Reaktor 6 blocks and audio rate modulation, feedback. Demo tracks?

[zerocrossing]

Also, would there be a way to rip the osc section out of a wavetable ens and turn it into a block to create something like a software Pro 2?

Sandy Small has already posted a Microwave block using Waldorf wavetables in the user library

Oh, now we're cooking with gas!

[pdxindy]

hell yeah. i have no idea what they're doing under the hood, but NI really does have some "next level" stuff going on lately. overall, nothing else out there has quite the same "3-Dimensional liveliness" that i'm finding so upfront in Driver, Monark, Blocks, and (from my short time with it) Rounds. i was never really into their synths until Razor and Prizm, and then with Driver i thought they were really onto something. they've been putting out sonically top-notch stuff ever since, which also happens to look beautiful for the most part.

I liked your demos!

Monark was the first NI synth I actually liked the sound of. I mean, of course I heard plenty of cool presets and all, but the basic sound quality, I just didn't like much... until Monark.

[zerocrossing]

I think upgrading to Reaktor 6 is going to be my next "money spent on me" target. I'm using R5 more and more lately, and the blocks modularity in R6 is something I've wanted for a long time.

Hey AAS, get your ass in gear with that new Tassman!

Dear Jace,

We're not done raping it to make other VSTs like Chromaphone.

Love,

AAS

[jbuonacc]

made sure to record my first encounter with the 'Bleat' oscillator (complex oscillator? synth? WMD?) Block from the Reaktor User Library... this thing is nuts. [**watch out for your speakers!!]

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/8837/

https://soundcloud.com/jbuonacc/r6-bleat-block

[ghettosynth]

made sure to record my first encounter with the 'Bleat' oscillator (complex oscillator? synth? WMD?) Block from the Reaktor User Library... this thing is nuts. [**watch out for your speakers!!]

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/r ... show/8837/

https://soundcloud.com/jbuonacc/r6-bleat-block

I was going to point this module out. Out of the box it's a bit crazy, but if you take the modulation off of the "tame "control, and turn some of the knobs back to the left, it's a really deep and alive sounding oscillator.

[kmonkey]

I don't get it! How do you raise or lower your view of the R6 as an instrument - with these nonsense noise examples? What am i missing? I literally browsed all of them (posted in this thread) and they are random twirly nonsense signals (ok one had a rhytm)..What is there to be achieved with these examples? How are these better or worse then thousands of already available drone and modulate ensembles in public library?

Is it sort of moduular world (which i never get involved in)? But then, if you are into modular are all these people producing such random swirly noise and that's it. Surely i am not trying to offend anyone i am genuinely curious why do people produce such signals and post them to public while talking about quality of an instrument?

I can recall ten years ago at this forum it was sine wave played at high pitch and if there wasn't clean cricket nonsense signal if there was even tiny bit of aliasing at wave analyzer - developer was burned to hell and instrument was pointed as bad..

Now there's that sort of "i can modulate my shit faster then you can" - is that it?

[Jace-BeOS]

Hm, I hadn't listened to the samples posted here. The synthesizer world is well known for a segment of its populous for whom modular rigs are more a fetish than a musical instrument, and producing "insect noises" is the core activity of such enthusiasts, so I guess that'll happen with a software modular too. Some people make music with them, some people just make noises. I sometimes wonder if it's just easier to make noises, since the patching is tedious and not savable (in hardware).

[jbuonacc]

I don't get it!

lol, hilarious.

examples like this are just what the OP was asking for (see the thread title), and show exactly how well R6 does extreme modulation. (well, now that i think of it, maybe he was asking for more traditional synth lead or fx sounds using FM/Sync/etc.)

if you can't hear (and literally feel from your speakers) the difference between these examples and pretty much any other softsynth trying to do the same, then i'm not sure what to tell you. there really is NOTHING else out there (in my experience, and have tried most everything) in the softsynth world that can do stuff like this with such range and articulation. i haven't heard anything like this since i sold my Nord Modular G2. close with some synths, but they were all "just almost there" (even with most anything made with R5). most other softsynths completely fall apart when trying to do stuff like this, or just sound/feel rather piddly in comparison.

i think these examples show off what is really possible with R6 far better than just another typical "musical" demo. need another supersaw trance synth? lol, gtfo.

do you have any requests?

