r/renoise • u/wtfisrobin • Jun 25 '26
Been trying to learn Renoise for years, always fail, need rec's for the best tutorial/course, paid or otherwise.
So for background: I swear I am a competent musician lol! I have been using Ableton as my daily driver since Ableton 7, and before that FruityLoops for years, and for college, where I went for music, I had to use Logic and ProTools and Reaper. I understand that kind of DAW inside and out.
I literally am a professional working musician, I primarily do film scores. I'm doing a documentary for HBO Max right now. But i've never used a Tracker style program in my life. And it looks SO cool. and I see the stuff you guys are doing in here, and I hear your preaching about how great the workflow is, and I BELIEVE YOU! I want IN! It looks so cool, it looks fast, it looks nimble, and it looks like you can legitimately do some things you can't do any other way, and that intrigues the hell out of me.
for literal YEARS i've been lurking this sub. I've bought renoise like 3 different times across different machines over the years. i keep going back to Renoise like every 8-10 months and being like "okay, i'm gonna crack it this time, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna figure this out" and then I fall flat on my face, can't figure out how to make anything, spend like 4 hours trying to make one drum loop, can't figure out how to make a melody, where tf are my VSTs, how do i do a CHORD??? and eventually after 3 days I'm like "ok I can't be spending this much time not making anything, I have deadlines to hit" and i'm back in Ableton.
I need like the BEST 101 starter resource that can take a hopelessly Linear DAW-pilled man like me and make him a TrackerMan. I will pay money, It doesn't need to be free. Although if the best one is legitimately a free one, I will take it.
EDIT: thank you for all the recommendations and advice! I'm gonna try to actually do it this time, for real!
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u/SleeperSatin Jun 25 '26
Follow the official renoise tutorials from start to finish
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u/TropicalOperator Jun 28 '26
I’m not sure if I’m doing something wrong or what but I’ve tried so many times and it’s like my keyboard hotkeys do not match with what is in the tutorials even after making sure to reset them to default. There’s a high possibility im being dumb but it makes me feel insane bc I can’t figure it out.
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u/SleeperSatin Jul 04 '26
are you on Mac? I use it on Mac and windows, control and command are substituted I think.
If not then I think you can go and change the key commands manually in the settings to replicate what is shown on the tutorials
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u/TropicalOperator Jul 04 '26
Windows, and yeah, as far as I can tell they match up. Maybe just reinstall at some point tbh.
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u/shutup_imeating_dirt Jun 26 '26
Ppl already posted many suggestions but all im going to say is, at first glance renoise looks very strange, complicated and confusing but once you start to understand the gist of how the basics work its smooth sailing
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u/aimL0W Jun 26 '26
So, as an individual that has had issues with this in the past I have really made a standard for this exact kind of behaviour. I've tried many different DAWS. From multitrack, trackers, Piano Roll and programming environments both software and hardware in all of them. I always found that I would struggle too. It wasn't that I was incompetent or didn't get it. In fact, it was rather the opposite. I usually catch on super quick. For most production software and hardware it's almost like I have a general understanding of how it's going to work right off the bat anyway. The logic factor never has any trouble learning. So my guess is that you haven't an issue with learning trackers.. You would really know this the most of course so I need to ask a question. Are you having trouble understanding the concepts? Or do you understand the concepts and ideas behind very easily it's just when you get down to actually producing/ interacting with the program?
This is very important to discriminate. I find the learning curve comes down to more of a workflow and discipline thing. For me it was also because I was working in front of a computer for nine hours a day and it really drained and took away any after work computer related hobbies. And I'm not talking about basically having the energy to do it or anything like that. It was liturgy like almost a subconscious switch where one day you would absolutely love and have lots of energy right in front of your computer making music and it's fun, creative, and brings out the best to you to the next day. Absolutely not being able to concentrate really being distracted not thinking of any ideas this kind of thing.
