I recently came across Renoise, which is a great modern DAW/tracker application for Windows, Mac, and Linux. If only I had learned about it earlier! I’ve always been a fan of tracker-style music from early videogames and chiptunes, but they have always been rather intimidating to me. I’ve tried my hand at using LSDJ for the Gameboy and SunVox, but I never could really wrap my head around the concepts of tracking or manage to spend enough time learning how to use them properly.
Well Renoise is also a tracker, but it certainly takes a more modern approach. Its much more accessible, and I kind of just dove right in. And while I’m much more accustomed to Logic now (and still quite like it) using a tracker really changes the way you look at things and go about composing. Its been really fun so far, so I thought I’d journal a bit about my exploits using it from time to time.
Even though it uses a traditional tracker style pattern editor, it comes bundled with some really nice DSP effects, and can load third part VST or AU plugins as well. The sampling and instrument creation systems are done really well, and it makes me want to make all kinds of instruments. Maybe I’ll post some for others to play with too.
So far I’ve done a few fun things with Renoise, each much easier than I thought:
1. Loaded and used all kinds of different samples and loops
2. Made my own instruments from samples (both recorded live, and from sample sets)
3. Sliced drumbeats
4. Rendered a 3rd party plugin synth to use as a Renoise instrument
5. Tracked via computer keyboard and my Korg microKey
6. Used Renoise as a ReWire slave with Logic as master.
I’m working on doing a few Christmas songs for the heck of it right now. Its fun and nice to learn the software using songs that I already know and give them that electronic feel. 
Though tracker music tends to have a certain feel to me, it seems very possible to use Renoise quite flexibly for all kinds of styles. It’s not going to replace Logic for me, but using it for certain things or in conjunction with other software is very cool.