Controlling Reaktor - Advice/Help Needed?

Ok! I've come to the point where I know that I'm not going to be a great Reaktor builder; I know some basics and a few neat magic tricks, but that's it.

One thing that really does interest me (esp. after reading Sowari's interview!) is how we control Reaktor for expressive performance. It is with this that I need a bit of help.

Can anyone fill me in on how I get a bog-standard USB gamepad to transmit MIDI into Reaktor? I've tried using ControllerMate (no MIDI! Dang! It does OSC I think, but I don't understand how that works ), MultiControl (a Max/MSP app) - it seems to work but I can't get it 'into' Reaktor', and a WiiMote application (Darwin something something).

I've also been looking at customizing a USB keyboard for key control, and also dropping £80 on a BCR2000 (don't really want to do that though!)

Any help with the gamepad thing would be very, very much appreciated.

 

i've used max to send midi to reaktor before. if you're on windows, you have to use a midi loopback utility, like loopbe from nerds.de. it's a virtual midi port that will show up as a midi input in reaktor and a midi output in max.

on a mac i think you can set up a virtual device in the midi settings? someone correct me.

 

hubis loopback i think is another, i found something for a while by vsd i think it was. joystick to midi i think it was called. what do you mean by gamepad, sorry i dont game at all.

 

i will be making stuff like this in Max/MSP but it will be a slow process, i doubt i will have much ready for 6 months at the minimum...so many other things to do

in terms of routing MIDI from one thing to another, Mac has an IAC Driver which can be found in the Mac Audio MIDI setup (MIDI Devices). it just needs to be turned on.

sowari

 

http://www.arj.no/2008/02/25/multicontrol-v04/

This beastie seems to be 'the one' for now; can anyone shed any light on how to actually get it to work 'into' Reaktor? Sorry; I'm being really thick today (all Stevie Wonder'd out after last nights show!)

 

well, i couldn't get it to work yesterday....

... but today, i am getting something although so far...hmmm.

anyway i managed to get my Mouse sending Controller Messages 2 and 3 and also a Note On/Off. the Note ON, is 61, as i couldn't seem to get 60..i was clicking in the Middle of the MIDI Range in the top (first) Input..the bit next to my changed choice of Note Out, and it just wouldn't choose 60.

i have included 3 pictures and a silly Reaktor Ensemble to monitor what is coming in.

please carefully look at the first picture, because that is how i set the Controller number 2 and 3 in the MultiControl app and also the Note number. i am just using the top 3 inputs

moving the mouse changes the values of the 2 Controller values... but i don't seem to get 0, it hovers around the middle values.

the good things is that it operates in the background so you can have Reaktor in the forground and your mouse movements are sending stuff... the not so good, is maybe it is hard to get usable data, without a lot of hard work. that hard work will have to be done by someone else


so remember you need to have your IAC Driver ON

you might have to turn it off and then on in the Multicontrol (by choosing another option and then IAC again) - second pic.

sowari

 

follow up,

when you load up MultiControl, it says IAC Driver IAC Bus1 as the MIDI Device, but it is actually is playing the AU DLS Synth 1 :|

so you do need to change from IAC to something else and then back to IAC again

if you set a range (see second pic) you get 2 notes. the high note for left mouse down and the low note for when you release the mouse.

sowari

 

Ah, excellent! I think it must have been the IAC driver set to 'off' that was stopping it. Did you change any settings in R5, or did it just pick up the MIDI input?

Will try it with a cheap-and-cheerful gamepad later on, and report back. Thanks, sowari!

 

i just made sure IAC Driver was on in the Audio MIDI Settings, see picin previous post.

and try my Ensemble!

sowari

 

Try it I shall, sir. Try it I shall! :lol:

 

sowari! I finally got my USB pad (£13 from Game...!) and got it plugged into the Mac.

MultiControl found it straight away. ACE! All 17 controls work, too. Got the IAC driver booted up and through MC, then into Reaktor. Fired up your ensemble, and now we're laughing like hyenas!

Everything works - just got to get the sampler ensemble tweaked, and I'll be the happiest bunny in the world.

Thanks, bud.

