Where does the name Hitori Tori come from?

Well, it’s a long story but I’ll try and keep it brief. In the late 1990′s my friend and I formed a tracker-based electronic band called finch. After producing numerous albums together, which we never released, we abandoned the project and I moved to Japan. I was producing a lot of music alone at the time and really needed an artist name for my solo stuff. Maybe something in Japanese? Maybe another bird reference? So, I chose hitori (which means alone) and tori (which means bird). Hitori Tori. This name just made sense to me at the time.

Can you tell us a bit about the Ohm Controller that you’re using?

The Ohm64 is made by a small company in Texas called Livid Instruments. I discovered it online while looking for something tactile to control multiple instances of Renoise. I had been using a smaller controller made by another company, but I couldn’t take myself very seriously when playing a live show with it – especially since its components kept breaking. From what I could tell, the Ohm64 looked pretty reliable and sturdy. I also wanted potentiometers that were not infinity knobs – because those can be problematic in certain situations. The Ohm64 is an easily programmable blank slate, and I guess that’s what attracted me to it.

What exactly do you assign the grid buttons to? Are they always set to trigger different patterns in Renoise?

In my current set-up the grid buttons are assigned to do either of 2 things. 1) To select patterns in the Renoise song sequence (usually containing offset sample elements), or 2) to juggle short vocal samples in the background while Renoise is playing, using a Max MSP application called mlr. In the latter case I typically assign all the samples to the same group; allowing for more random style cut-ups.

How do you handle multiple Renoise instances and how do you separate the MIDI messages going to the different instances?

Once assigned, the mappings stay locked to the songs. MIDI communicates with all Renoise instances simultaneously and there aren’t any issues of conflict that I’m aware of. Incidentally yesterday I had seven instances of the Renoise application open at once and everything was just fine.

Once you’ve made a new track, how much preparation do you need to do before being able to perform a live set like the ones in your videos? In other words, how big is the step from finished Renoise track to live-performable Renoise track?

Actually, the funny thing is, it feels like less work is needed. I needn’t even finish the songs before performing these live sets. I usually play unfinished songs and just blend them into each other. If you’re like me, you’ve got hundreds of these ‘almost complete’ songs just sitting on your hard-drive that you don’t know what the hell to do with. Well, why not mix them into other unfinished songs and give them a better life, you know – instead of just letting them gather dust. Most of the tracks in my videos are incomplete sketches of songs mixed together to make complete songs. I just spend about five minutes before hand mapping out some faders and effect parameters, hit record on a video camera and then try to do everything in one take.

You seem to use different skins to colour code your Renoise instances. Do specific colours correspond to specific musical elements?

The different colours are used to help emphasize the different instances. That’s all – they’re purely aesthetic. For me those colours do not have any real relevance to song syntax. Perhaps for someone with visual synesthesia there are some deeper connotations.

All your projects seem to scroll by at a furious speed. What’s wrong with a nice and steady 4 LPB?

Well, I do like to be quite close to the canvas when I’m working on a track. After I get a basic workflow going, I’ll speed the song up drastically. It’s sort of like increasing the resolution of the track so that you can fit lots of tight edits into your patterns.

I’m finding myself less and less conscious of the speed I’m working at these days, but one thing’s for sure – my tracks keep getting faster. Speed! It’s like some weird addiction spiraling out of control. Maybe seeing those little numbers traveling upwards on the screen at that speed stimulates a part of the brain associated with visual processing and pleasure? I don’t know. Well, whatever the reason, the dizzying tempo helps me to stay on task and complete songs faster.

How did you first find out about Renoise?

For quite a few years I was running a sound tracker called Player Pro 5.9 on my Mac. This tracker was good, but had very limited tech support and eventually died a horrible death in 2002. Then I remembered my friend Dac telling me about a fast tracker type clone that was under development. He said that it would soon to be ported to Mac. I kept my eyes on the Renoise website and when the first version became available I downloaded it. I’ve been using it ever since.

What are your thoughts in general about using Renoise as a live tool?

Using Renoise as a live tool is getting easier by the day. I use it to DJ my tracker files. I like being able to drop out the drums in one track and mix in the drums of another. It’s certainly a step up from just mixing one stereo track into another one. Of course I’m personally waiting for the day that a proper XRNS file mixing app or console gets invented. I mean it’s not exactly practical having 10 instances of Renoise open simultaneously for your live set, but it’s definitely manageable.

While some creative thinking is involved, creative tweaking in Renoise is usually implemented pretty easily. The developers have made everything so intuitive and simple. I’ve never felt frustrated with mapping anything. I just push command ‘m’ and assign. By comparison, I was using the latest version of a popular DJ mixing program the other day and was totally put off by how outrageously annoying the MIDI configuration set-up screen was. I felt totally restricted. I couldn’t even use some features of this DJ program because only ‘sponsored’ controllers were allowed to use those MIDI assignments. Sponsored controllers only?! Ha. Ridiculous. Makes me proud to support companies like Renoise that are not exclusive to particular brands.

Did the 2.6 release with the new scripting support influence the way you use Renoise with the Ohm?

No. But, I think I’m heading in a different direction right now. We’ll see.

I like the Bird of the week feature of your blog. So, as a final question: what’s your favourite bird?

The Tawny Owl. Because it lurks ominously.

Speaking of Indamixx, we are running a challenging music contest. We are giving away one of their Netbooks for the best low-power Renoise song. Go to CreateDigitalMusic for the details. You need to send in your music before 15 October.

The groove settings feature is great, but only applies to the complete song.

Also, the alternative methods of  speed and tempo tricks,  explained on the same page, affect the whole pattern for the rows used.  So, how do we isolate things further?

