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Using Konkreet Performer and TouchOSC in a host?

Spending some time with Lemur since its launch, one of the neatest features is the ability to script 14 bit MIDI, to give higher resolution control over various parameters. This is essential in instruments like Loupe and Mirage, where regular 7 bit MIDI just doesn’t give the fineness I want to set loop points. It’s too steppy and jumpy.

I’m working right now on creating Lemur templates for my ensembles, but I’d also like to do version for Konkreet Performer and TouchOSC. This would involve running a Pure Data patch and rerouting PD’s output, which is an extra step, but it would enable fine grained control within a host. As you may have noticed, Reaktor’s OSC capabilities are missing in the plugin versions (for the love of God, why?!)

Anyhow, vote in the poll above if this extended capability for Konkreet, TouchOSC and my instruments interests you.

Update: I’ve hit a few performance issues with Pure Data so I’m going to do the OSC translator as a custom Reaktor patch. Here’s what you do: run Reaktor standalone alongside your host with the translator patch, and redirect its MIDI output to your host. This is easy on Mac because programs can share a core audio interface, but a bit sticky on Windows where ASIO access is exclusive. One solution could be to redirect Reaktor’s output to a different sound interface, or set it to use the DirectX driver. I’m open to suggestions from Windows users.

So, how about it – Reaktor as a translator?

Update 2: things are coming together…

Reaktor Spiral opened in raw mode in Audacity

Most binary file types just give you white noise if you try the old “open them in an audio editor” trick to make samples for Ryoji Ikeda or Alva Noto type tracks. However I’ve discovered that Reaktor ensembles lend themselves particulary well to this misuse and often sound extremely varied and unpredictable. Probably has something to do with the variety of embedded information – primary level structures, core level structures, samples, bitmaps and who knows what else.

UPDATE: some more details on opening binaries in AudacityFIRST, TURN DOWN THE VOLUME. Raw binary files like this can be as grating and ear damaging as anything Merzbow ever came up with. Careful with your ears and equipment.

in the main Audacity menu, go to file -> import -> raw data, browse to your file, and open it. You will get a dialog asking for the bit depth, “endianness”, and number of channels. Experiment with different options but 16 bit stereo is a good start.

Fast Sample Wrangling with Reaper, Edison and Reaktor

How do you deal with samples and MP3s that you want to use as raw material in Reaktor? Reaktor has an audio browser, but it doesn’t read compressed formats so they have to be converted beforehand. Then you’ll probably want to break them down into chunks so you don’t have to import a three minute song to get a ten second drum break or koto sample – so you have to fire up a separate audio editor and cut things up ahead of time.

FL Studio is one of my go-to programs for this, especially for dealing with large numbers of samples. It has a great sample browser sidebar which previews-on-select your compressed or uncompressed audio, and the integrated FL version of the Edison wave editor makes it a snap to grab a selected area of a sample and drag it into a sampler channel or the playlist. This works for just about any audio file, including compressed formats like Ogg and MP3.

This is handy for prototyping things and trying out ideas, but the built in sampler channels are limited and I’d rather be dragging things into Reaktor. So can you drag a sample or a piece of a sample from Edison into Reaktor running as a plugin in FL Studio? Of course not – that would be too easy.

The next step for me was to try the standalone Edison sound editor and see if it can drag selections into standalone Reaktor’s sample map. Nope, that didn’t work either.

Finally, I loaded up Reaktor in Reaper, selected a sample from Reaper‘s media explorer (it’s very similar to a Windows file explorer window), and opened it in Edison. Magically, dragging a selected area from Edison into Reaktor worked now! Reaper is voodoo, kids. I don’t question it too much, I just use it and be thankful.

Sample Drag and Drop with Edison, Reaper and Reaktor from Peter Dines on Vimeo.

The media explorer tab, like the browser in FL, works with compressed or uncompressed audio and can preview on select. And of course Edison can deal with compressed or uncompressed audio, so these two plus Reaktor make a super sampling triumvirate powerhouse. Jeez, I should be writing ad copy. Anyways, go grab ’em, because the demo versions of both programs are non expiring and will allow you to do what I’ve demonstrated here.

Reaper

Edison