The Finger?

[Spring Goose]

I have just installed this for the first time, and i'm finding it underwhelming. It was this thread

viewtopic.php?t=596028

which reminded me to give it a try. I have started a new thread because i didn't want to derail that thread, and because its an effect.

So i installed it, plugged in my midi keyboard, and i read the manual. I understand it's 4 octaves of playable effects from C3-B6. I'm finding it underwhelming, i've tried a few snapshots, they all sound much the same (mostly distortion/crunchy sounds)

1/ Please tell me why The Finger is brilliant
2/ How do i play this thing or what am i doing wrong?
3/ What source material should i use?
4/ Can you explain the twister section because i don't think i get it
5/ anything else relevant you want to add

THANKYOU

[Spring Goose]

ah my midi keyboard doesn't have a mod wheel

edit: ok so i have swapped the midi controller for a 4 octave with a mod wheel,. but i'm still finding it underwhelming.

[Dirk Diggler]

Try feeding it audio as well as midi.

[Spring Goose]

Try feeding it audio as well as midi.

Thanks for sharing the video. Yeah i was routing audio samples through it but my results didn't sound like the video. I'll persevere with it!

[bmanic]

The clever bit about The Finger is that it allows you to layer effects blocks in any order of your choosing, turning each effect on and off with MIDI Note On/Off messages. It also gives you a HUGE list of usable effects.

This is how you use The Finger:

• Open Reaktor 6 FX plugin

• Make sure your keyboard sends midi to it

• Put some audio on the track where Reaktor 6 FX version is located (or send audio to the channel)

• Open The Finger and start with the INIT preset
  You will see a bunch of highpass filters on every MIDI key. Press down on a key on your keyboard that you want to edit then select the effect you want for that key from the drop down list in the upper left corner of The Finger. To open the list you simply click on the text (by default, like I said above, it says "Highpass"). This opens up a huge list of different effects.

• Each effect has two main knobs that you use to modify it. Some effects only use the first knob but many use two knobs. For instance the filters have Cutoff and Resonance

• All effects also has an envelope with a speed control. Or you can switch it to two different looping envelopes/LFOs, again the speed is controlled by the knob. Sometimes you need to retrigger the key/effect to get the speed knob working

• Now setup different effects and settings for a few keys on your keyboard. Once you are done with this you can now "play" the effects in the exact order you pressed the keys

Example:

C4 = Highpass with resonance
D4 = Distortion
E4 = Ringmodulation
F4 = Lowpass with resonance

If I play D4, F4, E4 and C4, in this order, I get Distortion first, then Lowpass, then Ringmodulation and finally the Highpass. Change the order you play and the order of the effects series changes too.

This is the basic idea of The Finger. You get a lot more control and creative freedom if you include MIDI velocity values, modwheel and the "twister" knobs.. but it would get too long to write about all of those here. I highly recommend reading the manual if you want to truly explore it in detail.

In short: The Finger is a serial effects chain that can change it's routing on the fly with tons of control over how the effects play, controlled by velocity and modwheel.

[Spring Goose]

The clever bit about The Finger is that it allows you to layer effects blocks in any order of your choosing, turning each effect on and off with MIDI Note On/Off messages. It also gives you a HUGE list of usable effects.

This is how you use The Finger:

• Open Reaktor 6 FX plugin

• Make sure your keyboard sends midi to it

• Put some audio on the track where Reaktor 6 FX version is located (or send audio to the channel)

• Open The Finger and start with the INIT preset
  You will see a bunch of highpass filters on every MIDI key. Press down on a key on your keyboard that you want to edit then select the effect you want for that key from the drop down list in the upper left corner of The Finger. To open the list you simply click on the text (by default, like I said above, it says "Highpass"). This opens up a huge list of different effects.

• Each effect has two main knobs that you use to modify it. Some effects only use the first knob but many use two knobs. For instance the filters have Cutoff and Resonance

• All effects also has an envelope with a speed control. Or you can switch it to two different looping envelopes/LFOs, again the speed is controlled by the knob. Sometimes you need to retrigger the key/effect to get the speed knob working

• Now setup different effects and settings for a few keys on your keyboard. Once you are done with this you can now "play" the effects in the exact order you pressed the keys

Example:

C4 = Highpass with resonance
D4 = Distortion
E4 = Ringmodulation
F4 = Lowpass with resonance

If I play D4, F4, E4 and C4, in this order, I get Distortion first, then Lowpass, then Ringmodulation and finally the Highpass. Change the order you play and the order of the effects series changes too.

This is the basic idea of The Finger. You get a lot more control and creative freedom if you include MIDI velocity values, modwheel and the "twister" knobs.. but it would get too long to write about all of those here. I highly recommend reading the manual if you want to truly explore it in detail.

In short: The Finger is a serial effects chain that can change it's routing on the fly with tons of control over how the effects play, controlled by velocity and modwheel.

Aw man you're awesome! TYVM

[bmanic]

One quick note about the Combfilters. You MUST enable velocity modulation to them and NOT trigger 100% velocity (127) for them to actually work. Not sure why, they probably need a wet/dry mix to function but it's a bit weird. I'm probably going to open up The Finger and see under the hood what is going on.

[Spring Goose]

One quick note about the Combfilters. You MUST enable velocity modulation to them and NOT trigger 100% velocity (127) for them to actually work. Not sure why, they probably need a wet/dry mix to function but it's a bit weird. I'm probably going to open up The Finger and see under the hood what is going on.

Thanks again, have fun!

[bmanic]

Here is a quick little demonstration of The Finger in action, live recorded.. just messing around really on a short techno loop. I assigned my own set of effects over a full octave of the keyboard and then just played it live while having record enabled.

The Finger improv (Google Drive, mp3 9mb)

[Ah_Dziz]

Try and set up your own FX with settings tuned to your song and such. As mentioned above, the auto reordering is part of how useful this is. Having a filter into a delay into a distortion and then switching to delay into distortion into filter can sound super different and switching back and forth is as easy with the finger as with any other FX plugin. It's also just super fun to play with live.

[bmanic]

One more example of using The Finger as a simple transition effect using the global Attack and Release envelopes (right side of the plugin there are two knobs, attack and release.. these are global). This helps with smooth transitions in and out of the effects. Here in this example I'm hitting something like 7 different keys in a short span and holding them down for about 15 seconds and then releasing them. All of the effects have slow LFOs controlling the various parameters to create an interesting lo-fi transition using FM, Ringmod (180 degree version), and various filters inserted at precise timings to get the final sound degradation to sound nice.

The Finger, transition lo-fi transition example (Google Drive, mp3 1.2mb)

[Spring Goose]

Cheers guys!

[Boy Wonder]

Here is a quick little demonstration of The Finger in action, live recorded.. just messing around really on a short techno loop. I assigned my own set of effects over a full octave of the keyboard and then just played it live while having record enabled.

The Finger improv (Google Drive, mp3 9mb)

Sounds good. I love me some stutter. Come to think of it, besides The Finger and Stutter Edit, are there other plugins that allow you to trigger parameters via your midi keyboard? I can just imagine how nice Looperator or Glitch 2 would be if they implemented this.

[carrieres]

Artillery2 from Sugar Bytes https://sugar-bytes.de/artillery2

[Boy Wonder]

Artillery2 from Sugar Bytes https://sugar-bytes.de/artillery2

Oh, sweet. I didn't know Artillery had that ability. Thanx.