6 Recommended Ensembles

In no particular order:

Tick Tock by Rachmiel
I like ensembles that make rhythms in a un-drum machine sort of way. This has a great, classic, avant feel to it and reminds me of some of the percussion one hears in the works of Takamitsu, Reich, Xenakis and Messiaen. Because of it’s distinctive identity it can be hard to integrate into one’s own work as Rachmiel’s ever -distinctive imprint remains. Admired for it’s stunning simplicity. I’m a Rach devotee, of course.

Ouzo Randos by Didier Leboz
This has to be the quirkiest, squelchiest synth -sequencer oddity of all time! It’s an absolute masterpiece of the imagination. It’s beautifully engineered with unusual modulation of envelopes and filters. As with many of Deiter’s ensembles the pitching part of the 3-sequencer system seems almost arbitrary, encouraging general risk taking and straying from key bases. I’m a massive Leboz fan.

ChaOsc1 by Martin Brinkmann
The synth allows you to retain a dominant tonal impression to the sound - but at the same producing rhythmic, feebacky distortion and slightly strangulated textures. Hugely satisfying for anyone looking for a synth that evolves differently from the conventional ‘filter sweep’ and ‘slushy pad’ template.

VoxHumana by Joe Musician
There are several ensembles that attempt to mimic vowel sounds and other aspects of the human voice (the recently uploaded Wondervox by Didier Leboz is an example) but none quite match the grand daddy of them all, Voxhumana. With its ‘sex., age and tune’ controls it produces clean, plasticy, synthetic chords and bubbly arpeggiated vocal textures – the perfect accompaniment to a vocoder, perhaps? Admired for it’s blatant artifice. As far as I know, this is only available for download on the Yahoo Reaktor Builders site.

Dirty Groovy by Ba (?)
Drum machines – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Well I hate ‘em…mainly because it’s quite difficult to effectively modulate short sounds in motion. They bore me. Dirty Groovy doesn’t really modulate its sounds as such, but it produces an incredible variety of scrunchy motions and distortions -and as such is ripe for modification. The only drum machine you’ll probably ever want.

Instrument 1 by John Nowak
You all know about this one! Deserved best ensemble of 2003 and admired mainly for it’s uncanny, improvisational, rhythmic pausing and musical events making. It’s not for the faint-hearted. I’ve modified it with filters and delays, stripped it down to four samples with the pitching and panning part of the instrument removed and treated it with a resonator.

 

I'm honored! There were tons of great ensembles this year. I wanna be a Rach devotee too. ;-)

 

Yumm...I'd like to see that mod; care to post it, pleeze, sir??
dc

 

glad to see some FM recommendations;-)

sowari

 

VoxHumana by Joe Musician

this does not seem to be in the library, although it sounds interesting ... where do you get that one?

 

goto:

http://joeorgren.com/tech.htm

 

Hey...this topic brings up a very interesting point here, I never really thought about there being very useful ensembles available for purchase. The "VoxHumana" is a good case in point.

I thought I'd already found all the ensembles there were online outside of the NI Library, but I guess not.

So what other "not typically known about" links are there to some really unique ensembles...even if they cost money ???

 

thanks spoombung & sowari!

You've both made numerous user library recommendations in a number of threads (besides this one) and I've found your comments and suggestions to be enormously helpful ! ! I'd like an opportunity buy you gentlemen a round of brew ! Thank You - BC

 

http://www.lost-online.com/

Studio4 is a brilliant piece of work, as is Amphytiron...
dc

 

Hi dc

I'm not really keen on this idea as the changes I've made have been fairly cosmetic - and I respect the purity of the original too much.

In my view Instrument 1 is a rare piece of work indeed - it has a hardnosed agenda and very strong ideas behind it's construction and i admire the way one hears those ideas so clearly without any tainting with conventional acoustic/tonal concerns - eg, delays, filters and resonators.

In general, i dont like to see reverbs and delays in ensembles as they tend to cloud the issue, often obscuring the original ideas. I make a habit of removing them from some of my favourite authors, eg Rachmiel, Brinkmann as a matter of course.

 

Re: thanks spoombung & sowari!

That sounds nice!

Yes, Sowari and I do champion interesting ensembles all the time, it's true! It's our duty!

 

Be sure to check out

http://www.wavekrafters.com/index.php

It's a site where Reaktor ensembles are for sale (including VoxHumana), and it's apparently just opened officially. You can also pick up a free copy of Blackbird there, one of my favorite Reaktor FX ensembles.
dc

 

VoxHumana

I found this ensemble on two different "pay" websites along with a FREE version in the files section of the Yahoo Reaktor Builders site. Does anyone know if the Yahoo version is identical to the versions available at the wavecrafters and joeorgren sites?

 

go for the yahoo reaktors builders one. it is the one spoombung
was talking about.

sowari

 

oh - I see the pay version has a language feature. Ok, new question, is there anything else that's different or better in the pay version? The Yahoo version is very cool, and priced well ;-)

FYI, my experience with some of the "pay" Reaktor ensembles were somewhat mixed. Typically, they had no documentation and when I had problems I didn't get much support - there was a tendency to blame the "buggy" software. I mention this not to knock such builders and services, but to point out that if you want money for your ensembles, I think it's reasonable to expect thorough documentation and some level of support. This being said, some of these pay ensembles were very high quality and quite impressive.

Can you tell I'm trying to avoid mentioning any names here . . . ?
;-)

 

"is there anything else that's different or better in the pay version? The Yahoo version is very cool, and priced well ;-)"

to be honest i don't know.

dash it,;-) if the price is good go for it.

sowari

 

Thanks spoombung

I'm flattered by the attention!

What's different about the pay version of VoxHumana?

(1) more and better snapshots
(2) 3 OSC waveforms vs 1
(3) Pulsewidth modulation on the oscs makes a rich choral effect
(4) Switchable soft-knee limiter to prevent those nasty speaker-trashing resonant blasts
(5) 2 filter types (I think this is new...)
(6) Language selector (Korean, Slovakian, American, British, etc)
(7) numerous internal sound quality tweaks

By the way, VoxHumana is thoroughly documented with popups, both on the front panel, and internally.

I don't consider the older version to be up to my current quality standards. Feature (4) is especially important in daily use. The new one is really what I want my name associated with, so I have decided to pull the obsolete freeware version. You can find the new one at http://wavekrafters.com.

 

Hey thanks for the information electropop - it sounds like the newer VoxHumana has some significant improvements. I'm also very happy to hear that there are plenty of hints/popups etc. I also noticed you do have support at wavecrafters - very cool. I'm feeling a funny sensation coming from my credit card . . . . ;-)

also, kinda whish you wouldn't pull the shareware version - me and my big mouth . . . . .