 bars and 1 beat, so that, in 4/4 it would repeat at beat #14? This would be good for Berlin School. Will Bitwig do this?

It is not limited to just bars, you can have each clip be any length you want and it will loop at its endpoint. Yes, Bitwig will do this, and yes, it is incredibly useful for Berlin School style composition, among others.

and all the phrases(instrument-related clips in Renoise) have their own tempo, playing speed and direction etc. IMO this workflow doesn't exist in regular DAWs (this is why Redux the plugin version of is great) phrases can be resampled the samples can be cut into smaller parts the smaller parts can be triggered from the main sequencer (and can be routed to different fx chains)

so

it can be used in many fun ways, based on the video did I sell it, have you bought it? (this is an older video/version before the inbuilt time-stretching feature in the sampler this is why I have had to play it manually in the video and has the phase issue between the sampled and the original material...)

[VOODOO U]

A couple of KVR posters asserting that it's "just a convenience, nothing more" and can be "recreated entirely by copy + paste" and so on is... not enlightening, to say the least.

So terribly sorry. What I meant to say is Live's Session View is the Holy Mother Mary that saved me from my sins.

[mholloway]

A couple of KVR posters asserting that it's "just a convenience, nothing more" and can be "recreated entirely by copy + paste" and so on is... not enlightening, to say the least.

So terribly sorry. What I meant to say is Live's Session View is the Holy Mother Mary that saved me from my sins.

Apparently it is impossible for you to understand that different folks use different tools to achieve their individual goals, and that what works for one person doesn't click with another. Instead, you need to resort to this kind of garbage, again and again, either asserting your views as True for Everyone Else, Too, and when called out on it, resorting to meaningless junk like the above

[VOODOO U]

Apparently it is impossible for you to understand that different folks use different tools to achieve their individual goals, and that what works for one person doesn't click with another.

asserting your views as True for Everyone Else, Too, and when called out on it, resorting to meaningless junk like the above

I simply stated there are work arounds to Live's session view using other DAWs. Are they as convenient? I already stared no. That's it. Simple. My own opinion and experience and nowhere did I state anyone is foolish for thinking otherwise. It's your own problem if you want to undermine others' opinions just because you take them personally.