Keyboard Shortcuts

Renoise has an enormous amount of keyboard shortcuts. In the previous topics we often only noted a few important shortcuts. Beside of those there are far more shortcuts available to avoid that you have to use the mouse at all, if that's what you want. There are even lots of shortcuts available which are not assigned by default, in case they fit into someones workflow.

Keyboard Focus Concept

Renoise utilizes a shortcut focus system for the keyboard, which means most keyboard shortcuts apply to a specific region in the interface only. We will refer to those as local. Others shortcuts apply in all regions. We will refer to them as global.

The area in Renoise that currently is focused is surrounded with the following small orange corners:

File:Vvoois renoise focus checkmarks.png

To change the focus area, you can either:

click anywhere in Renoise with the middle-mouse button
click anywhere in Renoise by holding down the ALT key
click anywhere in Renoise with the right mouse button, choose "Set Keyboard Focus Here" in the context menu
use the shortcuts [CONTROL/COMMAND + TAB] or [CONTROL/COMMAND + SHIFT + TAB]

Here is a small example on how to use the focus: If you start up Renoise, the Pattern Editor is focused by default. If you use the arrow keys, the pattern editors cursor will start moving around. Now press somewhere into the Disk Browser, while also holding down the ALT key. This will set the focus to the Disk Browser. You'll also notice that the orange corners are now in the disk browser. The arrow keys can be used to select files or folders or load files.

The idea behind this, is that the main components of Renoise (like the Pattern Editor), should always be ready to be edited. The keyboard focus should not move loosely around, unless you want it to.

If you don't like this behavior, you can also change it. This can be done in the main menus "View" -> "Lock Keyboard Focus" setting.

Customizing and Printing Shortcuts

In Renoises preferences you can customize all keyboard shortcuts by your own, and also print the current set of shortcuts.

To print your shortcuts, simply click the File:Vvoois renoise preferences keys print.png button in this dialog:

File:Vvoois renoise preferences keys.png

List Of Default Shortcuts

For convenience, here are the default shortcuts for all 3 platforms that Renoise runs on:

Windows: Default Shortcuts for Windows
Mac OS X: Default Shortcuts for OS X
Linux: Default Shortcuts on Linux

List of Important Shortcuts

Below is a list of the most used keyboard shortcuts (mac-users: Replace CONTROL with COMMAND and ALT with OPTION below):

Renoise also supports most of the common shortcuts that any application uses, like CONTROL + X, CONTROL + C, CONTROL + V to cut, copy paste, or CONTROL + Z, Y or CONTROL + Y, CONTROL + SHIFT + Y to undo/redo.

Global

Panel switching

F1,F2,F3,F4,F5,F6,F7,F8: Activate Window Layout Presets

Tip: you can save and customize those layouts. To do so, right click on the 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 buttons on the top right of the Renoise interface. The current keyboard focus field is also saved with the preset.

Play and Record

Space: Start/Stop playing.
Enter: Play the current line under the cursor - play step by step.
right ALT: Start playing and looping the current Pattern.
right CONTROL: Start playing the Song.
right SHIFT: Start playing the Song and enabled edit mode.
Escape: Toggle edit mode.
Num-pad-enter: Toggle block-play and start playing.

Instruments

([keyval] = Numeric Keypad keys)

Numpad '/', '*': Decrease / increase keyboard octave
Numpad '-', '+': Decrease / increase instrument-slot selection
Numpad '1' - '9': Select instrument at current instrument instrument-slot selection
ALT + Left/Right Arrow Keys: Jump an instrumen page up / down.
ALT + Up/Down Arrow Keys: Select previous / next instrument.

Pattern Editor

Edit Step & Navigation

CONTROL + '-', '+': Decrease / increase edit-step
CONTROL + '1' - '9', '0': Set edit step
CONTROL + SHIFT + '1' - '9', '0': Set Note Quantize Amount (Quantize note to each x rows)
Arrow Keys: Navigate through the pattern editor
PageUp / PageDown: Navigate through pattern
Home / End: Go to start / end row of pattern
F9: Set cursor to line 0
F10: Set cursor to 25% of the pattern
F11: Set cursor to the center of the pattern
F12: Set cursor to 75% of the pattern.

Note-Off

CAPS-LOCK: Insert Note-Off

Cut/Copy/Paste

CONTROL + x: Cut selection to clipboard
CONTROL + c: Copy selection to clipboard
CONTROL + v: Paste contents from selected clipboard to target.
Backspace: Delete all notes and effect commands at current row in track and scroll everything beneath current row up
Insert: Insert clean row into track and push all notes and effects in current track down.
CONTROL + SHIFT + Backspace: Delete note under cursor and scroll column beneath current note up
CONTROL + SHIFT + Insert: Insert clean row into column and push all notes in current column down.
CONTROL + SHIFT + Left/Right arrow: Remove / add sub/effect column.

SHIFT + F3: Cut current track
SHIFT + F4: Copy current track
SHIFT + F5: Paste current track
CONTROL + F3: Cut current pattern
CONTROL + F4: Copy current pattern
CONTROL + F5: Paste current pattern
ALT + F3: Cut current selection in pattern
ALT + F4: Copy current selection in pattern
ALT + F5: Paste current selection in pattern

Pattern Sequencer

CONTROL + Left/Right Arrow Keys: Change pattern number of current sequence
CONTROL + Up/Down Arrow Keys: Go prev / next sequence
CONTROL + Home: Go to first pattern in sequencer
CONTROL + End: Go to last pattern in sequencer
CONTROL + Insert: Insert sequence
CONTROL + Delete: Delete sequence