Render Song to Audio File

Rendering a Song as Audio File

To create an audio file out of your song, you have to bounce it. This process is called "rendering" in Renoise. Rendering a song does not only allow you to sample and export the whole song as WAV, but can also be used to save and reuse parts of a song as composing technique. By rendering each track into a separate file, you can even post process your tracks precisely in other multi track audio editors.

Rendering is only enabled in the registered version of Renoise; its not available in the demo versions. Renoise can also not directly render MP3 files, but will always save uncompressed WAV files. Those WAV files can then be easily converted to MP3 files with other external free applications.

Opening the Render Dialog

You can open the render dialog by either hitting the "Render" button in the Disk Browser with the "song" category selected, or by using the global menu option: "File" -> "Render Song To Disk...".

To quickly render, resample and reuse parts of the song in the pattern editor, see Render & Resample Parts of the Song.

Overview

File:Vvoois renoise render2disk.png

Part to Render

Specifies which part of the song (if not the whole song) you want to render. Please note that muted tracks and columns are never rendered by Renoise. This way you can easily exclude tracks you don't want to export. Other ways to exclude or specify the parts which you want to export are:

• Entire song: Renders the complete song
• Selection in Sequence: Render only a specified range from the Pattern Sequencer (render only a few patterns). You can also quickly specify this range in the Pattern Sequencer directly, by using the Pattern Sequencers context menu -> "Render Sequence Selection To Sample...".
• Selection in Pattern: Renders only the selected area in the current pattern (see also Render & Resample Parts of the Song). This can also be quickly done withing the pattern editors context menu -> "Render Selection To Sample...".

Destination

Where the WAV file should be saved under which name.

Hitting the browse button will prompt you for a folder where you want to save the rendered files to. Enter the name of the file in the text field next to the browse button. The destination file(s) will always be standard .wav audio files.

Render Options

• Interpolation: Select the resampling quality that should be used in the render process to pitch samples up and down. "Cubic" is what you've heard and used when playing back and composing the song. "Arguru's Sinc" is a very precise interpolation mode that can not be used in real-time, thus only is available when rendering. This interpolation mode results into the best possible sample playback quality, but may also lead into some unwanted effects. Please see Sinc Interpolation for more details.
• Sample Rate: Select a sample-rate for the rendering process. By default the currently active sample rate is selected, which is also recommended. Many DSPs may sound slightly different at different rates which probably is not what you've expected. Some external VST or AU plugins even don't support sample rate changes. If you change the rate to something else than the default, then please double check the rendered result. Alternatively, play back your song at the desired new rate first and fine tune the song when needed. This is done by changing the sample rate in the audio Preferences.
• Bit Depth - Select the bit depth of the resulting WAV file. Renoise internally renders in 32 float bit, the highest quality, so you should use this format when you plan to reuse the sample in other applications. If you want to render your song for a CD, then you should select 16 bit and a sample rate of 44100 kHz.
• Save each track into a separate file: When enabled, the song will not be rendered into one file, but rendering will create one file per track in Renoise. This can be useful if you want to export loops (when also saving each pattern separately) or to post process the tracks in a multi track audio editor. Please note that completely silent tracks will be deleted at the end of the rendering process.
• Save each pattern into a separate file: Just like the separate track option, this creates new files for every sequence pos / pattern. This is extremely useful to quickly cut and export your song as a set of loops. Again, Renoise will rmeove completely audio files for you, so you only end up in "audible" files/loops.
• Priority: The rendering process bypasses your sound-card, to be able to render a batch of songs as quickly as possible. Thus using the "high (as fast as possible)" priority is recommended and the default. Unfortunately some plug-in instruments and effects behave badly when they run faster than real-time. As a workaround for those plug-ins, Renoise also offers a pseudo real-time priority as a workaround. If you use plugin synths (VSTi/AUs) or effects, and the resulting files do not sound as they should, try rendering again with the real-time mode.

Sinc Interpolation

As already described in the Render Options, Renoise offers an alternative way to resample with the Sinc interpolation mode. Interpolation is what is needed when playing back a sample at another note than its base note, its original frequency: when pitching samples up and down. Pitching will reshape and reconstruct the sample waveforms, it will create new sample waveforms out of the original. Linear and Cubic interpolation do this roughly and quickly but in overall with very good results. The Sinc mode does this as precise as possible, with the advantage that the original character and shape of the sample from its original frequency is preserved.

The drawback is that this processing is very very slow, is not fast enough to happen in real time. So rendering in Sinc mode can take a very very very long time and will use a lot of CPU.

Another probably unwanted effect is that things simply no longer sound as you want them to. When you for example drastically pitch up a hi-hat sample or other samples with a lot of high frequencies, then the Sinc mode will often sound a lot smoother. Although this smoother sound is technically more "perfect", it simply might not be what you want in some cases. Here is an extreme example:

Cubic rendered vs. > Arguru rendered

If that's the case, then you can explicitly disable the Sinc interpolation for some samples, by using another interpolation mode than "Cubic" in the Sample Properties. Only Samples which have the "Cubic" interpolation mode set will use the Sinc mode in the rendering process. Changing the interpolation to "Linear" or even disabling it, can also in normal playback mode help you to create the in this case "dirty" or more metallic sound.

Rendering Line-In Devices

Because rendering is an offline processes which bypasses the sound card, you can not render sounds that are routed through [Line In Device]s such as MIDI instruments or other signals from external sources. To render those to audio files, you have to record them with the Sample Recorder in Renoise.