To everyone who’s just discovering us via the Native Instruments newsletter, welcome! The idea of this site is to have a place to share techniques — not just how-to’s as far as the software, but how to make these tools work for music. It’s an open site, so those of you who don’t already know me from createdigitalmusic.com, please do get in touch and let us know what you think and what you’d like us to cover. We’re working with Kore, but also Reaktor, Kontakt, and the rest of the Komplete suite of instruments and effects.

To make sure you haven’t missed anything, here’s an overview of some of the highlights of our first few weeks:

Derek Bell’s Uzzums is a hacked electric guitar that integrates onboard MIDI controls for manipulating Guitar Rig 3 directly. Result: no food pedals needed; Derek can control Guitar Rig right from his actual guitar, turning it into a kind of hybrid digital instrument.

This video dates to when he first finished the build; he’s been practicing ever since and will be playing on our audiovisual party at the legendary HOPE hacker conference here in New York next month. I expect to get another look at it then, and will definitely share.

Guitar Rig users, how do you control your racks? Do you use the controller from NI, or have you found another solution?

More inspiration from Derek (he created the infamous driver’s license Ableton Live controller):

db3ll @ YouTube

It’s hard for me to describe, but there’s something really inspiring about pulling up Kore and using it to design some different instrumental sounds.

I do a lot of music for modern dance. What’s nice about it is that dancers tend to be up for anything. I finished a new score for a long-time collaborator here in New York named Kathy Westwater. Kathy wanted some evocative soundscapes for a new piece. And then, "oh, yeah, I’m suddenly thinking electric guitar."

Fortunately, this leads to a couple of tricks I like to use. And I really like the ability to design for an instrument and not just do some sound effect. That way, I can actually just play live, like composing with sound in real-time. These techniques could certainly be applied to other projects, so here’s a look. This isn’t really a tutorial so much as some hands-on experience that happened to work for me.

A reader pointed me to a thread on the NI forum in which folks have successfully gotten Guitar Rig 3 running on the super-cheap, super-small Eee PC from Asus. You’ll want to run Windows XP rather than Linux, and you need modded graphics drivers so you get a more-usable 1000×600 resolution, but it looks like it works pretty well. Of course, plenty of other laptops would do a better job, but the fact that it’s possible, and the Eee is as small and affordable as it is, is encouraging. (You could actually run Guitar Rig on Linux via WINE, but I think XP is an easier way to go.)

GR3 + Eee on NI Forums
More on the Eee: Asus Eee As Cheap, Tiny Music PC: Guitar Rig 3, Linux Tips on CDMusic.com

I have a healthy respect for dedicated audio hardware, but when it comes to digital, I love computers.

If you’re a Kore user who owns Reaktor, you’ve probably heard of the Kore 2 Reaktor Toolpack. If not, now’s a good time to check out it out – this collection of Reaktor ensembles provides a set of tools useful in the Kore environment. It’s the creation of Reaktor programmer and musician Jonathan Adams Leonard, aka Sleen. (He’s also a composer, a vocalist and keyboardist, and the touring keyboard/MIDI technician for Interpol.) Some of the tools are more specialized, like an ensemble that adds the ability to send MIDI data with the Kore hardware controls, or one that emulates the Guitar Rig 1 Control hardware. But even if you don’t need those, you’re likely to find something that will improve the way you work with Kore.

Jonathan’s impetus for building the toolpack was his sense that Kore 2 was missing some modular MIDI capabilities he felt were essential:

Kore 2 was an ambitious release for any software team, so instead of complaining, I did what any enlightened engineer would do and built something. In some ways, there was no choice. NI created a semi modular matrix into which audio and midi objects can live simultaneously.

… The toolpack represents my preference to communicate where possible with solutions rather than suggestions or complaints.

It’s one heck of a “feature request,” then — a powerful set of MIDI and audio utilities, available for free. Because they’re Reaktor ensembles, you can also modify them for your own purposes — meaning, even if some of this functionality is added to Kore down the road, the Toolpack could remain a powerful custom utility belt.

Note that you do need to have a copy of Reaktor 5 to use the Reaktor Toolpack. (Anyone who owns a recent version of Komplete already has it; the standalone works, as well.) Over the coming weeks, we’ll be looking at ways in which the combination of Reaktor and Kore can be useful. But if you don’t need or want Reaktor, we’ll list a few free/cheap alternatives and complementary tools.

Here’s what’s in the pack: