User Forum

marvotron · #31 08-08-2007, 16:19

glad you like it, its one of the ones i still enjoy (even after 10 years)

i sequenced it using cubase for windows, before it got all the vst stuff and all that clutter

marvotron · #32 08-08-2007, 19:07

anyway, so back to the topic...like i said one of the reasons i bought reaktor is because i want to create a drum editor where you get the control and detail of hand editing, but with a lot less pain.

i've got some ideas and if anyone wants to get together and build something that would be cool..

whats the usual way of co-ordinating things here? in a thread, in a wiki? both?

also are there any instruments in the user lib which have good editors? or anything like recycle that has threshold based slicing?

(of course i'll search as well)

spencerTron · #33 08-08-2007, 23:10

marvotron wrote:

anyway, so back to the topic...like i said one of the reasons i bought reaktor is because i want to create a drum editor where you get the control and detail of hand editing, but with a lot less pain.

i've got some ideas and if anyone wants to get together and build something that would be cool..

whats the usual way of co-ordinating things here? in a thread, in a wiki? both?

also are there any instruments in the user lib which have good editors? or anything like recycle that has threshold based slicing?

(of course i'll search as well)

whats the pain, not that i find editing drum beats a breeze or anything.

Beatslicer 2 to in the official reaktor 5 library shares an element of recycles capabilties i.e. recognising hits within a loop etc, there are various 'remixes' of the ins in the UL also.

marvotron · #34 09-08-2007, 07:18

the pain is things like having to place every single hit. not being able to switch the quantize setting for a sound quickly, having to draw all the controller data. stuff like that which could be improved by having more useful tools.

take a look at GURU from fxPansion, that has some nice features for hand editing like when you click and drag it fills in all the steps from where you clicked to the mouse position (just on one lane though),
Then if you drag up or down while holding down the button it creates a velocity fade from the first to the last step..then if you hold down shift and drag up / down it changes the fill rate from 16ths to 8ths etc..

so with the same click and drag gesture you can do quite a few useful things.

thats just one idea that i would like to consider, other things im thinking about are better copy and paste facilities. rather than just one clipboard, have lots of clipboard slots which can hold fragments of patterns, not necessarily whole patterns.

Often when doing the drum editing stuff I use motifs throughout, which are not always played with the same hits or even the same break, but use the same underlying rhythm (and possibly controller data).

It would be cool if they were easy to store and place. Then you could also do interesting stuff like stretch or compress the timing (*2, /2), reverse it etc as you place it into the grid.

thanks for the beatslicer reminder, i saw it once when i just got reaktor a few weeks ago but reaktor creates a bit of information overload at first

i'll also check out the UL for inspiration..

ZooTooK · #35 09-08-2007, 12:36

Mavotron, the user lib includes a massive amount of beat mashers of all flavors, so your in for a ride! But it can be difficult to find what you are looking for even if it already exists. Spending lots of time downloading can pay of very well (I does to me anyway, I'm still finding 4-6 year old stuff that's amazing).

Try this http://www.native-instruments.com/in...w=list&filt=40

The Beat Slicer 2 if nice for slicing a wav file, but it won't give you the timing of the beats; there's no midi file export and no other way of sequencing the beats from that single ensemble. No sure if there exists an automatic transient slicer
that also configures a sequencer....? Would be very nice to have in Reaktor.

Random Step Shifter or Vectory (or any of the Vectory rebuilds in the UL) might be other starting points....and so on...

marvotron · #36 09-08-2007, 13:15

ZooTooK wrote:

No sure if there exists an automatic transient slicer
that also configures a sequencer....? Would be very nice to have in Reaktor.

exactly. if i cant find one then i'll learn how to build it

ZooTooK · #37 10-08-2007, 11:47

marvotron wrote:

exactly. if i cant find one then i'll learn how to build it

I really don't think there is one in the user library....

The timing info for each slice in BeatSlicer 2 is probably stored in an Event Table so it would be possible to re-use from somekind of sequencer in Reaktor. You would have to build that sequencer yourself (or at least to do the info transfer). Then that sequencer could play to a MIDI out, controlling other Reaktor ensembles or could be recorded in a external sequencer/VST host to be used outside Reaktor for further manipulations.

This is quite heavy stuff, understanding realtime event management on a deeper level but you have some experts on this board to advise you when you get stuck.... (I'm not one of them).

Good luck!

m3m · #38 10-08-2007, 12:27

Lovely work in Switch Hardflip, Elton - it'd be great to know how you've progressed over the past ten years!

It'd be hard work to produce a single ensemble to give you all that control (and the ensemble would then be hard to learn and use); would it be easier to produce a suite of ensembles/instruments designed to help with the various stages of the process you described? Something a little bit like:

(1) Sample-masher: takes a loop (perhaps chopped into hits); you specify which chunk of the loop it's operating on and it generates processed versions of the chunks... which you then record as audio files?
(2) Chop-player: something like an event table containing blocks of MIDI data: rolls, filter sweeps etc
(3) Sample-player: sample-based instrument containing a sample map made from the output of Sample-masher, which takes the MIDI stored in Chop-player and outputs more, longer audio files?

I suppose Chop-player could easily be replaced by MIDI tracks in a sequencer.

What you'd end up with would be your original loop, a set of processed hits, and a set of longer audio recordings of auto-generated runs and fills.

