Hi there, and welcome to RENDER. 

My name is Ray and I’m a musician based in South London. My musical tech journey began in a small church in Lewisham, where my younger self embarked on a quest to try and take the music to another level. It’s taken years of research and a lot of trial and error but I believe I have some knowledge that may be beneficial to musicians in a similar position.

Who We Are

RENDER is a blog that aims to help musicians that want to enhance their performances through the use of tech. From running click tracks to help keep time to integrating multitracks into your live shows for a fuller sound, RENDER aims to help you achieve your goals and challenge you to think differently. But, why the name ‘render’ you ask? I’d like to submit to you that the word ‘render’, at least in my opinion, has 3 definitions related to the themes that will be explored in this blog.

Definition 1

Anyone who is familiar with Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve will be familiar with the first. At the end of editing your project, after all of your splicing, trimming and the addition of endless keyframes. After you’ve chosen and tweaked your export settings to your heart’s content, the final (and crucial) stage is to press the ‘render’ button. Now, there are similarities between that and this blog. This unofficial definition simply means ‘to assemble’ and we’ll be taking raw musical elements from production, created either by ourselves or others, and putting it all together into organised setlists ready for live performance.

Definition 2

You have a tool in your arsenal, and a powerful one at that. This tool can keep the band in time, sing multiple harmonies simultaneously, play those complicated parts that only that really expensive guitarist who’s suddenly broken his wrist can play, plus so much more. But it’s a wild beast, powerful and senseless. 

Our second definition for render is ‘cause to become.’ Like a youthful Hercules, coming to grips with his superhuman strength and accidentally causing destruction, so too is the laptop. There’s a sense in which the laptop is a powerful machine that must be refined and rendered, if you will, capable of being used in the very same way that you would a synthesizer or ukulele. It requires practice, maintenance and “tuning”, as any other instrument does, and in this blog we hope to give you the tools to cause your machine to become an instrument.

Definition 3

After we’ve exported and assembled our tracks, and tweaked our laptop to be able to run those tracks efficiently, the last thing to do is to use it! The third and final definition is simply to “give” or to “offer”. When it’s all said and done, these tips, tricks and tools are for the stage for others to enjoy and we at RENDER believe to offer the very best we can. If it’s possible to take things a step further and turn something good to something great, it’s imperative that we take it upon ourselves to do so.

Final Thoughts

While the primary context in which my methods were developed was one of worship services in a church, these methods and tools are applicable in any musical context on any stage of any size and can get you great results even on a tight budget. 😉

We hope you find something useful and are inspiring. 

Thanks for reading!