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
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. Some plugins also have configuration settings to "tell" them that you're rendering them.
Sinc Interpolation
As nothed above, using sinc interpolation will pitch use a perfect algorithm
(**)Beware when using organic or bad shaped samples. They may have a perfect effect during play in the editor, when you use Arguru's sinc interpolation, the sample may sound very different from the generated wave-file than it does in Renoise! Listen to the two examples.Cubic rendered vs. > Arguru rendered
Notice the different sounds between the two mp3-files. Though they use the exact same sample and the exact same bitrate and frequency, the interpolation changes the sample-structure drasticly enough to create these differences. So try cubic interpolation first as well as the current frequency rate your sound-card is currently set to, to play your samples in Renoise before you do any bug-report about this.
Also, some settings may affect proper play of VST instruments, e.g. instruments are sampled at 44Khz, but you render in 96Khz and those samples suddenly play at 1.5 times it's original pitch.