Play PC games on your Mac? TUAW tests CrossOver

Renoise: A multi-platform tracker for music composition



Back in the day before Ableton Live and Reason and all the other sequencer apps out there, desktop electronic producers made do with trackers: apps which allowed the budding Moby or Paul Oakenfold to sequence samples. They were basically software equivalents of legendary hardware sample sequencers like the Akai MPC. These usually had all of the usability of a 1957 Trabant and none of the good looks.

Renoise 1.9.1 sequences like an old-school tracker, but it's got loads more features: plugin and MIDI instruments, effects chains, a halfway decent mixer, and even internal sample editing. Everything a growing music geek needs to make bleep-bleep music (and maybe more). It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS 10.3.9+ as a Universal Binary.

At 49.99 euros (US$75.80 at today's exchange rate) for a license, Renoise is a helluva lot cheaper than alternatives like Live or Reason, and the ability to use a single license for versions running on multiple platforms is nice. The only drawback is that the interface appears a little complex for users unfamiliar with the conventions of sample trackers. Also, the demo version times out and doesn't allow rendering of your tracks out to .wav format.

I still have nightmares about using FastTracker on my old Pentium II back in the late '90s, so I haven't tried this one myself. If you have, drop me a line in the comments and let me know what you think.

Related Headlines

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.

New Users

Current Users

TUAW Features

Mac 101 iPhone Around the Worldask-tuaw
Mac News
Macworld (488)
.Mac (37)
Accessories (606)
Airport (69)
Analysis / Opinion (1273)
Apple (1575)
Apple Corporate (533)
Apple Financial (180)
Apple History (39)
Apple Professional (47)
Apple TV (153)
Audio (435)
Bad Apple (117)
Beta Beat (142)
Blogging (83)
Bluetooth (15)
Bugs/Recalls (56)
Cult of Mac (855)
Deals (197)
Desktops (114)
Developer (202)
Education (93)
eMac (10)
Enterprise (125)
Features (367)
Freeware (351)
Gaming (336)
Graphic Design (18)
Hardware (1251)
Holidays (37)
Humor (567)
iBook (65)
iLife (229)
iMac (182)
Internet (298)
Internet Tools (1267)
iPhone (1309)
iPod Family (1973)
iTS (941)
iTunes (778)
iWork (17)
Leopard (342)
Mac mini (109)
Mac Pro (49)
MacBook (195)
MacBook Air (69)
Macbook Pro (212)
Multimedia (420)
Odds and ends (1389)
Open Source (267)
OS (871)
Peripherals (183)
Podcasting (180)
Podcasts (83)
Portables (195)
PowerBook (135)
PowerMac G5 (49)
Retail (550)
Retro Mac (46)
Rig of the Week (42)
Rumors (596)
Software (4158)
Software Update (384)
Steve Jobs (246)
Stocking Stuffers (50)
Surveys and Polls (97)
Switchers (107)
The Woz (33)
TUAW Business (222)
Universal Binary (279)
UNIX / BSD (60)
Video (891)
Weekend Review (74)
WIN Business (47)
Wireless (78)
XServe (33)
Mac Events
One More Thing (25)
Liveblog (0)
Other Events (222)
WWDC (180)
Mac Learning
Ask TUAW (95)
Blogs (84)
Books (23)
Books and Blogs (62)
Cool tools (436)
Hacks (450)
How-tos (467)
Interviews (33)
Mods (180)
Productivity (577)
Reviews (99)
Security (142)
Terminal Tips (55)
Tips and tricks (551)
Troubleshooting (158)
TUAW Features
iPhone 101 (23)
TUAW Labs (3)
Blast From the Past (16)
TUAW Tips (137)
Flickr Find (32)
Found Footage (64)
Mac 101 (75)
TUAW Interview (31)
Widget Watch (196)
The Daily Best (1)
TUAW Faceoff (4)

RESOURCES

RSS NEWSFEEDS

Powered by Blogsmith

Sponsored Links

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Dave Caolo510
2Cory Bohon434
3Mat Lu374
4Scott McNulty362
5Erica Sadun351
6Michael Rose2819
7Brett Terpstra220
8Mike Schramm204
9Steven Sande169
10Robert Palmer1525
11Joshua Ellis74
12Christina Warren619
13Nik Fletcher41
14Chris Ullrich32
15Jason Clarke11
16Lisa Hoover11
17Victor Agreda, Jr.15

Featured Galleries

Macworld 2008 Keynote
Macworld 2008 Build-up
Macworld Expo 2007 show floor
The Macworld Faithful in Line
iPhone First Look
iPhone 2.0 - .Mac push e-mail
iMac 1998
TUAW Faceoff: Screenshot apps on the firing line
Boston Apple Store (Boylston Street)

 

    Most Commented On (7 days)

    Recent Comments

    More Apple Analysis

    More from AOL Money and Finance

    Weblogs, Inc. Network

    Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: