New studio geekology

As many of you know, I create my music with Renoise.  Renoise is a tracked based DAW (I hate that term, ugh) with one of the best audio engines you're likely to hear.  Anyway, without praising it too much and boring the shit out of you, v2.6 went into beta testing stage recently, and I'm currently messing around with the 3rd beta.

Now normally, this wouldn't even warrant an article being written about it, but 2.6 has thrown a whole heap of new features my way, some of which may influence how I write my music.  Just as I got 2.6 through the download pipes today, my Novation Launchpad also showed up at my doorstep.  The main new feature in Renoise 2.6 offers users the option of now making scripts, which you then load from the new 'tools' menu.

One of the main tools that Renoise are promoting on their website, is Duplex.  Duplex allows you to map midi controllers, like the Novation Launchpad I just got, to control Renoise's pattern matrix, mixer and transport controls.  The good thing about this, is because it's 'open source', users can now create their own scripts within the program to come up with interesting new tools, or to simply tweak an existing tool to their own preference.

So yeah, fun times.  I've only had both of them for around about 8 hrs so far, but I've already come up with ideas for a live performance.  I even did a live mash-up retake of Porcelain earlier, just messing about, and it was a lot of fun to do.  Whether I take this show on the road is another thing entirely, but the fact I've got the idea, and Renoise 2.6 is giving me plenty of more options and ways to think about approaching making and performing music, can only be a good thing.