[ghettosynth]

I don't get it! How do you raise or lower your view of the R6 as an instrument - with these nonsense noise examples? What am i missing? I literally browsed all of them (posted in this thread) and they are random twirly nonsense signals (ok one had a rhytm)..What is there to be achieved with these examples? How are these better or worse then thousands of already available drone and modulate ensembles in public library?

In a basic sense, you are completely correct. R6 introduces very little that actually enhances raw sonic potential over R5. The value of blocks is largely about the consistency and re-usability for average synth-heads. Before R6, you really did have to dig deeply into R5 to build your own noisemaker if you wanted it to sound and look good. R6 makes modular flexibility more accessible to those with a basic understanding of synth architecture, but who lack the experience with lower level reaktor construction.

Yes, there are some new sound tools in R6, but really, very few. In fact, the interesting features are really quite deep and again beyond the scope of the average user.

Is it sort of moduular world (which i never get involved in)? But then, if you are into modular are all these people producing such random swirly noise and that's it. Surely i am not trying to offend anyone i am genuinely curious why do people produce such signals and post them to public while talking about quality of an instrument?

I can recall ten years ago at this forum it was sine wave played at high pitch and if there wasn't clean cricket nonsense signal if there was even tiny bit of aliasing at wave analyzer - developer was burned to hell and instrument was pointed as bad..

Now there's that sort of "i can modulate my shit faster then you can" - is that it?

People are often in love with the idea of potential without having any realization of that potential. Audio rate modulation isn't, again, new to reaktor. You have always had that ability, well, at least since core. Even audio rate modulation in blocks isn't necessarily audio rate modulation. It's really only audio rate modulation compatible. If you feed an audio rate modulation into a module that is reducing the modulation rate, you won't get audio rate modulation.

R6 is great, but it's not really "better" sounding in any significant way over R5.9. What is true is that the elements of reaktor that are easy to grok are better sounding in R6 over their friends in R5. Blocks use contemporary technology, the older classic modular macros, not so much. So, a beginner can make a better sounding synth more quickly in R6 than they could in R5.

But yes, modular noobs always seem to gravitate towards insect noises. I think that it's a combination of several factors. 1) Not really understanding how to get deep high quality sounds, 2) The attitude that more is better which leads to unnecessary complexity and "just one more module" syndrome, 3) The ease with which which one can create such sounds and the corresponding difficulty of creating the same sounds with more mainstream synths, and 4) The fact that such sounds can be easily discovered by random patching. In fact, you are more likely to discover such sounds than you would deeper interesting sounds which require more subtle modulation.

Just take the bleat block for example. It's really great, but, out of the box, the modulation is turned up to silly levels and, to my ears, it sounds like shit. Turn those down and you get really smoothly chaotic drone sounds.

[Winstontaneous]

The synthesizer world is well known for a segment of its populous for whom modular rigs are more a fetish than a musical instrument, and producing "insect noises" is the core activity of such enthusiasts, so I guess that'll happen with a software modular too.

C'mon, be fair, there are also a lot of "masturbating robot" sounds out there as well.

[pdxindy]

But yes, modular noobs always seem to gravitate towards insect noises. I think that it's a combination of several factors. 1) Not really understanding how to get deep high quality sounds, 2) The attitude that more is better which leads to unnecessary complexity and "just one more module" syndrome, 3) The ease with which which one can create such sounds and the corresponding difficulty of creating the same sounds with more mainstream synths, and 4) The fact that such sounds can be easily discovered by random patching. In fact, you are more likely to discover such sounds than you would deeper interesting sounds which require more subtle modulation.

