KVR Audio

db3 · Post by **db3** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:08 pm

Heavyocity has announced it has partnered with Icebreaker Audio to release C-Tools, a trinity of retro synth sounds for Native Instruments Reaktor.

http://www.heavyocity.com/product/c-tools/

Looks interesting at $29 intro price (until July 28th).....anyone taken a punt yet?
Fighting GAS

MachineClaw · Post by **MachineClaw** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 6:06 pm

There are so many free Reactor synths and effects I find it a bit hard to make a purchase for anything reactor related.

just check the NI Reactor forums for tons of useful stuff.

I love Heavyocity, their products are always top notch but I won't be buying any of their reactor stuff.

I don't really see the point.

el-bo (formerly ebow) · Tue Jul 21, 2015 6:13 pm

MachineClaw wrote:There are so many free Reactor synths and effects I find it a bit hard to make a purchase for anything reactor related.

just check the NI Reactor forums for tons of useful stuff.

I love Heavyocity, their products are always top notch but I won't be buying any of their reactor stuff.

I don't really see the point.

not in the market for these kind of synths, but i agree with your general thoughts. it's hard enough to justify new purchases anyway, but when released for a platform that is overflowing with greatness, it's harder to justify

it's strange to see heavyocity, a company i normally associate with cutting edge sound design, to release something so pedestrian. they sound pretty cool, but i would have loved to see them releasing ensembles that are more in keeping with their own sound

jeye_musik · Post by **jeye_musik** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 10:12 pm

I don't understand the logic around paid-for Reaktor ensembles expressed above. By that reasoning, why would you pay for VST/AU plugins when there are plenty of great free freeware plugins available?

For me, I pay for softsynths (regardless of format - VST, Reaktor ensembles, Max4Live devices) when there is something that I find interesting. Whether that be the sound, the interface or perhaps it does something relatively unique. Often times it is a combination of all of those things.

From the few demo songs available, I reckon these will sound pretty good and at the introductory price more than excellent value for money. It's a shame that the demos are only example songs and you don't get to hear more of the three ensembles on their own (or that there isn't a Youtube walkthrough yet available). That said, I will probably buy this in the next few days as I've always found the Icebreaker Audio products to be enjoyable. I've already got Bit Rate II / Monoboy and would definitely recommend those for anyone who has a penchant for 8bit sounds.

db3 · Post by **db3** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:09 pm

Indeed. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of the Reaktor ensemble format. But as I can use them thanks to K10, these 3 rather smart looking ensembles, from a respected developer, sparked my interest on their own merits combined with the attractive intro pricepoint.

*edit*
Curiosity got the better of me so I picked it up. First impressions I really like Capsule and Clique.

V0RT3X · Post by **V0RT3X** » Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:37 pm

Kind of a shame they won't let you pay with paypal.

el-bo (formerly ebow) · Wed Jul 22, 2015 8:03 am

jeye_musik wrote:I don't understand the logic around paid-for Reaktor ensembles expressed above. By that reasoning, why would you pay for VST/AU plugins when there are plenty of great free freeware plugins available?

For me, I pay for softsynths (regardless of format - VST, Reaktor ensembles, Max4Live devices) when there is something that I find interesting. Whether that be the sound, the interface or perhaps it does something relatively unique. Often times it is a combination of all of those things.

From the few demo songs available, I reckon these will sound pretty good and at the introductory price more than excellent value for money. It's a shame that the demos are only example songs and you don't get to hear more of the three ensembles on their own (or that there isn't a Youtube walkthrough yet available). That said, I will probably buy this in the next few days as I've always found the Icebreaker Audio products to be enjoyable. I've already got Bit Rate II / Monoboy and would definitely recommend those for anyone who has a penchant for 8bit sounds.

actually, i feel it is absolutely harder to justify paying for synths when there is such good free gear around, but that's not to say that i don't. i have also bought a few paid ensembles for reaktor, but they are things that struck me as more unique, and less well-represented among the free ensembles. however, aside from the synths that come with logic, and prism (reaktor), i only have 2 other synths (not counting ipad apps). owning reaktor is a big part of my having such a cut-down plugin folder.

there really is something about having all that unexplored territory (reaktor user library) that means something needs to be pretty extraordinary to grab my attention, and i don't find that in what i can see of these releases. 'bitrate ii' seems cool, and it was a shame that i couldn't get in at the intro price, but i'm not so interested at it's current price

murnau · Post by **murnau** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 8:11 am