 

more details about your USB Pad please

sowari

 

Details to come, sir :lol:

It's a pretty bog-standard Playstation-type thing from Game's all-encompassing, everything-compatible range. The sensitivity isn't too great on the analogue sticks, but for assigning some tasty multi-way knobs (loads of X/Y actions from here on in!) they'll do until I've got cash to buy a pricey one.

As far as programming in Reaktor goes, it's not going to be too hard - a shade of creativity to make the most of the available buttons is going to be the most testing part! MultiControl is fantastic for assigning the MIDI messages.

As soon as I get a couple of hours clear, I'll try and do some kind of demo showing the workings and junk.

Thanks again for all your help, sowari!

 

so which one are you talking about?

what is it called?

Edit i bet it is:

sowari

 

Sorry! My bads. I can't find it on the website; the pad is the 'GameWare' PC-Compatible game pad. £12.99 in earth pounds.

I'll photo it later on and pop that up, if you canny finds it! :lol:

 

controller noise

I feel a bit of a fool asking, but don't know where else to ask. I've just hooked up an old Anatek Pocket Pedal to my midi interface and plugged in an expression pedal to send CC7 data to the master volume of Carbon (I'm running Reaktor 4 on a 12" powerbook). Everything seems to be working fine—the volume changes, the nob twirls onscreen, etc.) but when the nob gets about three quarters of the way around, I start to get some gritty noise whenever I move the pedal. My read-out shows less than 40% CPU usage at all times... don't know what else to say. Any suggestions would be very, very welcome.

Also, it's my first time on the forum, so I don't really know if I'm butting in on your discussion of game controllers and should really have started a new thread, or if this is o.k. If this is not proper forum etiquette, just let me know. Thanks.

 

Hi 4595! Welcome. What do you mean by 'gritty noise'. Do you mean CPU glitching (or 'overing' as it might be called!) or something else?

Are you overloading the output volume of your ensemble? When the knob hits 3/4 of the way round, is it peaking on the output, causing the audio to distort?

@sowari - it's working...ish. Will post an ensemble up on Sunday, with my progress. There's some serious 'distributor' cell action going on! There's a few iffy sticking points that i'll move over to the building thread I guess... the X/Y pad thing is going to be h-h-h-h-ard I think.

 

Hi Logic_user99. Thanks for the help.

It's definitely not an overload of output volume. The noise come exclusively when I send controller data, and it does so both when I'm increasing, and decreasing volume levels.

I thought it might be CPU glitching, but the CPU usage never seems to be greater than 40%, if it even gets that high. Would that be enough to cause the glitching (maybe the CPU meter is too slow to register peaks that might be occurring when I move the pedal?), or does glitching come from something other than how much of the CPU is being used? Is there any way to fix it?

One thing I did try was to add a small 2 x 2 mixer to the ensemble. I put the output of Carbon into channel 1 and an external sound source (fed into the powerbook's line in) into channel 2. When I controlled vol. for channel one, I got the noise. But when I controlled vol. for channel two, no noise at all. That would seem to argue in favor of CPU glitching, I think. In other words, when the CPU had to make the carbon sounds AND handle cc7 messages at the same time, it made noise. But when it only had to handle cc7 message, because the sound source was external, no noise.

So my question is: if it is CPU noise, is there any way to solve the problem, other than buying a newer, faster computer?

Thanks for the (hopefully ongoing) advice, and best of luck to both of you with the game controller!

 

I had a similar issue...the volume faders on my ins. made a crackly noise through my monitors when controlled by midi (not loud enough to be a nuisance but still)...just like old hardware knobs do on a hi-fi or guitar pedal...i though it was really strange, and definetly nothing to do cpu usage. the problem has gone now though and i've no idea how it went away...and i have not changed my ensemble.

 

Thanks SpencerTron, nice to know I'm not alone. Your description of the noise as "crackly" is right on target. I certainly hope someone else has had this problem and found a solution.

Here is a question for the experts: is there any combination of modules that would behave the same as a the volume control on my Carbon? If so, perhaps I could replace the volume control with it, just to see if it made the same noise when controlled with midi... Unless someone has a better suggestion. I'm all ears, as they say.