DAW

  1. Session View

  2. Arrangement View

  3. Midi View

  4. Effects View

  5. Envelopes view

Pure Data is a bit minimal and free, I learnt a lot from it.

Midi clip

  1. Samples

  2. Instruments

  3. Plugins

Arrangement view shows tracks horizontally Session view shows tracks vertically

Session view is vertical represenatation of tracks.
All clips are quantized. Clips are either audio or midi. You also have return track for effects.

You can record automation by clicking the automation button on top and start recording. You can also draw automation onto the clip.

There is a crossfader view at the bottom right corner which reads x.

You can enter a loop by clicking the record button.

Select clip and press tab to move to arrangement view. You can start recording session view to arrangement view by clicking record on top.

  • Sleep is quantized to the bpm

  • You can’t have step counters like a tracker, sleep is the only way.

  • You have effects, samples and synths

  • Play and control

  • Rings and ticks

  • Sync and cue

These are the overall structures useful for making music. You have ADSR Envelopes. Automation envelopes are possible using ramp.

Renoise

Up until now I have been using renoise for post production EQ-ing. Renoise is surprisingly good at that.

One of the advantages of Electribe is the intuitive feel of it all. Renoise however allows more complex editing to take place.

Note for purists: I intend to make renoise workflow like hardware. I want to produce the tracks imporvised live much like Electribe.

Renoise Plugins

  1. Grid Pie

  2. Step Sequencer

I tried meddling with Renoise automation with keyboards. I’ll stick to MIDI I guess.

VST Plugins

Renoise is already good with sampling comes with 909 samples.

Reverb + Delay are too complicated in renoise. Thankfully TAL has good plugins here.

VSTi

TAL Juno vst. Custom Wave Generator is a nice renoise plugin for some Saws.

Live

Using Grid Pie, Audio Hijack for System audio capture and MIDI I was able to do the whole track live. I had to bend over backwards to control MIDI knobs and the mouse.

This setup can definitely be used for long sessions. Grid Pie comes with 8x8 which should do quite well.

Issues

VST windows and Grid Pie don’t work well together.