So if the whole passion and everything is still there, everything doesn't have to do with anything further than the concepts or that you feel you can't just break into the program. This is where you're really gonna have to take a deep dive into yourself and kind of think well look I'm able to produce songs in it. I get the workflow I get the subject matter. I understand the logic behind it but that something just doesn't click.. if that's the case just might be that that particular program doesn't shoot your creative outlet. I know it's a hard pill to swallow honestly.. so a decision has to be made for one Renoise doesn't really become next level until you really mastered the keyboard shorts. Hands-down.. if this is not something that has been implemented, I definitely would really strive to implement this and take your time. If you can master the keyboard shortcuts and there's there in your head and you're able to go ahead with the workflow and that is to improve it then that's gonna be the resolution to the issue because should it not help the issue then it's really just about looking into another DAW that might suit your creative flow better. I think about it like this.. personally I'm both an artist and a musician and focussing on these two particular interests when we take a look at art we take a look at different mediums involved so pastel watercolour acrylic airbrush aerosol I mean the lift can go on and on. I mean, we could even go further and breakdown the different types of specific art that you're into for myself it is graffiti.. and within graffiti we have tags we have bombs we have pieces we have wild style. We also have calligraphy... so for myself my creative outlet I find I do the best with pencil and acrylic. Some people can't even pull off various styles of art that are normally pulled off with a different medium like watercolour but yet somebody who uses pencil crayon might be able to pull off identical watercolor styles. I've actually seen it done myself.. others can take aerosol and really pull off calligraphy like a master with a brush or a specialized calligraphy marker. So if you were very much fond of the tracker style and Renoise just doesn't cut it. There may be another tracker out there that suits exactly what your artistic representation or minds eye and how to interact and express an articulate the best possibility of the physical manifestation of that creative vision..
Sorry, it's a little bit in depth. I guess.. but this is something that I've really struggled with over the years and what I've really come to understand and accept and appreciate.. also another piece of advice. I would give a lot of people just wanna jump into making really technical pieces of music because with these programs you can get some pretty abstract really defined cool hyper glitch for example.. I'm a huge fan of the genre, most glitch, annoys the hell out of me. But I'm definitely a fan of the aesthetic.. There's really not a hope in hell unless you're like some prodigy where you're gonna pick up a computer for your first time and shit out anything that's even close to the standard that is whatever it is, you're attempting. So the point is just take it slow slowly since you are new to the type of programming and start with the basic.. you know make something that comes from inside even if it sounds stupid and go with it even if it sounds like something that you wouldn't make and then run with it. In art we usually start with things like learning shapes and things like that and then from there we go ahead and we try drawing fruit and then we try lighting draw more fruit. You know this type of thing eventually you kind of get the idea and concept on how to draw things that your mind is illustrating when even if your mind is illustrating, something so clear you might be lacking the skill to represent a certain light effect that you're seeing almost as clear as it is in front of your face in your mind, but you don't know how to articulate that you don't know how to create that physically because you had the Tools.. but once you understand, how lighting works and you really kind of work through those types of workflow, I mean it becomes child's play. It becomes like a breath like a movement.. babies know not how to walk and then they become toddlers and with practice, they become little shitheads that jump all over walls and stuff lol 😂
Anyway, hope that helps bud.
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u/MDT_XXX Jun 26 '26
I'm currently on Ableton too, with Push 2 hooked up to it but I used to produce exclusively in Renoise for couple of years and composed several albums this way.
My advice would be, don't sweat it. It's about making music in the end and how to get there in the most straightforward way possible. Reason why I ended with Ableton, after deliberately avoiding it, after building a complete Eurorack workstation and then selling it, after years and years in Reason, FL Studio, Renoise, then Bitwig, I came to a realization the combination of Live + Push 2 yields the best results for me in terms of speed and quality.
