Setting Up MIDI Devices

Configuring MIDI-Devices

You can connect external MIDI devices to Renoise in order to play notes or record controllers (automation). This is often done with a MIDI master keyboard or an external synthesizer which is capable of sending MIDI. While it is possible to use the computer keyboard to enter notes in Renoise, it is not velocity sensitive and can only map two and half octaves at once. So a MIDI keyboard is highly recommended when you want to accurately record "live" playing.

Using the MIDI Mapping function, you can externally map things like starting/stopping the song, changing sequences, levelling tracks and FX etc. This can be done by either mapping regular notes from a master keyboard, or with MIDI hardware which is dedicated to the task, such as MIDI controllers and mixers.

With the MIDI clock you can sync external MIDI capable devices to the Renoise clock or vice versa.

To play your external MIDI instruments from Renoise, you use MIDI instruments in Renoise which don't need to be set up in the preferences. Please have a look the the Instrument Settings for more information about those.

Default Setup

By default Renoise is set up to use the first two devices it finds as input devices. If you don't have more than two devices, MIDI IO might work right out of the box for you. So the first thing you should try out is if Renoise recognizes your MIDI keyboard or controller. The easiest way to do so is to load up a sample and plying around with the keyboard. If you can't hear what you play, you should open up the preferences and have a look at the settings.

Monitoring MIDI-IO

On the top right of Renoises interface are two or four small LEDs, red and green. Two for the MIDI clock sync, two for general MIDI in- and output. Every message that is sent from Renoise will blink the red LED, every messages that is received by Renoise will be green. When no devices are set up for MIDI sync you will only see two icons for the general MIDI input and output.

MIDI Preferences

To change the MIDI settings in Renoise, select "Edit->Preferences" from the Upper Status Bar. On OSX you will find the "Preferences" in the "Renoise" menu at the very left.

In the Preferences menu, select the MIDI tab:

(Example of the MIDI Preferences tab on Windows)

Device Setup

Clicking on one of the device drop downs brings up a list of MIDI devices that are currently installed. Simply select the one you would like to use then.

On Windows, you maybe will find the same entry twice, one with a WDM behind its name and one not. If that's the case, then your sound card or MIDI device offer two different drivers for the same devices. WDM is a new kind of driver, which offers better timing, so you should prefer using this one if it works.

On Linux, you will also see some generic names (Renoise Input A/B and so on). Those devices are virtual ports which Renoise registers, so that other applications can connect to them easily. Or to do all the MIDI routing outside of Renoise with the ALSA MIDI patch-bay applications Please have a look at the http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-HOWTO/MIDI-HOWTO.html for more information about this and ALSA in general.

In the above picture, you can see three configuration panels:

• MIDI Master Keyboard / Mapping: Connect your external MIDI master keyboard or MIDI controller to Renoise

• MIDI Clock Master: Send MIDI clock timing information to other MIDI devices

• MIDI Clock Slave: Sync Renoise to external MIDI devices

Setting up the devices is basically all you need to start. For a detailed description of the other advanced settings, have a look at the Preferences pages in this manual please.