best ensembles

There are so many ensembles available in the user library that a newbie like myself gets lost. Though some are rated, this seems very hit and miss, with some great ones not having a rating to match.

Are there sites where people have written in more detail about their favourites? Are there threads where this happens? I would love to read at length things like "five best bass instruments" or "ten best acoustic emulations" or whatever.

Of course different people are looking for different things, but I love reading opiions of this sort.

Another thought: It would really help if theree were zipped packages of the best of the lot, so I didn't have to spend forever on the web. Has anyone done this?

Further: it would be great if the site tracked which files I'd already downloaded, so it could colour-code them.

Anything to help me deal with the tedium of downloading ens after ens.

 

yes there are threads and so on, but the formal solution is the NI rating system. If you look through the "top 100" lists youb will see which designs have been most populat among users. There's been various criticisms of the system over the years, but besides the poor rating given to BTS Dream for some reason, generally I've agreed with it, even when people downvote my own designs

 

to be honest with you, it's horses for courses. i might recommend some ensembles that you think are pants. the best way to find out is to download for yourself; thats how most people have done it and still are doing it. yeah you'll get a lot that aren't your thing, but its worth it to find the gems that give you new impetous to write. thats the joy of reaktor for me! (yes i do have a girlfriend actually! ;-))

 

there are some threads with good user ens listed - I have found several that way and now I have a list of my own to share:

Organic - great basic organ with ADSR {not natural but really nice} I cut mine back to just the Organ Swell with the 122 and you can click the 122 off and reduce cpu even further

Water Organ - beautiful sounding and you can easily make a scaled back version as well to save cpu - and if you like the waRbler part check out Wobble and Moosh which seems to be in the same vein

Sampler 4 pack and the Retro Drum Pack are great basic tools to have - I like the little Univox drum machine and added the pitch knobs and an echo on the Snare - very easy on cpu

Orbitation is one I am just getting into - it looks cool

Gabi - loads of random fun - it outputs midi note + cc so it will actually edit your synth sound while it plays!

My advice is - start stalking the newest 20 every 2 weeks!

 

This is a good way to work once one has caught up with the enormous number already in the library... which will only take me 549 days at this rate. ;-)

Thanks for the recommendations, too.