You could use these to make one rhythm track - chop them together quite quickly - and that would be a first (and perhaps a second/third) step towards a highly-processed glitched-up rhythm. You'd then audio-edit by hand, but working with audio files that were processed semi-automatically by Reaktor. Standing on the shoulders of giant robots.

Then maybe you could gradually work towards integrating the sections of the system into one ensemble, and gradually make them more performance-friendly?

marvotron · #39 11-08-2007, 06:01

m3m wrote:

Lovely work in Switch Hardflip, Elton - it'd be great to know how you've progressed over the past ten years!

thanks.., progressed. im not so sure about that. regressed probably.

i did a live performance for a radio show not long ago, you can listen to that here :

http://relivethefuture.com/music/mdk...17-06-2007.mp3

its about 83mb.

It'd be hard work to produce a single ensemble to give you all that control (and the ensemble would then be hard to learn and use); would it be easier to produce a suite of ensembles/instruments designed to help with the various stages of the process you described?

i think thats a good approach

(1) Sample-masher: takes a loop (perhaps chopped into hits); you specify which chunk of the loop it's operating on and it generates processed versions of the chunks... which you then record as audio files?

Right, but is there any way to automate that with reaktor? I know there are audio recording macros and stuff, but can the naming and saving be automated? that would be really useful

Then maybe you could gradually work towards integrating the sections of the system into one ensemble, and gradually make them more performance-friendly?

absolutely. having an idea of the other major modules in the system while you build can help make the design of each component suitable for integration later on.

i think im going to work on the 'chop-player' sequencing part first.

time to learn more about event tables, mouse areas and the rest.

i'll try to write everything down as i go along, ideas for functionality, links to ensembles / instruments that are worth deconstructing etc..

i've started a page on the wiki here :

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reaktor...ts/BeatMashery

m3m · #40 11-08-2007, 09:41

marvotron wrote:

Right, but is there any way to automate that with reaktor? I know there are audio recording macros and stuff, but can the naming and saving be automated? that would be really useful

Not that I know of - mind you, I like having editorial rights over the audio I generate anyway? So that I can choose the start/end points of a loop, etc etc

marvotron wrote:

i'll try to write everything down as i go along, ideas for functionality, links to ensembles / instruments that are worth deconstructing etc..

i've started a page on the wiki here :

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Reaktor...ts/BeatMashery

I wasn't trying to make work for you there by the way, just floating a possible approach, but hats off to you sir. Good luck with it, I'll check the Wiki out next time I get the chance

marvotron · #41 11-08-2007, 11:29

m3m wrote:

I wasn't trying to make work for you there by the way, just floating a possible approach

i know, but i think its the right path to take.

i've added the notes i had already written into the wiki. i'll go through this thread and extract anything else thats relevant.

Richie Grin · #42 12-08-2007, 19:54

hi guys. have been thinking a little while driving and just don't see much of a point to scaling certain breaks to certain keys as it appears synonymous to use a machine that can scoll through these parameters themselves through table automation... it's really the same thing; but i suppose whatever you feel more comfortable with will save you time.

the other thing i was going to say was either in here or in the squarepusher thread,,,, if worry of "new grounds" becoming scarce is the subject at hand, if i were you, which i kind of am since we're all trying to go for similar genres, i would start with deleting any loop you have that has not been made by you yourself. and start compiling a library of your own breaks from drum machines here in the library. (this was in response to someone talking about places to find loops or whatever.) as for rolls, you can maybe make some maps that are JUST rolls and sample select them. new ground often starts with the ground itself...moreover, if we're going to be that totalitarian about it, you might even want to change every single drum sound you have so that you can call it "yours," and only then, would you take those loops and "mash" them.

maybe this is stupid reiterations.

marvotron · #43 13-08-2007, 06:15

Richie Grin wrote:

hi guys. have been thinking a little while driving and just don't see much of a point to scaling certain breaks to certain keys as it appears synonymous to use a machine that can scoll through these parameters themselves through table automation... it's really the same thing; but i suppose whatever you feel more comfortable with will save you time.

can you explain that in more detail please

Richie Grin · #44 13-08-2007, 06:51

hi.

yeah totally. like one of the LA muses or logjammers or vectory remixes in the UL.

technically they're utilizing the space a key would just as beatslice does, you just don't have to paste in a seq

BinaryB · #45 14-08-2007, 09:27

sowari wrote:

like i said before, practice makes perfect

anyway, having said that...there is a trend these days in the world of drum 'n' bass to manually place the drum hits on the arrange page in a DAW (eg Logic). the emphasis seems to be on layering a number of kicks and snares on different tracks, and compressing EQing them in different ways to produce big FO kick and snares. on top of that breakbeats will be layered and a hi-pass filter will be used to bring out the tops and kill the bottoms, so that the layered kicks will sound more powerful. other layers will include "shuffles" (little snare-drum hihat fills) and maybe a recycled Amen (again Hi-Passed to get rid of low frequencies).

my worry, is that this need to get the "right sound" so that it sounds great in a club surely means the groove is being compromised?

sowari

Ive been doing this since Logic 2.5 and the other benefit of this method is that you learn about the loops you are chopping to a higher degree. It also helps you create new grooves by doing things that samplers cannot using weird quantizations you stumble accross while you are chopping away.

I am looking to play live with some sample mashers and also use them to develop my breakbeat loop library.