Just take the bleat block for example. It's really great, but, out of the box, the modulation is turned up to silly levels and, to my ears, it sounds like shit. Turn those down and you get really smoothly chaotic drone sounds.

What I look for are real "insect" noises... ones that have an organic natural character that could actually fool someone into thinking some real creature or physical contraption made the sound. My favorite stuff is when you cannot tell for sure how the sounds were made.

Most of the modular noodling never gets there. It is usually still mechanical and sounds like modular noodling.

[zerocrossing]

I don't get it! How do you raise or lower your view of the R6 as an instrument - with these nonsense noise examples? What am i missing? I literally browsed all of them (posted in this thread) and they are random twirly nonsense signals (ok one had a rhytm)..What is there to be achieved with these examples? How are these better or worse then thousands of already available drone and modulate ensembles in public library?

Is it sort of moduular world (which i never get involved in)? But then, if you are into modular are all these people producing such random swirly noise and that's it. Surely i am not trying to offend anyone i am genuinely curious why do people produce such signals and post them to public while talking about quality of an instrument?

I can recall ten years ago at this forum it was sine wave played at high pitch and if there wasn't clean cricket nonsense signal if there was even tiny bit of aliasing at wave analyzer - developer was burned to hell and instrument was pointed as bad..

Now there's that sort of "i can modulate my shit faster then you can" - is that it?

You just have a much more narrow idea of what music is than a lot of us. I used to do a lot of shows doing the kind of thing that's shown in these demos. Some on my own, some with a group called Big City Orchestra. I remember one of the shows we did in the Sacramento Noise fest was standing room only. The place was packed.

Also, in terms of more traditional music, audio rate modulation is very useful to get rough and aggressive kinds of sounds. Here's a quick demo I made for jbounacc in another forum. It's my KingKORG doing some of it's alternate osc modes. (it's just me tweaking as I go, so it's crude and there's a lot of chaos between the traditional tones, but you'll hear them)

https://soundcloud.com/zerocrossing-1/kingkorgoscmess

The thing is, I've got to ditch my KingKORG soon and I need a software alternative. Looks like Reaktor 6 should do it for those types of sounds.

[Jace-BeOS]

The synthesizer world is well known for a segment of its populous for whom modular rigs are more a fetish than a musical instrument, and producing "insect noises" is the core activity of such enthusiasts, so I guess that'll happen with a software modular too.

C'mon, be fair, there are also a lot of "masturbating robot" sounds out there as well.

[ghettosynth]

But yes, modular noobs always seem to gravitate towards insect noises. I think that it's a combination of several factors. 1) Not really understanding how to get deep high quality sounds, 2) The attitude that more is better which leads to unnecessary complexity and "just one more module" syndrome, 3) The ease with which which one can create such sounds and the corresponding difficulty of creating the same sounds with more mainstream synths, and 4) The fact that such sounds can be easily discovered by random patching. In fact, you are more likely to discover such sounds than you would deeper interesting sounds which require more subtle modulation.

Just take the bleat block for example. It's really great, but, out of the box, the modulation is turned up to silly levels and, to my ears, it sounds like shit. Turn those down and you get really smoothly chaotic drone sounds.

What I look for are real "insect" noises... ones that have an organic natural character that could actually fool someone into thinking some real creature or physical contraption made the sound. My favorite stuff is when you cannot tell for sure how the sounds were made.

Sure, I'm not trying to single out insect noises, per se. I think that you're right, so much modular noodling, especially with various forms of complex oscillators, is just accidentally "insect like." It's very easy to get crap out of FM, as you well know, the challenge is getting something intriguing, and no, it doesn't have to sound pleasant.

Most of the modular noodling never gets there. It is usually still mechanical and sounds like modular noodling.

Just that, yes.

[arkmabat]

Also, would there be a way to rip the osc section out of a wavetable ens and turn it into a block to create something like a software Pro 2?

Sandy Small has already posted a Microwave block using Waldorf wavetables in the user library

Oh, now we're cooking with gas!

I prefer cooking with poo. http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-With-Pooh ... 1570822611