Here’s a clever idea and a total surprise – instead of just dumping some samples on you, the folks at Akai have built a whole Reaktor ensemble full of analog drum samples, set up by default to work with their excellent, ultra-compact LPD8 pad controller. Now, because it’s in Reaktor, you can edit the ensemble. You know what that means: this thing is screaming to be modified or dropped into your own ensemble with custom effects. If anyone feels up to the task, I can try contacting Akai and see if they’ll be willing to distribute a couple of mash-ups of this ensemble.

LPD8 Reaktor Module

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the LPD8 is pictured below. It’s similar to the Korg nano Series, but is slightly larger and thicker (and has knobs); you sacrifice a bit of the ultra-portability of the nano in favor of a bit more playability. (I’m becoming addicted to small controllers, so I may just have to get all of them.)

LPD8

I certainly can’t think of any other makers doing something like this with Reaktor; it’s an interesting idea. (Heck, even NI doesn’t usually do this.)

quartz composer + NI Massive from ape5 on Vimeo.

Note: We’re aware we have let this site go without updates, but that’s because Peter Kirn runs Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion and Pete Dines continues to post at Modulations@noisepages. That said, we’ll certainly announce if we plan a new batch of feature content!

In the meantime, I find I’m coming across new materials nearly every day via Twitter (oddly enough, the new ground for such stuff), so I’ll begin selecting the best Native Instruments-themed inspirational clips and tips to share here. I have quite a backlog of material to share, so stay tuned here and on CDM.

First up – I’ve long been fascinated by the possibilities to use the computer screen for something other than just fake knobs. A simple oscilloscope can offer profound insight into sound, and that’s essentially analog technology. Imagine what’s possible in the real of digital visualization.

The first step is to simply get things up and running so you can begin experimenting. The wonderful electronic artist and audiovisualist ape5 has been posting some early experiments doing just that. Think of these as “Hello, World” work rather than finished projects – but I always enjoy watching that very process, and this looks promising.

The ingredients:

1. Quartz Composer, the graphical patching tool for visuals bundled with the Mac developer tools (if you’ve got a recent Mac OS, you already own it, in other words). See Create Digital Motion for more QC resources.

2. Native Instruments Massive, in this case transmitting audio to produce the lovely patterns at top. (To analyze the audio stream, ape5 uses Quartz Composer’s Audio Spectrum object.)

3. Native Instrument Reaktor. With Reaktor, you have some choices – you could use audio, or you could use OpenSoundControl (OSC) to transmit control data.

ape5 also works with MIDI using the Mac’s IAC MIDI bus.

If you’re on Windows and interested in working in similar directions, check out vvvv (Windows-only) or the open-source Processing. On Windows, you don’t have built-in methods for routing audio and MIDI between apps, but check out tools like LoopBe for MIDI and ReaRoute for audio (a special ASIO driver you can install with the excellent production tool Reaper).

Somewhere, people are wasting time, procrastinating, and having inane chats on Twitter. But don’t tell that to the hard-core synth geek, who has bent Twitter into becoming a useful tool for finding like-minded creators, solving problems, and sharing tips and techniques. In 140 characters, there’s not much you can do to describe the depth of, say, Reaktor. Think instead of these tools as a compact, real-time pointer to the information elsewhere.

One of my favorite reads – and, regardless of your tools of choice, a great use case for how to make Twitter productive – is Reaktor Lovers. On Twitter as reaktorlovers, you get tips, tricks, story links, and for my favorite feature, the Reaktor Ensemble of the Day.

http://twitter.com/reaktorlovers

Given the depth of the User Library, it doesn’t look like we’ll be running out of Ensemble of the Day posts any time soon. That includes gems like the fascinating grid interface for the pad synth Pataphysical, top, and the ridiculously knob-laden DotCom 44 Modular, bottom.

So, what happens when you’ve run out of 140 characters and the forum isn’t the right forum? If you’d like to try out forming your own social groups with other users and have free blogs on this site – with the same tools we’ve used for the Kore site – come beta-test noisepages with us.

noisepages.com

Let us know if there are features you’d like or some things aren’t working – we’re doing an open beta precisely to get that kind of feedback. The venue for that feedback is the Help & Development group, where we’ll also be chatting about making improvements.

But just as the CDM team will continue working to bring you information, we’d love to see what you and the community has to share, too. Your work is ceaselessly inspiring – and makes reading Twitter a meaningful distraction.

We’ve got more Kore and Reaktor updates in the hopper, so stay tuned here and on CDM.

I’m a big fan of the FL Studio DAW software, and also a big fan of NI plugins. In the past this has been a problem because of an incompatibility that caused CPU spikes in some NI plugins running in FL. Specifically, in Reaktor this manifested as a constant fluctuation of the CPU meter, even without an ensemble loaded. I’ve also noticed this behavior in Absynth. It’s been possible to compensate by setting the plugins to run with fixed-size buffers, but that has two undesirable consequences; one, it increases the latency for those plugins, putting them slightly out of sync with other elements in the mix and two, it takes away the ability to use multiple outputs to separate mixer tracks in FL.