Reaktor is something special you have so much great stuff for free but i donate for free Reaktor stuff when it's among pro level like boscomac' .ens anyway: So bought this in a second because it makes not much difference for me moneywise.

davidka · Post by **davidka** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 8:23 am

The demos sound nice for me. It seems more and more devs are realising that Retrowave/Outrun is emerging. I like this.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 9:06 pm

any more people bought this? im heavily interested in those

MillerSam · Post by **MillerSam** » Wed Jul 22, 2015 10:24 pm

I have it and it sounds very nice. Special Instruments.
I will post some videos mid August so you can purchase it in the next sale

jeye_musik · Post by **jeye_musik** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:01 pm

Having got C-Tools last night and had a good play about with them, I thought that I'd write down some initial impressions. Overall, good sounding with enough nuance to it that there isn't a lot out there that covers the exact same ground - broad similarities though so ymmv as to whether it's right for you. Onto the ensembles themselves:

Coil - The combination of a hands-on approach to FM and the single analogue style oscillator works really well. It was particularly nice to program an acid style sequence with just the analogue side and then automate to bring the FM generator in whilst also automating the FM parameters. Could get from standard run-of-the-mill to crazy-horses mental pretty quickly (and back!!). Also of note is the Freq Shifter which gives a whole slew of harmonic variances to spice things up. Sound wise, it can do the classic 80s sounds no problem but will cover more modern styles too. If you push things with some of the FM controls you can also get into out there Raster Noton territories with extreme envelope settings.

Clique - Although they don't say, I think there is definitely a strong influence coming from the Polymoog for this ensemble. The style of the sliders in the GUI, the divide down string section and the resonators. Pretty good sounding and surprisingly flexible in comparison to similarly inspired synths - that said, it never strays wildly from it's "core" sound. But if you're a fan of lush synth strings then there's a lot to like here.

Capsule - All the component parts of this drum synth are pretty standard fare and hardly likely to raise many eyebrows in and off themselves. However, how these are combined works really well and manages to give it a character of it's whilst still clearly being a classic "analogue drum synth". The sequencer has a few tricks which can get rhythms out into interesting spaces by combining non-standard step lengths with non-standard pattern cycle lengths and the differing time divisions - obviously straight forward stuff is well covered. The effects are worth mentioning also as the interaction of the saturator, compressor and gated verb is really nice - I found that when I was automating some of the drumsynth parameters while doing that got me into similar sonice territory as I can get with my Machinedrum (when using the TRX machines with it's gated reverb). For the drum synths themselves, the standard kick, snares, hats and toms are perfectly respectable (if not better than many others.....) and the 4 multi-purpose engines on the 'B' page offer a pretty wide range of percussive sounds. It's worth noting that the preset snapshots for Capsule are really good both from a drum synthesis perspective and for what can be squeezed out of the sequencer.

Overall, I think this a thoroughly enjoyable set of instruments that offer much more than the 80s stuff they use as an advertising hook.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:19 pm

thanks a lot for the insights, i just wanted to buy it but they only showed CREDIT CRAD this time, strange, i just emailed them as i paid with paypal last times as well.
man i wanna have those cause im a sucker for 80s/synthwave stuff!

UltimateOutsider · Post by **UltimateOutsider** » Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:25 pm

I picked up C-Tools the other day. I like it better than the other chiptunes bundle they have, Bitrate & Monoboy.

The Capsule drum synth is really cool and Coil has some very interesting sounds. I don't have any use for the Clique one, but the other two are quite nice.

What I have never understood is: Why are people happy to pay hundreds of dollars for Kontakt instruments, but they flat refuse to pay for Reaktor ensembles? Kontakt and Reaktor are just platforms; a lot of serious, legitimate work goes into some of these ensembles. Work that deserves compensation as much as a good Kontakt library does.

Caine123 · Post by **Caine123** » Fri Jul 24, 2015 9:26 pm

i played through the presets a bit and i have to say this was a total misbuy for me

maybe the presets arent so well but this sounds all so cheap and dull..... there are enough synth1 presets which kill this in everything. too bad i cannot re-sell it. i dont like the sound of the ensembles.... well that's life. maybe too harsh but i expected more on nowadays market. should have bought some soundsets for this price for diva.

Heavyocity C-Tools