Holy Crap!

DJ Hellfire wrote:

labcoats wrote: Sales and an increase of prescence is everything to do with future support/development. It wont be supported if sales dont stack up to pay the wages of those programmers. Thats just basic economics.
It matters not a jot that you are delighted the way it is and I mean no disrespect in any way but thats because your a hobbyist. But for many of us this is not a hobby and we need the tools to do the job. I do want to see its prescence in the market increase - which in turns means further development - which in turns hopefully means I can take it out of its box and put it to more use than a 4 bar loop machine.
Ive said all I need to on this thread - apologies for the semi hijack folks

This is a pretty good point! However, if you seriously can't make more than a 4 bar loop with the Ren, then something is really wrong, and it's not with the Ren! Hope you're just exaggerating for sake of your argument!

Well, I can sometimes go up to 8

Nah, I just mean I ended up resigning my self to using it as a loop sequencer because of my Ishooo with the mixer tied to sequences which sadly prevents me from mixing as I compose various seqeunces.

The only thing which can possibly me see me firing up the Ren again is a global mixer addition, or rewire with at least 16 outs, but then again 16 isnt enough so 32 would be ideal. I want to be able to write, arrange, and mix a track from start to finish with the Ren. I could do that if a global mixer was added..Its a real shame because I really like the feel of the unit and working with it.
Jah will be getting a but flustered with me constantly talking about this.

JAH wrote:

labcoats wrote:. I do want to see its prescence in the market increase - which in turns means further development

So receving a software update once a quarter is not enough? You may want to take it out of the box as things have certainly changed over the past 4 updates...and soon 5th update.

Granted...it doesn't have everything forum members want under the sun as seen by individual's need for different methods of saving and a global mixer of sorts. But it has certainly improved many times over in terms of stability, many bug fixes, workflow improvements plus the addition of numerous other features requested by forum members.

You know why its in its box. It wouldnt matter if they added faster than light travel to the thing and 18 billion updates. Without a global mixer Ill be traveling in my 1976 Ford Capri at 40mph with the ren in its box, in the boot of the car..

I'm all with you about the mixer Labcoats, but my Ren will never stay in a box. ( I don't have any other MPC and the Hybrid system of the REN is a plus to me, really).

I'm working actually with a single sequence and the loop function. ^^

It result in One mixer only... but sequences system is useless so... Then I ask for a global mixer to. And many more others modern "DAW routine" features.

To discuss about the space again, a 1TB HDD is below 90$. The Ren cost 1200$...

I use a 1TB HDD to backup all my samples and projects folders every 2-3 months. My Daw, Plug-ins, projects, mixdowns and samples are on a 2*500gb RAID0, system on a SSD ... My music and libraries backups are on another 1TB HDD... And I could describe all my "addict" setup... even my gaming/internet computer Has +2TB space... Some of my sample are from my first sampling in 98-99, and folders are constantly growing... Years goes on. I remember my old 12GB Drive and my Windows 95 running the tracker. Good Ol'Dayzz.. lol

In fact, AKAI could give an option but, it's not really an issue. Just do some housework, finish beats, export stems, and begin another if you really need space. BACKUP... ^^

labcoats wrote:

DJ Hellfire wrote:

labcoats wrote: Sales and an increase of prescence is everything to do with future support/development. It wont be supported if sales dont stack up to pay the wages of those programmers. Thats just basic economics.
It matters not a jot that you are delighted the way it is and I mean no disrespect in any way but thats because your a hobbyist. But for many of us this is not a hobby and we need the tools to do the job. I do want to see its prescence in the market increase - which in turns means further development - which in turns hopefully means I can take it out of its box and put it to more use than a 4 bar loop machine.
Ive said all I need to on this thread - apologies for the semi hijack folks

This is a pretty good point! However, if you seriously can't make more than a 4 bar loop with the Ren, then something is really wrong, and it's not with the Ren! Hope you're just exaggerating for sake of your argument!

Well, I can sometimes go up to 8

Nah, I just mean I ended up resigning my self to using it as a loop sequencer because of my Ishooo with the mixer tied to sequences which sadly prevents me from mixing as I compose various seqeunces.