Well, the new 8.5 beta of FL solves all that! I was initially excited to read that the new beta lets plugins running with fixed size buffers use multiple outputs – but then I discovered a new audio setting called “align tick lengths” that makes those large fixed buffers unnecessary. The mouse-over hint for the align tick lengths checkbox tells us “may increase CPU performance” and they aren’t kidding.

This is fantastic, because now I can load up Kore in FL and Reaktor in Kore and get one of my favorite DAWs, my favorite control surface and my favorite plugins working together smoothly with no hitches, glitches or handicaps.

Licensed FL producer edition users can download the beta through their account page.

Via our friends at Make Magazine, Captain Dan controls a custom-created Reaktor synth with an Xbox 360 game controller. The secret ingredient: GlovePIE, the powerful, free scripting tool for alternative controllers under Windows. GlovePIE can actually output both OpenSoundControl and MIDI, either of which Reaktor can use, but in this case, Dan chose MIDI and routed between applications via MIDI Yoke.

The results may not necessarily be a new musical high point, but they are good fun. If you’ve got a Mac instead, you have several exceptional options:

Osculator

STEIM’s junXion (which now has a Lite version, too)

There’s one other that I’m … forgetting, if anyone wants to chime in.

Tried this yourself? Let us know!

xbox Controller Makes Drum and Bass [Captain Dan's "What Would the Captain Do?"]

360 controller busts mad beats + synth [Make Magazine]

Confession: plug-in specs make me batty. Happily, there’s a nice blog post that explains how to adjust a Reaktor patch for easy envelope control in Ableton Live. Ableton Live 8 changes how parameters are controlled, and I think fixes this problem – I need to try it with Reaktor. (Anyone out there already ahead of me?) But in the meantime, here’s the fix:

How to make Reaktor Knobs Automatable in Ableton Live [Do My Eyes Look Scary?]

When it comes to Automation, the parameters are exposed by the standard VST mechanism, with each Reaktor parameter being the Base ID for the instrument, plus the ID of the control.

In the case of RE201, the base parameter was 500-something, so all controls were invisible to Ableton Live.

If you look in the Reaktor Instrument Properties, click on the control routing tab. (the two little boxes with an arrow between them).

At the bottom, there’s an ‘Automation’ section. Do two things:

Pull down the ‘IDS’ menu, and select ‘Instrument Up’ until the base ID is zero. Then pull down the ‘IDS’ menu again and select ‘Sort and Compress IDs’

This will make all of the controls in the RE201 visible in Live. Honest to God.

Previously:
Kore Host How-To: Combine Kore with Ableton Live

The power of Reaktor is essentially the power to build any instrument or effect you can imagine. But what does that mean for hardware control – how can hardware be as open-ended as software? One solution is multi-touch interfaces.

Antonio Blanca writes to share the work he’s done (in collaboration with JazzMutant’s Bryant Davis Place) on “Lemurizing” popular Reaktor ensembles. These make the Lemur touchscreen a dynamic, interactive hardware controller for these Reaktor ensembles. In the collection from Antonio and other creators, and all downloadable via JazzMutant:

• Vectory sequenced sample destroyer
• The legendary Skrewell instrument
• Native Instruments’ Massive drum computer ensemble (the one in Reaktor)
• Lurker hybrid delay effect from Reaktor
• GoBox groove box in Reaktor – complete with multiball morphing
• Aerobic beat machine
• Native Instruments Massive Synth (the standalone synth, not the one in Reaktor)
• A two-deck Traktor Pro configuration, plus DJ Kabuki’s own Traktor setup
• FM8 synth tweaking layout

From sequencing to modulation, there’s quite a lot you can control in these ensembles with your fingers. That demonstrates not only the potential for Lemur, but many other alternative interfaces, as well. With the exception of the standalone Massive, you can see some of the power of OpenSoundControl support in Reaktor, as well.

Antonio is extending this idea with Reaktor and exploring more sequencing ideas. He writes:

Now I am working on new “Lemur Projects” — a new version of Lemurized Metaphysical Functions and a pseudo-random sequencer built on the Lemur itself using the multiline script (amazing feature, by the way). Here’s some info from my outdated blog:

http://abreaklemurities.blogspot.com/

I am working to release a series of videos using the lemur and [given an overview of] some of my interfaces.

It’s really nice to see Reaktor coupled with the Lemur in this way; I hope to bring you more.

Reaktor users, what are you using to control your ensembles? Any touch-based solutions (Lemur or otherwise)?

This site is back – and back to stay. We have a new server, and some new tools we’ll be able to share soon to help the CDM community share tools and techniques more easily.

