How is the Ren these days?

I hope this is the right place to ask this..

Im particularly interested in hearing from users that have owned the Ren from 1.0 or 1.1

I originally bought the Renaissance when it was first released in the uk and due to the fact it was a bit of a shambles at launch i sold it on within months. I thought the hardware controller itself was fantastic but the software was horrible.

I now have the opportunity to own one again so id be grateful if you could answer a few questions for me

i wanted to know how stable is the software this days? When i first used it (1.0-1.1) it crashed all the time. Obviously we are a good 7 or 8 iterations further in now so is it pretty rock solid?

Secondly i wanted to ask how well does it work with Ableton these days? Now i dont want to use it as a plugin very much but its nice to have the option.
i remember when i originally had a Ren it wouldnt play nice with ableton at all. Trying to get the transport controls to woirk with ableton was basically impossible.

How does it compare with the Maschine these days? I have a Maschine Studio which is great but ive always been a fan of the MPC workflow hence why id like to get one again .

Thanks

I'm not one of the ideal demographic as i started at 1.8.. .

But i got my first MPC in 2004 after about 4 years using just cracked software . .

I think the Renaissance is just what i always wanted . . I find it stable and very comfortable to use . . Blending the MPC hardware (which i love) with the software speed/fx that the 2kXL lacked .

I personally think Akai discontinued it too soon . .

I'll be selling my Ren soon, minimal use, mainly to write the Sampling Laid Bare book, let me know if you're interested.

MPC-Tutor wrote:I'll be selling my Ren soon, minimal use, mainly to write the Sampling Laid Bare book, let me know if you're interested.

Whaaaa. So what are using now?

Quickstrike2.0 wrote:Whaaaa. So what are using now?

Touch for most stuff, keeping the Studio as well. Will get the MPC Live when Akai get around to releasing it, the Ren will help pay for that.

I still can't decide if the Ren being discontinued is a good or bad thing. If it was available I probably would've upgraded from the Studio by now. But then again it has saved me a few quid as the Studio does the job fine for what I need, although the full set of Q Links would be nice.

The Ren has been a great puchase for me and I started with 1.0. The Ren is more stable and now has an auto save feature. You get pad chop and chop while recording which is great. The price if the Ren is great now (great sound card, controller and sampler). Like always your Daw experience is only as good as the computer.

It plays nice with Ableton
* the transport is easy to set up ( you will need to set a "relative" setting for the record button to work correctly).
*you can use the Ren sample record in Ableton as a plugin which was huge for me (just set up audio track).
*you can also resize the plugin screen in Ableton (not sure why but not all DAWs let you resize Ren software when used as plugin).

Good luck, and I suspect a lot of people will be coming back.

Thanks allot for the responses.

Tutor quick question... Im guessing you have no problem with the software itself then if you are using the touch and keeping the studio?
As i mentioned i really loved the Hardware itself but it was the software that was the biggest let down.