Yearly Archives: 2013

Euclidean Sequencing in Reaktor

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Here is a ridiculously cool Euclidean sequencer for Reaktor. It features 16 individual channels each with their own settings and an adjustable lowest note for MIDI output.

The sequencer makes no sound itself but you can direct its MIDI output to anything. Here’s a video showing the sequencer in use triggering Microtonic:

Sequencer download and more information here. I stumbled across the author’s site while searching for some tips on how to use the Reaktor event bus, one of the components of the partials framework, about which the author – the mysterious “marv” – has written an article here.

For more on Euclidean rhythms and sequencing in general, check out this superb and inspiring article on the topic at Create Digital Music.

Update: Marv / Normalised has kindly posted an updated version of the sequencer below in the comments. There’s just one sequencer in the newer instrument but it should be a breeze to copy and paste it.

Ableton Live + Reaktor MIDI OSC workaround

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In this video, John Burgess demonstrates how to route MIDI over OSC between different instances of Reaktor in Ableton Live, in order to send on multiple channels to Kontakt.


I’m not the biggest Ableton Live fiend on the planet, so if there’s a different workaround, let me know in the comments and I’ll add it here. Nevertheless, John has created a very cool introduction to Reaktor’s ability to send MIDI over OSC, something I haven’t experimented with much. Besides its applicability in Live, this technique could also come in very handy to route MIDI over the network in Windows, or between Windows and a Mac – or between two Macs if for some reason you don’t want to use the built in network MIDI facilities.

John also created another video on Reaktor in Live, demonstrating how to keep Live from putting Reaktor to sleep when you’re using it to transmit MIDI. Handy to know in conjunction with the other video!

Practical Reaktor

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I’ve started tidying and reorganizing the blog, and have added the tag Practical Reaktor to what I think are the most useful posts for builders and aspiring builders. What used to be the Tutorials link in the navbar up top is now labeled Practical Reaktor.

A new Practical Reaktor link for you – David Coffin’s FX tutorial. From the intro:

“This tutorial is for beginners to Reaktor 4 (R) and anyone else who wants to explore getting the most out of the vast number of existing R effects and routing components, without the need to build new effects processors. I’ll be treating R as big box of stomp-box or rack-mounted processors, modulators and routing tools and describing how to patch, configure and control them in ways inspired by the best hardware effects. As you’ll see, doing so in R is very often more flexible and more powerful than anything you could do with hardware. We’ll be using R in standalone mode, but of course, any R effects can also be opened in VST and other plug-in hosts.” 

It’s a Reaktor 4 era document but most if not all of the same techniques apply to version 5, with a few minor differences here and there. It’s a fantastic resource for beginners to get used to stringing things together and making good stuff happen. Check it out.

Get Metaphysical with REAKTOR

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In this video, Brent Kallmer investigates a Reaktor factory library ensemble that is in my top 5 ensembles of all time – Metaphysical Function. This is an instrument that completely changed my approach to music by taking it off the grid – the timeline – and teaching me a more freeform approach. If you’ve never dug deep into Metaphysical Function, now’s the time.

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The Reaktor Tips Summer Madness sale is ongoing. Just apply the discount code SUMMERMADNESS in the shopping cart for 30% off any item or combination of items in the Reaktor Tips shop!

Practical Reaktor – Remapping MIDI Controllers

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This post was inspired by Twitter user @urbster1 who asked whether Reaktor could remap MIDI CCs (continuous controllers). The answer is an unqualified yes and here’s how:

We have here a simple ensemble with four macros, each of which has “from” and “to” selectors for MIDI controller and channel. If you want to remap more CCs, just clone the macros and arrange them on the front panel.

Each macro contains MIDI channel message in and out modules, plus controls to filter the incoming messages with routers. The type of message is set to 3 for MIDI CC, and if the incoming event matches that, it gets passed to the next router, which tests whether it’s on the correct channel. Finally, a third router lets through only events for the MIDI CC number you have selected.

Similarly, there are controls to select the outgoing MIDI CC number and channel you want to send to. Technical note: the order of events for the Channel Message module is from top to bottom for the incoming module, and from bottom to top for the outgoing module. You’ll need to know this if you want to modify and enhance these structures.

So what is this good for? It’s useful whenever you have a device or plugin that sends inflexibly fixed CCs and you want to send them to another device – which may have different fixed CCs.You can also perform operations on the controller data to invert or scale it, by adding a few simple math modules.

Download your copy here. Questions? Ask away!