Keyboard Shortcuts

Renoise features an enormous amount of keyboard shortcuts, but in the previous topics we often only noted a few important shortcuts. Besides those, there are many other shortcuts available and even unassigned shortcuts, which you can customise yourself if they fit well into your work-flow.

Keyboard Focus Concept

Renoise utilises a shortcut Focus system for the keyboard, which means that most keyboard shortcuts only apply to a specific region in the interface. We will refer to those as local. Other shortcuts apply to all regions and we will refer to them as global.

The currently focused area in Renoise is surrounded with 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.
Left-click anywhere in Renoise while holding down the "Alt" key.
Right-click anywhere in Renoise and choose "(Set Keyboard Focus Here)" from 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 then the Pattern Editor's cursor will start moving around. Now press somewhere into the Disk Browser while also holding down the "Alt" key, which will set the Focus to the Disk Browser. Notice that the orange corners now surround the Disk Browser and the arrow keys move around to select files and folders.

The idea behind this is that the main components of Renoise (such as 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 behaviour you can change it via the "View->Lock Keyboard Focus" option in the Upper Status Bar.

Customising and Printing Shortcuts

Using "Edit->Preferences->Keys" you can customise any keyboard shortcut and also print out 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 run Renoise:

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 commonly used keyboard shortcuts (Mac users: Replace "Control" with "Command" and "Alt" with "Option" below):

Renoise also supports most of the common shortcuts that apply to any application: "Control + X" (Cut), "Control + C" (Copy), "Control + V" (Paste), "Control + Z" (Undo), "Control + Y" (Redo).

Global

Panel Switching

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

Tip: You can save and customize those layouts by right-clicking on the '1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 buttons at the top right of the Renoise interface. The current keyboard Focus is also saved with the preset.

Play and Record

Space: Start/Stop playing.
Enter: Play the line directly under the cursor only (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