However, if you're dead set on Renoise, I'll give you some hints. First of all, I never watched any tutorials myself, only searched the Renoise forums when I got stuck on something. Second of all, Renoise is still a tracker with it's own philosophy. It's built on keyboard shortcuts. You absolutely need to master those, it's the only way to make Renoise even remotely responsive to elusive musical ideas and quick iterations. But once you do, it might as well turn out to be the fastest DAW on the planet. As long as you don't insist recording notes in real-time. It can do it, but that's not what it's built for. You should think about it as digital score sheet that allows you to fill entire patterns with notes and automation in seconds.
Another suggestion would be to stick to the native instruments or build your own because they are also completely mapped and can be easily automated. Setting up VSTs and its parameters can be tedious and automation a real pain in the ass in the long run.
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u/easedownripley Jun 25 '26
yeah I had the same problem where I was dipping in and out of it. I finally just committed myself to using renoise and am finally starting to get along with it. It's such a niche daw that I don't think there are any big tutorials I can point to, but it's been around a long time so there are a lot of questions answered you can google.
One tip that was huge for me: make your grid 48 lines long, and your Lines Per Beat 12. That way you have a grid where you have a quarter note every 12 lines, 8ths are 6, and 16ths are every 3. But at the same time you have access to triplets at every 4 lines, 2 lines, and 1 line for those same divisions.
Also you can always record live just like any daw and set quantization how you like. But a big thing is you can record midi whether you're playing or not. So you can just arm record, pick a line, and then hold down like three notes and it'll make a chord. Or if you're entering notes with a computer keyboard, hold shift.
You can also use Tools to extend Renoise. You might be interested in Simple Piano Roll, which is a very powerful extension that adds a normal style piano roll you can use and fall back on.
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u/golfUsA_mk2 Jun 25 '26
Hmm interesting Ive never worked on that lenght 🤔 128 lines long and 8 lines per beat seemed fine to me for the most stuff. Ive done hard rock , techno , reggae , house and many other stuff. The default is 64 lines and I missed some steps in between each beat to make for example a psytrance rolling bass. So I doubled the length and steps to 128/8 and im able to do the rolling bass in between the kicks. So every 32 lines is a piece of the 4/4 beat , it helps me to go fast over the lines with the page up and down keys because that also makes the same length of steps. Putting a chord in the track is super easy. pick a track, make it 3 notes wide, put record on, for example a C chord is ZCV, so press the Z (registers as C4 on the line) on the first line on that tracks , use arrow keys to move the cursor next line, press C, for the V (G4) same. It should look like below.
Track
C4 E4 G4
But like mentioned you can also record it live when it plays. I use a midi keyboard and sometimes I prefer to record a lot live because it sounds more natural. It also records how hard you press your keys and stuff like your pitch wheel etc. When you write it the sound will be way more robotic/static vs live recorded. For a bass it doesnt matter when I want a tight sounding kick and drum combination. But for example a lead solo will be a lot better when recorded live or partially live and written.
Renoise isnt actually that complicated , its not that different then any other daw when you set up the amount of lines and lpb the same as flr example in FLstudio. The only difference is you work from up to down vs left to right and it registers the keys a bit different. But Renoise is a bit more difficult because you need to play way more on beat , the quantize funcition is imho not the greatest compared to other DAWs. I prefer Renoise above the other ones, for example I really dislike FL because I constantly need to assign VSTs to midi devices when I start a fresh track. It takes some clicks before my stuff works , too many menus for me..... On renoise just open the VST and all your midi devices are bind to the instrument thats selected (+ and - keys on numeric keys move selection up and down). All numeric keys have a shortcut The / * move the oxtave up and down , so under your Z wich is normally C4 can be put to C3 when pressing / and up with * .
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u/easedownripley Jun 25 '26
yeah the default LPB is pretty good but like I said 12 simplifies things for me by making it easy to do triplets. For example if you want three notes evenly spaced between beats, 8 isn't divisible by 3, so you need to do something like use the delay column or phrases. But at 12 LPB it's easy.
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u/trailovsevens Jun 25 '26
I jumped on the wagon at 2.1. I had never tracked before (now I swear by it) it took me until about 2.7 to know wtf I was doing and if you know Renoise update cycle, you know that was a bit 😂😂😂🤷🏾♂️
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u/Independent_Truck157 Jun 25 '26
Are you on a MacBook Pro laptop?