And sometimes, wonderful things just happen when the time is right. Case in point: a whole new set of beginning Reaktor tutorials, covering all the basic tasks you might like to accomplish. For newcomers to Reaktor, these will be ideal, as they get you rolling on a specific tasks — like, build me a sampler or do something cool and granular and delicious — without assuming a lot of prior knowledge. But if you do have prior knowledge, these will fill in some gaps even for intermediate users.

Reaktor Tutorial

Topics so far:

• Programming and patching: intro and a simple synth
• Effects: envelope generator, ring mod, tape decay
• Grain Delay
• Sampler
• Granulation modules (similar to our own series on the topic)

Creator Mats Claesson of Norway is interesting himself, with a background in classical guitar, a resume that includes work with John Cage and Iannis Xenakis, and ballet composition. If you can read Norwegian, there’s a lot more.

I have some additional Reaktor tutorials that, at long last, I’ll be publishing within the next two weeks – in a new format that will allow others to build upon the same work.

We won’t be disappearing for two months again, but with these tutorials and Reaktor in hand, you may.

Update: Here is a fixed version of the performance and ensemble I originally linked. Since Kore saves absolute path references in its performances, you will have to locate the BlackBox ensemble wherever you unzipped it and load it into the instance of Reaktor in the second channel. This time, doing that will fix the controller mappings. Sorry for the mix up! Hat tip to Sowari for alerting us to the problem.

The new Spark instrument for Reaktor evolved through many iterations out of Stephan Schmitt’s desire for an instrument that responds to the player in a performance situation. It’s aimed at realtime manipulation by a skilled player, and keeps the built-in LFOs and envelopes to a bare minimum.

As I played with Spark over the weekend, I noticed that some of the richest sonic possibilities emerged from using it in Kore for hands-on control, especially when morphing between sound variations. I started thinking about ways to add motion to the sound while still respecting Stephan’s vision of a performance oriented instrument. This is what I came up with:

It’s a Reaktor motion recorder designed especially for use in Kore in conjunction with Spark. The three knobs are mapped to the three macro controls in Spark, and record your movements, then play them back. Since the motion comes from you, from your reactions and musical intuition as you play, it’s a live and human kind of modulation source – but it also gives you three extra hands to perform.

Here’s how it works: the three upper left knobs on the Kore controller are mapped to the BlackBox knobs, and the three buttons above them enable recording. It’s easy to hold down the record button with a middle finger and move a knob with your thumb and index. When you release the record button, the automation begins playing back and looping automatically. The three leftmost buttons on the bottom row enable or disable the automation.

Since the lengths of the recorded sequences aren’t quantized, they phase-shift against each other and against the tempo of your music. It creates an organic push and pull that I like. Here’s what it sounds like:

Native Instruments Spark plus Blackbox from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

I’ll provide you with a Kore performance and the Blackbox ensemble, but you’ll need to go get Spark at the NI online shop. One thing you’ll also have to do is activate the MIDI in option in the properties of the three Spark macro controls, which is as simple as ticking a box:

Remember to run the clock, otherwise BlackBox won’t record or play back.

Spaces Multi-Touch Music Environment from BricK Table on Vimeo.

Reorganizing an interface in Reaktor can make a big difference, but the team behind BricK have gone a great deal of extra distance. They couple Reaktor sounds with a multi-touch, collaborative table interface. You can read the full details on Create Digital Music, but I want to call particular attention to the Reaktor element – and how changing the interface impacts the way this works musically:

Designed as a minimalist interface to free musicians from traditional compositional markers such as frets and keys, the environment enables musicians to compose intuitively through immediate visual and sonic feedback.

In Spaces, we discussed a few different ideas about the layout and design of the interface. Ultimately, we decided on Spaces being able to control four different instruments, each with four parameters (volume, and three others). We toyed with different methods for visually representing the value of each column without turning them into a traditional slider. We felt the cool-to-hot color morph in each column was fitting: the user has to rely more specifically on the sonic result rather than exact value, veering from more traditional musical interface paradigms.

Spaces generates sounds in a number of different ways, all using Reaktor. Each of the four instruments employs a selection of synthesis methods. Some columns control pitch, other columns control combinations of filters and effects. The clicky percussive sounds are generated from an audio loop which is granulized and re-synthesized with altered delay rate, etc.

Now, you could easily implement this kind of visual interface itself in Reaktor. But in this case, there’s a lot of additional work that goes beyond Reaktor, in the form of camera tracking for fingers on the table. The creators took advantage of the fact that Reaktor can receive OpenSoundControl data, a feature I hope we’ll see revisited in the future (various iPhone apps now also send OSC, as do many VJ apps).

I also found it interesting that Jordan and Owen are interested in using Reaktor more in these sorts of works, because of the sounds it’s capable of producing. This certainly inspires me to think of Reaktor creation in new ways. We’re deep into some new tutorial creation. I can’t wait to share them with you.

Well worth checking out the full story, which goes into some of the philosophy of the project and the musical approach to the whole thing:

Spaces and Roots: Manipulating Sound with Processing + Touch, Tangible Interfaces