How do you use Reaktor?

[OT] Reaktor

I have not fired up Reaktor for weeks. Partly due to several factors:

1) Corporate whoredom is taking over and am too knackered
2) Battery in laptop is dying. Can't afford another one due to...
3) New Nikon D70 is new love (film nerd, pay me NOW for the card or MONKEY BOY gets posted to this forum and your credibility is shot).
4) I can never seem to finish anything with it...


Which leads to the point of this post.

What are people's workflow processes with Reaktor - from idea to finished track (can include other software)?

Is there a common thread to how people get the most productivity out of the software?

Really interested to know.

 

Well, this sounds familiar!

I have multiple sessions going on at once. Generally, I goof around in any number of ensembles, "improvising" until I have a good beat or set of beats, a melody, a set of noises, a bunch of stuff that I've recorded into the recorderbox, and I set about arranging it all in ProTools.
If I get bored with one thing, I move on to something else. I'm trying to think as little as possible, and just be automatic and instant. I have plenty of other **** to think and stress out about during the day, so I'm just trying to have fun.
Lately, every separate session is simply titled by date, and I have been better and better about taking copious notes about absolutely everything (my latent "real" recording studio tea-boy training coming back) including ensembles and snapshots. It's really important to do this.
I have found that I really don't like a lot going on, at least a lot of stuff that isn't subliminal. I might get up to 10 tracks going on, but 6 of those will be ambient, panned, and just the sort of things one might notice on the 3rd listen through (though I hope it's more than that).
That said, given my life and my growing responsibilities, it takes me a long time to "finish" stuff. Some of it is never finished, but might sound good in the state it is in, or it might sound like crap.
I think of it more like everything is in varying states of being playable.
I guess that summing up for me, working as fast as possible is what works for me.

 

Another thing is, with software, there isn't just one way to do anything. Whatever works for you, works for you, and my method probably won't be successful or satisfying for someone else. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone who reads my previous post thinks that a jackass for working like that. But I have fun, which I'm pretty sure is the whole point of the endeavor.

Man, did I drink too much coffee today...

 

This answer is probably going to be pretty standard from most people, but oh well. I'll be the first. With Reaktor, I really must have something in mind before I sit down to it. Otherwise, it's worthless to me. Even if I'm just searching for sounds to inspire me, I'm still looking for some sound, as abstract or distant as it may be at that point. When it comes to actually finishing a piece, I have to at least think that I know what I want. It may (and usually does) change, but it at least gives me some goals to go for. Again, I'm very inspired by sound, whereas some people think more structurally. I really have to find the sounds and make a structure (or lack of) that is best for them. I can't really do the opposite.

I'm from an avant garde classical background. I'd certainly be interested in the way that other experimental composers work. It's cool to work with beats and other standard things, but it would be interesting to know how people that are in an abstract sound world deal with a (almost) limitless program.

 

For now I have two ways of working in Reaktor:

a) fire up Reaktor and mess around dissecting ensembles and building my own sucky ones, but just you wait...!

b) using other people's Reaktor ensembles in FL Studio, sometimes with preset patches but mostly with my own, also lots of JWH's beatslicer with loops from here and there

Someday I'm gonna get it together enough to carve my own slice of Reaktor pie and make my own songs with nothing but my own ensembles. But if I wait for that day I'll never finish a goddamn thing in the meantime which is TEH SUKC

 

With Reaktor, I usually intuitively construct things (I rarely have a concrete plan first). After its done, I'll record output to disk, copy it up in Audacity, and I'll be done. Then eventually I go back to the ensemble, ruthlessly optimize it, make more music, and upload it for everyone to play with.

 

I just use it as a keyboard synth or groovebox these days... sync it to Live via CoreMIDI and output it to the an alternative set of outs on my interface and then plug those into some inputs and record it in Live like I would any other sound source... (yeah, I know about Jack etc., but my 900 MHz G3 ain't having it much... donald duck it, this is OK).

There are only three or so ensembles that I actually care about. I've been trying to build some myself, but there are so many sounds in the handful I use that I haven't been bothered to.