The only thing which can possibly me see me firing up the Ren again is a global mixer addition, or rewire with at least 16 outs, but then again 16 isnt enough so 32 would be ideal. I want to be able to write, arrange, and mix a track from start to finish with the Ren. I could do that if a global mixer was added..Its a real shame because I really like the feel of the unit and working with it.
Jah will be getting a but flustered with me constantly talking about this.

Yeah, I agree! Lack of a global mixer doesn't keep me from being able to mix in the Ren altogether. But it keeps me from being able to mix WHILE I'm creating which is something I've come to love to do since working with things like Pro Tools, Reason, Maschine. So with the Ren, I have to keep myself from using any plugins until the beat is done, then put every sequence in song mode, then add plugins and mix. Often I lose the vibe of certain things by having to do things this way. Sure, this is how it's always been with MPC's in the past, but the Ren isn't a hardware MPC. So...

If you take it out the box and learn to use it as designed (while you hope or wait your feature request is implemented), I am sure you will come up with several methods how to use it effectively once you have mastered it. I have.

1. Route the outputs of Drum, Keygroup, and Plugin programs to Outputs 1/2 bypassing the Track Mixer. Use these programs in any sequence and you maintain your mixer settings.

2. Don't do anything buy a preliminary mix until after you created a Song and converted the song to a long sequence.

3. Use the Loop function (yes it works). Create a Song buy using a single linear sequence like you would do in most DAWs. You will have full use of the track mixer.

4. Mix in your DAW.

JAH said "Don't do anything buy a preliminary mix"

Agree with Hellfire, sometimes Insert effects are used for creative effect, while making the beat, even at his beginning. Like EQing,distorting, dub-delaying, etcaetera...
Mixer definitively needs a Presets Recall system and/or some insert duplicating options.

But... No need for sequences as JAH described it, I start my project now with a 80bars sequence. Recording directly using the loop function.

That works great. Only one problem to me : You can't just drag and drop a loop or simply move the loop with DIALs, you must set its start and end for every changes.

Anyway, It's just a workaround, I'd be happy if changes would be done to the mixer system.

comtox wrote:
That works great bit is a bit more a headache. Why ? Because You can't just drag and drop a loop or simply move the loop with DIALs, you must set its start and end for every changes.

It's not that bad. While I would like drag and move the entire loop range in the software...adjust the loop points from the hardware isn't bad. I simply press [Window] then type in the loop range with the key pad.

I created a thread and posted a video tutorial but it was closed (because of haters of my work around) and the video buried in the purgatory of Ren videos that is hard to find. It is on my You Tube page.

comtox wrote:I use a 1TB HDD to backup all my samples and projects folders every 2-3 months.

2-3 months??? Shiiiiiit! I back EVERYTHING up DAILY! Hard drive failures are the worst, most depressing thing in audio!

So, I just read thru this whole thread hoping for a glimpse of an answer to this problem to no avail. It seems a lot of people don't understand how space could be an issue when saving projects. I will explain my workflow so maybe you can get an idea of the issue we are having. So, I have multiple programs that I use and each program will have multiple kicks, snares, hats, percussion, etc across multiple banks. Now, I create my project using two or three different programs but only using 8 or 10 different sounds from them. The issue is when you save your project, you are saving every single sample in every project, EVERY TIME! There should be an option to save your project with "used samples only" so it only saves the samples you are actually using in your project. My current 2016 beat folder has only 27 beats so far but is 1.1GB in file size. Now this wouldn't be a big issue if I could have this save option or, change my default save location to an external drive. Projects currently save to my 120GB capacity SSD system hard drive where most of that is being used by apps and plugins, etc. At least let us change the default save location or when you "Save as" remember your save location for projects.

I really think that this is all a kind of pointless conversation when you consider a 1 TB external drive is 50 bux......... I understand that this can be frustrating and it was a little weird to get used to but in the long run I would rather have more backup than less and with memory being so damn cheap who really cares??

DannyBmpc wrote:I really think that this is all a kind of pointless conversation when you consider a 1 TB external drive is 50 bux......... I understand that this can be frustrating and it was a little weird to get used to but in the long run I would rather have more backup than less and with memory being so damn cheap who really cares??

100% this