Render Song to Audio File

Rendering a Song as an Audio File

To create an audio file from your song, you have to Render it. Rendering is only enabled in the registered version of Renoise. As well as exporting the whole song as a .wav, you can also save and reuse parts of a song. By rendering each track into a separate file you can even post-process your tracks in other multi-track audio editors.

Renoise cannot directly render .mp3 files, only uncompressed .wav files. Those .wav files can then be easily converted to .mp3 files with free external 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 main 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.

Part to Render

This specifies which part of the song you want to render. Note that muted tracks and columns are never rendered by Renoise, making it easy to exclude tracks you don't want to export.

• Entire Song: Renders the entire song.
• Selection in Sequence: Render only a selected pattern range from the Pattern Sequencer. You can also select this range in the Pattern Sequencer directly by using the Pattern Sequencer's context menu: "Render Sequence Selection To Sample...".
• Selection in Pattern: Renders only the area selected in the current pattern (see Render & Resample Parts of the Song). This can also be quickly done using the Pattern Editor's context menu: "Render Selection To Sample...".

Destination

Where the .wav file should be saved and under which name.

Hitting the "Browse" button will prompt you to select a folder where you would like the rendered files to be saved. 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 when playing back and composing the song. "Arguru's Sinc" is a very precise interpolation mode that cannot be used in real-time and so only is available when rendering. This 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 and it is recommended to use this. Many DSPs may sound slightly different at other rates, so changing the rate may result in a slightly different sound from what you expect. Some external VST or AU plugins don't even support sample-rate changes. If you change the rate to something other than the default, then listen back to the rendered result to ensure everything is correct. Alternatively, play back your song in Renoise using the different rate first and fine tune the song when needed. This can be done by changing the sample-rate in the "Edit->Preferences->Audio" tab.

• Bit Depth - Select the bit-depth of the resulting .wav file. Renoise internally renders in 32-bit float, the highest quality, so you should use this format when you plan to reuse the rendered song in other applications. CDs use 16-bit with a sample-rate of 44,100 kHz, so you can choose to render in this format for burning songs directly to CD (bear in mind the potential issues with changing your default sample-rate as noted above, though).

• Save each track into a separate file: When enabled, the song will not be rendered into a single file, but instead will create one file per track. This can be useful if you want to export loops (when used in conjunction with "Selection in Sequence/Pattern") or to post-process the tracks in an external multi-track audio editor. 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 single position in the Pattern Sequencer (not just each pattern once). This is extremely useful to quickly cut and export your song as a set of loops. Note that completely silent patterns will be deleted at the end of the rendering process.

• Priority: To render a batch of songs as quickly as possible, the rendering process bypasses your soundcard. Unfortunately, some plugin instruments and effects render incorrectly when they run faster than real-time. As a workaround for those plugins, Renoise also offers a pseudo-real-time priority rendering mode. If you use plugin synths (VSTi/AUs) or effects and the resulting files do not sound as they should, try rendering again using the "Real" 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 slow, is not fast enough to happen in real time. So rendering in Sinc mode can take a 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 off-line processes which bypasses the sound card, you can not render sounds that are routed through Line In Devices 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.