User Forum

loadammo · #1 14-04-2008, 19:15

I uploaded ammobox lite over the weekend, it's in the user library here: http://www.native-instruments.com:80...patchid =7085

ammobox consists of two parts, 'HangTheDJ', which is a very basic digital time-code vinyl reader, and 'ammobox:lite' a MIDI triggerable sampler.

The basic use is, hook your turntable up and play your time-code vinyl, and have HangTheDJ hooked up to sample the left and right channels, it will read the incoming audio streams and process them, it emits a couple signals that you can then use to drive other things, specifically the one most interesting for people will likely be the 'Spd' output, which is a float that represents the forward/backward speed of the record, ~+1.0 for 33rpm forward, ~-1.0 for 33rpm backwards, with of course ranges inbetween and higher and lower.

ammobox:lite is pretty basic, it has one sampler that you can load samples into and then trigger via MIDI, the playback speed is governed by the time-code vinyl values.

It's not as robust as Ms. Pinky or other commercial products available, but it is Reaktor's first digital time-code reader and it works, good enough for me to perform live with it.

The modules are reasonably documented explaining what they do, and I've made it fairly modular/simple to understand.

All of the audio stream processing is done in Core and this represents my first real 100% from scratch ensemble that I've uploaded.

With that said, I hope its useful to people, I'm sure people will scoff a bit at the time-code processing method, it's very basic, no error correction.. But maybe it'll spur someone on to one-up me and make it better. Either way I'm really proud that I was able to make this happen simply because I did it on my own from beginning to end, I achieved my goal and I get to share it with the community now.

I should note that while I did it on my own, there were some people who helped along the way during my first Core modules, CList and herw both gave me good answers when I posted Core questions, so thanks guys. Without those answers I might not have kept going with trying to understand Core -- I still have a ways to go but I think this is a good first step.

If anyone has questions regarding the ensemble, post them to this thread and I'll see what I can come up with. Truth be told I'm extremely burnt out on the project at the moment so don't expect a lot.

Roger Linn seemed to be paying a lot of attention to what was going on when I showed off ammobox @ Yuri's Night this weekend, but didn't give me his vote for the contest. (boo) He did summarize it to me in a question as 'Final Scratch on steroids?' as far as the concept though. So that's kinda cool.

-n

Horuschild · #2 14-04-2008, 21:48

I don't have anything that I can try it out on...

But I was thinking of adding some graphics to it, if get to it I'll post it here. If you don't want that I'll make a seperate thread so as to not change the focus of the thread. I just always wanted to make a graf for turn-table ensemble. You do what you like with it or people can just try it out and dump it if they want.

loadammo · #3 14-04-2008, 22:18

Yeah, any input would be appreciated. If you like the 'base' of the record but wanted to make modifications I'd be happy to send you the PSD of it.

An odd bug I've noticed is that the light-reflection alpha image seems to be getting bumped to the bottom randomly, like it's a module processing thing.. sometimes I open the ensemble and it looks right, other times it's behind the animation.. If it looks like garbage for you, go into the UI macro for it and click the alpha thing, makes the record look way better! heh.

Otherwise, any improvements would be awesome, I'm super burnt out on the project but if other people get excited it'll likely drive me a bit.

-n

Horuschild · #4 14-04-2008, 23:03

loadammo wrote:

Yeah, any input would be appreciated. If you like the 'base' of the record but wanted to make modifications I'd be happy to send you the PSD of it.

An odd bug I've noticed is that the light-reflection alpha image seems to be getting bumped to the bottom randomly, like it's a module processing thing.. sometimes I open the ensemble and it looks right, other times it's behind the animation.. If it looks like garbage for you, go into the UI macro for it and click the alpha thing, makes the record look way better! heh.

Otherwise, any improvements would be awesome, I'm super burnt out on the project but if other people get excited it'll likely drive me a bit.

-n

I don't have a problem with the record spin I actually like the sort of bumpiness that it has, adds a little realism to it. I was thinking more of building the deck around it...end of the week I will have time. The use of the alpha stage is needed to get the effect that you want, so I would keep all of that.

loadammo · #5 14-04-2008, 23:55

Added another youtube video:

YouTube - ammobox lite demo

Horuschild · #6 15-04-2008, 01:07

Thanks that is really cool man, nice to see it in action.

theologiae · #7 15-04-2008, 06:03

i'm sorry to ask what might be a stupid question, but what is time encoded vinyl? i would love to get this running, but i don't know what that is and if it work with a shitty turntable like i have.

loadammo · #8 15-04-2008, 19:39

time-code vinyl is the records that are shipped with the following (but not limited to) products..

Ms. Pinky
Serato Scratch
Torq
Final Scratch
Traktor Scratch

Also, a bit of an easter egg in ammobox is that it's 'internal TC' is a rudimentary audio stream generator that creates enough of a time-code that you can drive ammobox if you record the audio it produces and burn it to a CD and have CD decks.. So, you may not have to buy any time code in that case.

Here's the module that does that..

http://www.remix.net/timecodegen.jpg

Otherwise, you can pop down to the DJ store and pick up some time-code vinyl or order one off the internet (usually $15-20) to test it out with.

You do need to have a low latency sound card tho, otherwise you'll run into the obvious sync problems one would expect -- anything that can run reaktor in low latency should work fine tho.

Horuschild · #9 16-04-2008, 08:33

I really suck at making certain type of things

this is one of them.

Here's what I was able to do. The record turns nice and smooth though, no jiggles.

loadammo · #10 16-04-2008, 20:17

Sweet, looks great. Could I get you to post a layered image? There's a few things I'd like to modify but I think it's a big leap beyond what I have currently.

Horuschild · #11 16-04-2008, 20:43

Do you have Photoshop CS3 it would be easy to send you that. As far as the images go I can but the file will be to large I will have to do it from an off-site location which not a problem for me, but if the record is what you want to change you will have some trouble as the rotation are done in knobman, unless of course you are on PC, but even then you will have to reload all images into the program since the destinations for file will change. Will take me few days to just collect images big help if you have CS3.

loadammo · #12 16-04-2008, 20:46

Yeah, I have CS3 -- you can email it directly to me nar @ hush.com if you'd like. Much appreciated!

Horuschild · #13 16-04-2008, 22:45

Sent PSD files to your e-mail

loadammo · #14 16-04-2008, 23:46

Thanks Horus! I got 'em!

Also, to anyone interested in how ammobox / digital vinyl works, I've done a summary write up on my wiki:

http://www.remix.net/wiki/ammobox

Cornerman · #15 22-04-2008, 11:41

How do you connect the hardware for this to work ? I want do try it out with a mixer and 2 turntables. I have a motu 828 which i want to use to connect everything.

Thanks in advance.