-Paws

 

i agree with strikes: i work basically the same. doing improvised stuff in reaktor and compling it in a daw. however, since i yearn for natural / lively sounds i usually start with concrete sounds of recorded played things (ever played a heating device?) and reform it subtelly in reaktor with selfwritten patches. the way one thinks influences greatly the sound fo the patches. thus i usually have no other choice than to write my own ones, especially when you are using random generators to determine musical parameters. for me it is important to disguise the technology which creates / alters the sound to get the listener concentrated on compositional / emotional aspects of the music.
as probably indirectly mentioned, i mainly use reaktor in standalone mode and record stuff with the recorder box. a composition "diary" is my main tool of rethinking my compositional / emotional aims to solve compositional problems. not that i ever turn back the pages to reread the stuff i've written but the goal is to make sure i am not forgetting things. this emties my mind.

best,
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the most common way Reaktor shows up in my stuff is either as samples or some part that usually ends up bounced to audio. I will go through a number of ensembles and record anything that strikes me as interesting. Then edit that audio up and map it in a sampler for future use. I rarely start an actual cut in this part of the process. The resulting sample map might become the basis for a tune, or just get used for little sounder things depending on what's going on.
Sometimes if i have something that's well underway, i might bring in a reaktor ensemble and develop a part from it. If i feel i need to free up cpu i'll bounce it to audio. Otherwise it ends up as an AU track.
Basically, if I'm doing a sampling/sound session I run Reaktor standalone. Then the resulting samples are brought in later as sample maps in Logic Pro. If I'm developing a part I run Reaktor as an AU.
For loop stuff and beat box stuff I have to use Reaktor 3 because my favorite loopers and beatboxes do not work in R4 for some reason. These are always converted to audio/samples and brought back into Logic Pro.

 

when I sit down to put my hand up reaktor's skirt I've got a good grip on the mood I'm in and what would satisfy me at the time. I tend to start with many of the same instruments and ensembles, making modifications to 'em each time to suit the session's purpose. these ensembles often are the basis for developing the theme of the tune and then I build out from there as the track (or machine) tells me what it wants to do.

most often I will record parts live in reaktor and export the audio to cool edit (my favorite multi-track and wav editor) for arranging, editing, and creating a lovely mulch to be brought back and re-fed through the reaktor grinder to form new parts.

lately though, I've been designing and modifying ensembles that are an attempt to pull off in a totally live and improvised environment what I used to export to multi track and arrange to acheive (i'm talking live sound synthesis, not live sample arranging.) This won't be fully realized, since the accuracy and planning of multitrack editing is what it is, but what I'm coming up with are denser and sometimes more substantial parts at the outset. By this I mean, if I wasn't such a cut-happy/hyper-schizo arranger I'd keep these live takes as tunes themselves. but I'm not usually happy unless I'm making tunes that take sharp turns every few seconds to get where they're going.

 

are these ones that you have built or .ens that others have built?
if they are the latter, i would be interested to know which ones

sowari

 

I made several adaptations derived from Brinkmanns' Loop Tool, and from a very obscure beat box which I think is called "TR909" or something like that - by Gus Weate i think. Loop Tool is somewhat flaky in R4 as an AU - strange things happen when buttons get pushed. The drum machine i refer to is a complete disaster in R4 - there is NO meter. It's really crazy. Kind of dissapointing but I don't mind using R3 for these from time to time.

 

Most drum machines I've fixed that went nuts in R4 use a custom clock with funky ordering that didn't hold up when the R4 transition was made. If you pop it open and replace it with a clock based around a 1/96 module, I (almost) guarantee it will begin working as normal.

You can always email it to me... I like fixing things.

 

yes i see what you mean with that tr909 is all over the place.
and you are correct john, except the tr909 in question does use
a clock 1/96. but it also uses quite a complex (custom) system to drive the sequencers

i think martin brinkmann updated his loop tools in the user library.

sowari

 

I've found that the presence of a shuffle system can often cause errors when switching to R4 as well, and if its a TR909, I assume it has shuffle. If you try ripping out the shuffle part, that may solve the problem. Of course you'll have no more shuffle...

 

John - i did send it to you, remember? you did fix it by ripping out the shuffle, but of course, that was one of the things i liked about it so much. oh well ;-)

sowari - the custom sequence scheme in that tr909 seems to have fatal design flaws making it incapable of proper conversion to R4 :-(

if you should ever happen upon a fix please let me know - I've literally wasted hours trying to figure that one out.

BC

 

... Oh.

 

and it uses those pesky sequencers instead of the multiplex 16
ones.

i will see what i can do....but no promises.

sowari

 

I like taking a single sample and shaping an entire Reaktor module around it. Every sound has a unique signiature and can be exploited in a unique way based on its properties. So I don't end up with much in the way of generic ensembles, but I do re-use a couple of essential macros I've made over the course of the last year.

 

The best "instrument" would be a series of macros designed to work together, so people could design their own custom instrument in 5 minutes flat.