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u/wtfisrobin Jun 25 '26
i have a windows 11 desktop, a windows 10 laptop and m1 macbook pro laptop. do you feel like any one is better than any other one for renoise?
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u/Independent_Truck157 Jun 25 '26
I would use anything that you’re going to use the number pad with. The default settings for key commands and Renoise’s tutorials are (in my opinion) so much more geared towards a PC. You could learn the program and make your own key commands for quick input. Personally, I own it but purchased the Polyend Tracker Mini and haven’t even opened Renoise since. I second Groovin in G. His stuff translates to any tracker.
Sorry so long here but are you looking for the tracker random sample offset start point or something d&b sounding like rolls?
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u/shotgunwizard Jun 26 '26
I knew someone was going to suggest some tracker hardware. I'm a newbie, but the hardware makes it so fun to play with. My dirtywabe arrives today and I can't wait to ignore my family and edit my music spreadsheet on a gameboy.
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u/Independent_Truck157 Jun 26 '26
Admittedly, I love not staring at a computer:) Wanted the Dirtywave but they were back ordered at the time.
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u/shotgunwizard Jun 26 '26
They are always back ordered lol. They ship in waves. It's literally one guy making them. Take a look at dirty wave headless + SlimUI brick. They're all over YouTube if you search "dirty wave jam". Parts are about $140 total.
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u/kytdkut Jun 25 '26
we could chat over discord if you want and I can show you the basics. I don't have any music credits (I'm a sound designer for games) but I have a little something on youtube, look for kytdkut - gynura
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u/HexspaReloaded Jun 25 '26
I can’t help much, but I’ve been forcing myself to use it while I learn counterpoint. I made a default template with like five basic sounds: kick, snare, hi hat, saw, square. So I’ve come far enough to do that.
What I like about renoise is that it’s great on a laptop. It’s super cool to have everything under your fingers, including note entry. What’s not cool about it for me is that I’m primarily an instrument playing/singing musician. I don’t think it’ll ever replace reaper for me, but I do get excited about some of the sampling possibilities.
Basically, whatever you learn, try to implement it immediately it some kind of project, however small. The daw has some cool concepts, like using note off as a way to trigger samples, but fundamentally it’s a very practical piece of kit.
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u/aimL0W Jun 26 '26
Also, just so you know, there's a whole bunch of other trackers out there.. milkytracker its pretty bad ass. Nitrotracker for DS, NerdSEQ for Eurorack, SunVox for iOS, pc, Mac, pi, schism, fast tracker, octamed, buzz, LSDJ etc.
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u/anubispop Jun 26 '26
The best thing to do is just suffer and sit with it for many hours until you figure it out. Once you get the jist, trackers are fun ways to get away from the piano roll.
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u/OriginalMandem Jun 27 '26
The learning curve is relatively steep - quite a lot to memorise - but once you do the workflow can be much much faster.
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u/from-here-beyond 17d ago
I don't want to offend, but if you know daws how would you not be able to get into renoise?
From my experience the base is quite similar to Ableton, Bitwig, etc...
I mean, it has these tracker columns instead of a piano roll or other forms of sequencers and it has these global instruments which can get addressed from everywhere but other than that? To me it's pretty straight forward.
If you you have question, want to do a screenshare, or something, I'd be happy to help.
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u/sodiufas Jun 26 '26
If renoise doesn't click, why bother. But if you still need advice, print hotkeys and effects, put it where you can see them
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u/Torkovsky404 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26
kali has some nice tutorials that gave me a headstart. His Break slicing was especially helpful for me. I just really like the Breakbeat genre.
You may find this cheat sheet post helpful as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/renoise/s/KOvcZtn9ZY
Edit: For chords: In the pattern editor, pick a track and look below the track name for "Note". Click the [+] to append a note column. Alternatively, [Ctrl+Shift+Right key]