Category Archives: Downloads

Sequenced Ensembles by David Elson

Reaktor friends, you should check out what David Elson is up to in the user library.

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David has taken my Roux sequencer macro and run with it, and is doing things with it that are very interesting. Sequencing granular parameters? Sequencing beats? Hell yeah, that’s what you do with it. His choice of sampled material and sound design for the Slicer ensemble is particularly nice, too.

Microtuning in Reaktor – with Instrument Download

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About a year ago I fell under the spell of Aleksi Perälä’s album MU3. I listened to it whenever I could, and heard it in my head when I couldn’t play it. It was subtly, maddeningly different, and stood out from the other new electronic music I was hearing around that time. It sounded pleasantly detuned, but not randomly so. What was he doing?

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MPT Deep House Synth for Reaktor

Here’s the (almost) free Deep House Synth for Reaktor, from Danny J. Lewis of Music Production Tutorials.

You can get the Deep House Synth almost for free, or rather, for a tweet or a facebook post, which is an interesting use of networking – it makes the phrase “social capital” rather literal.

In this second video, Danny discusses the internal structure of the synth:

Update: if you’re feeling nervous about giving Pay With A Tweet write access to your Twitter or FB timeline, you can always edit your FB or Twitter app settings afterwards to revoke access to your account from this app. Your FB app settings are here. Twitter app settings are here. If you’ve never visited those settings pages before, you might be surprised at what already has write access to your timelines.

Great Free Reaktor Ensembles for New Users

Update: the mysterious and inimitable Len9 has updated the excellent Mortmain Reaktor Resource page with fresh links to ensembles, tutorials, general information and utilities. His page has been around since I first took an interest in Reaktor years ago and with this update it’s still the best one page overview of everything Reaktoriffic on the net.

click the logo to go to Len9’s resource page

Now that the great Reaktor $99 sale of 2013 is over we have a nest of new Reaktor hatchlings that require feeding! This is a couple of pointers to great ensembles in the user library.

Synth in a case: you know you want it

Your first stop should be the all time top 100, where you’ll find goodies like ZooTook’s Synth In A Case, the venerable but still worthy 3X by James Walker Hall, and the Morphing Minimal Drum Machine by Martin Brinkmann. When you’re on the page of a particularly good ensemble, make sure to click on the author’s name for a list of everything they’ve done in the library, and don’t just sort by user rating – Martin Brinkmann in particular has a lot of really interesting ideas implemented in older ensembles that aren’t highly rated. Do get MadPad.

You will want to collect the ensembles of Rick Scott and Dieter Zobel. It’s awesome how much the character of the builder can come through in Reaktor ensembles and they offer many examples of this. Especially check out some of the older Zobel contraptions, like Pole-Onaise which I remixed into Dubby Red Planet. Another gorgeous Zobel joint is Locutus II and don’t forget Haemotherapy (both versions). Locutus and Haemotherapy are in my top 5 Reaktor ensembles of all time for their weirdness and individuality.

A whole whack of great uploads can be yours free, courtesy of Sonictwist! (who went on to found Twisted Tools). Get’em all!

Intermediate to advanced builders will appreciate the ability to build their own modulars with click-to-connect front panels courtesy of Hervig Krass. Noobs can enjoy his finished instruments and example modulars.

Around the net, don’t miss the great instruments and effects of Boscomac.

Finally, when you’re looking for a simple and direct granular sampler that cuts through the usual bells and whistles, check out my own Frame 3.

This is a quickie thumbnail sketch of a few ensembles that stand out in my mind but there are many, many more… I know I’ve neglected many great builders, and if you have favorites of your own I haven’t mentioned, please leave a link in the comments!

Happy exploring, downloading, building and music making.

Update: bftucker from the KVR forums provided a link to this PDF from Simon Hunt that describes a wide range of user ensembles classified by type – granular, effect, beat sequencer, etc. A little old but that’s cool because it probably has a lot of stuff that’s slipped off the radar by 2013.

Update 2: Can’t believe I forgot Antonio Blanca’s superb Dron-e. 

Update 3: Oh and also Blanca’s Nod-e. (Hat tip: David DeLizza)

Update 4: Thanks to Ronnie from Rekkerd, three more suggestions: Rubiter Ate, Concept X and Fourious plus Fourious 2000. To which I will add, check out the other synths by Paul Woodroffe and Stephan Becker too. Soon you’ll have a formidable armada of great sounding and unique synths.

Mixin’ it up with Konkreet Performer

I was talking to another Reaktor builder about mixing Konkreet Performer signals, so one KP parameter could control 25% of the range of a Reaktor instrument parameter, another could control 10%, and so on. It was an intriguing idea so I worked out the math and knocked this quick test ensemble together.

All it does is mix the X-value signals from the first three nodes in Konkreet Performer, then normalize the range so it’s always 0 to 1. That way you don’t have to fish around making sure everything adds up to 100%. Here’s what the structure looks like:
The output goes to a numeric display so you can see the values. 
You could easily adapt this to control whatever parameter you desire, or send the result to MIDI, or even adapt it to mix incoming MIDI CCs instead of Konkreet OSC parameters. 
Here’s the ensemble. Happy building!