In the following movie we are going to show you how to generate a simple 50% groove pattern on a single note-column and at the second part of the movie, we will demonstrate the same method to apply a groove pattern to the full track.

Also, this trick does not affect synchronisation problems to external hosts or plugin effects that cannot handle swift timing effects, which is an extra plus benefit as well.

To clarify, the following procedures were used in the movie…

-We pick a delay value of 2 to apply on each second row.
-To apply a 50% groove, everything needs to be sliced by 2, else there won’t be a 50% groove, so we place a delay command on every second row too.
-Then there is the amount of delay we can apply and as we work with individual tracks or notecolumns, we can only use the delay command to achieve this local effect and the delay command is affected by the speedfactor which you have to divide by 2 as well.
-The example song in the movie used speed 6 which is 3 when you divide this number by 2. However…
-Each row starts at the first tick which is position 0(zero) for Renoise and not position 1. Basically a speed to effect command translation table would look like this:

So for that reason, we say speed divided by two minus 1 which means: 6 / 2 = 3 -1 gives you the value of 2 for the delay effect command.

For every command that is based on ticks, this table applies. The higher the speed value, the more ticks in a row you have, the higher the integrity of your effect commands can be.

But that falls outside the scope of this tutorial. (You can read more about that at this location.)

That was for the background information, now go and watch the movie…

Note that you need to manually pause the movie when you see a text balloon as they swiftly pass by during the movie

Layering a looping sample

Right now we have created a beat from one-hit samples. We are going to spice it up by layering a breakbeat. Load breakApache.xrni from the pre-installed Instruments library (eg. C:/Renoise/Instruments/). It is not the same as Neil’s one, but it will work out fine. Put a C-5 note in a new Breakbeat track. When you play the pattern the breakbeat sounds continously at a much too high pitch.

We need to modify this Instrument’s Sample Properties to sync it with the rest of the song. You can see that Loop has already been set to Forward, which is why the sample repeats over and over. We need the sample to loop over 2 bars, so the Sync value of 32 is already correct. You just need to enable it. Push the breakbeat slightly back in the mix by lowering the Amplify value to about -4 dB.

Finally, Neil adjusts the bassdrum track to match the breakbeat (eg. notes on lines 00, 10, 16, 22, 26 and copied to the 2nd half of the pattern).

Installing a VSTi plugin

Moving on from the beat to the bassline. Instead of using a sample we will use a software synthesizer, more specifically a VSTi (Virtual Studio Technology instrument). Neil has the commercial reFX Beast, but to prove you can get fine results with even the simplest of VSTis, we will play around with the free Chip32.

• Chip32 for Windows
• Chip32 for Mac OS X (contains both VSTi and AU – use the VSTi)
• Chip32 for Linux

Before you can use VSTis, Renoise needs to be aware of them. After you have placed the VSTi files in a subfolder, you need to set-up VST directories in the Preferences pane in the Edit menu.

Installing and using Plugins is explained more thoroughly in the Renoise Tutorials section: Using Plugins. If Renoise has trouble finding Chip32 on Linux, consult: Setting up Linux.

Groovy bassline with Chip32

Select a new Instrument slot to load Chip32 into. The Instrument Settings has a VSTi Properties section, where you can select Chip32 from the dropdown list.

For the bassline we will repeat the bar below in a new track called Bassline.

Note that this Bassline track has 2 note-columns, allowing you to trigger multiple notes at the same time in a single track. This is especially useful for portamento (or glide) instruments to emulate pressing keys while holding another. Chip32 however does not have portamento, but there is another benefit: you can easily modify the accent notes on the 2nd column.

What about the note-OFFs? If you compare a note in the pattern to holding down a key, causing a sound to play continuously, a note-off is releasing that key again. After a note-off an Instrument may immediately stop, fade-out or do something completely different. The SquareWave preset of Chip32 simply mutes. Enter the appropriate note-offs with CAPS-LOCK for a staccato bassline.

Fattening the bassline with a Chorus device

We need to compensate for Chip32′s lack of fatness. In the first half of the video we added an EQ device, now add a Chorus device from the DSP list in the TrackDSPs tab. You can experiment with the Chorus presets until you get a bassline that sounds a bit like Neil’s.

Automating a VSTi slider

Most VSTis have sliders, knobs or other controls. Open Chip32′s own interface by double clicking on the Instrument or in the VSTi Properties.

The rightmost slider is linked to a lowpass filter. If we increase the filter, the sound becomes muffled. Try moving the slider
while the song is playing. We can record slider movements and play them back later. This is called automation.

To automate a VSTi we need a special device: the *Automation Device. Add one to the Bassline tracks’s DSP Chain.

Since there is only one VSTi, the Linked Plugin value is automatically correct. The drop-down lists correspond to the controls (parameters) of the plugin. Set the first dropdown to FILTER. Moving the slider next to it will also move the slider in Chip32′s interface.

The *Automation Device in turn can also be controlled. Add an *LFO device and set-up the correct destination device (*Automation Device) and destination parameter (FILTER). Maximize the Amplitude and double the Frequency to 32 Lines Per Cycle. Chip32′s filter silder will now move without your help.

End of the video

The video has ended, if somewhat abruptly, and we ended up with a great starting point for a new song. In less than 10 minutes we have created a fat beat with a VSTi bassline buttered up with chorus and channeled through a lowpass filter connected to an LFO.

Credits to Neil ‘Celsius’ Gaeggeler of Shaper for creating the original video tutorial.

PS. Part 2 might be missing, but rumor has it Neil will do a new tutorial video.