agreed
Hey, I use both. I’ve used Renoise for many years and I have had the M8 for less than a year. I love them both. I use the M8 on the sofa or on the go.
While they’re both trackers I would say they’re somewhat different paradigms. Some differences that jumped out to me:
- The M8 has a hierarchy: Song -> Chains -> Phrases, with optional Tables. So it’s kind of like “a tracker in a tracker in a tracker, with an another optional meta-tracker”.
- Renoise has Song Editor, Patterns and Phrases, but their use is optional, whereas the M8 encourages building songs by the design, since the Chains are nested within the song tracker.
- The M8 has synth engines and they are super powerful.
- Renoise can load plugins of course, but none of these are designed specifically with a tracker in mind. These are plugins that would work just as well (sometimes better) in any DAW, but the M8 synths have tight integration with the tracker, and I find them more inviting to use than plugins in Renoise. They also have totally different sound.
- You can customize the tracker resolution in Renoise by changing Ticks per Line, Beats per Bar, and Lines per Beat.
- On the M8, you can do this too, but it uses the Groove feature — you can accomplish almost all the same things, but it’s a different paradigm. I find that the M8 encourages hot-swapping groove settings nicely within the same project.
I like both Renoise and the M8 for some of the same reasons, but also for some of their differences. I hope this doesn’t come off as me preferring one over the other. These are some of the differences that I noticed immediately when I pickup up the M8.
Long story short: I don’t think it’s redundant to use both, and I don’t feel like the M8 is just “portable Renoise” in any way. I come up with totally different music with each one.
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Great answer, thanks!
Yeah, I guess the main thing that appeals in terms of what I understand of the M8’s capabilities is doing weird polyrhythmic modulation with the tables on, say, the FM synth or even over MIDI with external hardware. That’s something you can’t really do in Renoise.
Do you ever find it confusing going between the two? That was the other side of ‘it might be too similar to what I already have’ I guess, a bit like when you play two videogames of a similar genre that have slightly different controls… Or something.
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Regarding polyrhythmic modulation with the tables:
You could do this in Renoise, but you might have to go about it differently. Renoise doesn’t have Tables, but what Renoise calls Phrases would probably allow polyrhythmic/polymetric by getting creative with different Phrase lengths and when to trigger them from a pattern. You can definitely trigger MIDI for external hardware from these Renoise phrases. I think this emphasizes the difference in paradigms between the two.
Do I ever get confused? Yeah, sometimes I forget some key combos on the M8. Actually if you search this thread for “deep clone” you’ll find me not knowing how to get that key combo working more than once 
— maybe this isn’t the best example, because I just seem to have a mental block with the sequence of buttons on that particular function.
I wouldn’t worry too much about getting confused between them. I use a lot of different gear and honestly it all becomes muscle memory after so many hours on a box. Elektron boxes are a good example of this: I can use, say, the Monomachine, Octatrack, and Digitone all at once and they’re all the same DNA, but with enough differences to matter… on each one my fingers just know where to go because I have many hours using them all.
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Damn, I could swear I tried this ages ago and gave up thinking phrases were more or less samples only. That’s the next couple of hours sorted 
Edit: Jeez, wasn’t even that obscure to get going either. Always more to learn with Renoise! Cheers for that.
Good point, plenty here seem to have no problem on that front.
Just started a topic with Dirtywave M8 VS Octatrack on Elektronauts,
would love to hear all your thougts.
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Hi!
Here’s a story about a bunny named Dobro for Weekly Beats 12
I played a few licks on my guitar, sang a few phrases, exported everything in the M8 and added synths, FX and samples.
I had a ton of fun designing the little bubble plucks and the « tambourine » (which doesn’t sound at all like a tambourine) at 0’56 with the FM synth. Also I modulated the delay time heavily for the synth sounds.
Scratching sound are made with the Macrosynth.
Most of the best ideas I get on this device come from using little errors, like that siren sound I caught when I recorded my voice, that I chose to sequence later in the track.
I hope you’ll like it!
Guitar: Taylor Academy 12E
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so good!
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Man that was awesome!
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Question - when using the midi out to sequence a drum synth, how do I do something as simple as setting the note length? In other words, if triggering a hi hat sound, how do I sequence different length triggers?
Edit - I was also going to ask, who is using their M8 as a midi sequencer?
IIRC a Note Off is sent either the next time the instrument is triggered on the same track or with an OFF or KIL command, otherwise the length is just indefinite.
But some (or many) drum synths don’t have a sustain stage as such so you might need to change the envlope for a longer hi hat for instance
My guess is that this would best be done using the built-in envelopes for whatever drum voice you’re sequencing. Unless I’m drastically misunderstanding what you’re wanting to do.
I’m sequencing the pulsar 23 hat voice. It’s designed so that it sustains as long as the note is held and so I need to send triggers of various lengths to mimic closed and open hats.
Can you use tables to send a kill/note off to the Pulsar at intervals that differ from the step length?
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I have a widi Jack attached to the m8 for wireless midi. I have other gear which also have these widi dongles, they are all sequenced from the m8. When I like what I hear I walk up to the mixer and record some loops in the m8.
Me: Can I have Dirtywave M8
Mum: We have Dirtywave M8 at home
Dirtywave M8 at home:
Seriously though, incredibly useful for getting a bit more of a handle on the structure without buying a Teensy. I have no idea why I never tried LSDJ years ago because I did know about it, I think I must’ve just assumed it was more limited than it is.
The hours have definitely been disappearing with it so maybe importing the new M8 is in my future, import duty be damned.
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Sometimes the instrument is a good enough to justify import duty. I’m in the US and spent a year or so going back and forth on the idea of importing a Gotharman instrument from Denmark. One day I just said “fuck it” — considering how many hours I spend on it and what sounds come out of the thing, it was well with the import tax.
I never used LSDJ myself, but I’ve noticed that everyone who gels with LSDJ seems absolutely delighted with the M8.
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One thing that surprised me on LSDJ is you can create your own custom waveforms on one of the channels, even though it’s a bit tedious to do with those controls. Cycle through them with a table and you’ve basically got an infinite custom wavetable synth.
Am I right in thinking that’s something which didn’t carry over to the M8? I can’t see anything about it in the manual but the touchscreen would make it super intuitive.
Cheers,
check out my new Music Video, made Live at Club Exil in Vienna - Hardware only.
Gear i use: TR-8S + SP404 MK2 + M8 DIRTYWAVE + UC4 + TD-3 + ACCESS VIRUS TI2
Peace out!
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