Official Petition - Reaktor as a Rack Extension!

+1

sowari

 

Sums it up nicely.

 

For me to be able to use Reaktor inside Reason would be fantastic, as I love both on their own and to combine them would be nirvana. However I don't have any hopes that it will ever happen.

 

+ Several - As a long time Props user and long term Props User Forum member, I can vouch for approx 1000-odd that would be on it like a shot, and the amount of upgrades for existing users would probably double that.

I think it will happen sooner or later, that's business, and as neither NI or Props look like they're going anywhere any time soon, logic and the laws of the inevitability of change deem that it must happen. I think NI should be on this early though rather than as a 10 year feature suggestion that is eventually catered for.

 

sorry, but this makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Reaktor is in serious need of an update. i would guess that NI would seriously annoy people if they spent valuable time, money and energy, in creating RE format plugins when in fact they need to update key plugins for Standalone, VST, AU, and RTAS versions of Reaktor, Massive, and Battery.

developing RE format plugins would take months and months of development and testing. Reaktor 5 came out in 2005, we need Reaktor 6 before the end of 2012. if NI creates a version of Reaktor 5 that can work with Reason before they develop Reaktor 6, i know that 1000s of Reaktor users will be seriously upset.

sowari

 

^^^^ Precisely ^^^^

 

One of the main features of the RE format is that it is universal binary, like all Reason stuff, and th3 format has been developed specifically with lack of further development in mind.

To use the words of Props CEO Ernst, "if you have code, you can use it". One of the companies who was mentioned as being a pioneer for the format: U-He, said it took 15 mins to do the recompile of the DSP code, and then the difference was in making a new GUI. So the majority of the work is already done. The SDK of the new format is a fair bit bigger than that of VST 2.0 or even 3.0.

As for developing Reaktor 6 first, I honestly have no issue with that. I'm not trying to rob existing Reaktor users of dev time.

 

I think the flexible GUI of Reaktor will not match the GUI rules of Reason. I don't think there will be a scoll element to fit wide ensembles into the rack width. I'm sure Propellerheads are looking after the usability issue. To require sidewise scrolling in addition to the up/down rack scrolling sounds like a really bad idea. Kontakt and Massive yes... Reaktor, no....

 

+1

 

I don't think you're really considering the difference between Reaktor and most vst plugin fx and synths. Reaktor doesn't fit into the same category at all - it is a development environment, including an interpreter and a compiler. There is a an existing library of many hundreds of instruments and effects for which backward compatibility needs to be preserved.
The amount of work required to shoehorn Reaktor into a gui framework that would make sense in Reason would be significant. Just thing about all the meetings required to argue about what compromises to make before any actual coding even gets started. Then what do you do with all the user library content that doesn't work within Reason imposed restrictions? Are all the builders supposed to update their creations? What about all those (likely the majority) who don't have Reason?

If this were done with a quick re-compile and a few gui tweeks as you seem to be suggesting, then Reaktor would end up looking like a mess to anyone who first experienced it within Reason - not a great advert for NI's 'flagship'.

I think if it were ever to happen, it would probably be a restricted 'Reactor Player for Reason' with a limited number of factory ensembles tweaked and modified to work correctly. I don't see the payback personally. If it's such a big deal to have Reaktor in Reason, then surely it's up to the Props to support the industry standard plugin interface - VST, then you could use the two together with no problems. Maybe you should start an 'official' petition on the Reason forum.

cheers

Col

 

the only way i can see this working is maybe the Reaktor Player instruments - Finger, Mouth, Razor - being ported across.

sowari

 

Just make a simple reaktor version that allows you to import premade full version reaktor sounds into it. Maybe like reactor player but make it a completely different layout or make it where any synth designed in reaktor is able to be exported in a reason format and can be loaded as a reason instrument.

 

I don't see how it can be a simpler version, and yet load complex full ensembles.

This would only work if every module in Reaktor had an exact analogue in Reason, which it doesn't.

At the end of the day, racks in Reason will need to have a consistent GUI with consistent patchbays etc. This will not be possible in the 'single rack in Reason' sense due to Reaktor's modular nature; an ensemble could have any number of patchbay I/O.

The only conceivable way this would work is to:
- Create a consistent UI at the module level. Every module in Reaktor would have a seperate rack in Reason with the exact I/O. Ensembles could load as multiple racks fully cabled up. You can then load ensembles, or create new ones by calling them up in Reason and patching them as you currently do in the Reaktor GUI with everything else. This would be the all-singing, all-dancing 'Reaktor recreated in Reason' option. This would be a LOT of work for NI
- Create a consistent UI at the ensemble level. Have select Reaktor ensembles available as a standard standalone Reason racks, as per what Sowari said above. Each rack would present a GUI similar to the top level in Reaktor. You would not have the ability edit the ensembles, create your own, or use ones from the UL

 

I can understand and admire the passion of a Reason user but Sowari just makes sense. Time has passed Reason by years ago. I think my last upgrade was to R4 and I haven't even thought of going past that. Time spent on bringing Reason to the PH world would be time wasted IMO. I don't want to dump on the petition but it just seems wrong to reward PH for staying behind the curve for so long by bringing vastly modern sounds to their "stale - by - choice" world

 

Yip, I agree that a Reaktor player device is probably the most likely scenario in the short term, and I think it's perfectly acceptable.

VST is NOT an industry standard. Period. Out of the 3 biggest selling "DAW's" in the world, how many of them support VST?

As for the thought of opening a thread on the PUF asking for VST? Well you show me a thread for that request, and I'll show you the "industry standard" definition of trolling.

 

The VST standard was the first. Since then, of course, there have been lots of others, but most of them, and certainly the popular ones are pretty much just non-compatible versions of VST. There are way more similarities than differences, and the differences are more to do with business politics and marketing than with the underlying technology.
My understanding is that many plugin developers support AU by wrapping their VST plugs in an AU translation layer. I think RTAS is also often supported in this manner. DXi - which seems to be dying - is again basically just a VST clone and can easily be supported by a translation layer, or an explicit 'vst wrapper'.

So I stand by the statement that VST is an industry standard.

Just to keep you happy, I'll expand my suggestion: If Propeller Heads were to support _one_ of the of vst _style_ plugin formats (eg. AU, RTAS, VST), then Reaktor would work just fine in Reason.

If it's ok to start this thread here (and it is IMO apart from the 'official' tag), why is it not ok to start that thread there ?

 

I doubt NI would bend over or bend backwards or do summersaults for any other big music software company. I get the feeling that NI would defend their independence in the thunderdome. I think they would be afraid customers and prospective customers would view that as some sort of submissive peeing.

 

I doubt if any part of the psyche of Native Instruments is anywhere near this. This sounds like the thought process of a child or a chracter in a B movie. NI has absolutely no worries over competition from Reason. No comtemporary software maker does.The question would be whether they could make money selling Reactor versions for Reason. I personally doubt the development time would pay off.

No more from me in this thread. I don't want to muddy up the petition.

 

Seeing certain Reaktor ens in Reason Extensions would be cool. As for a NI daw Maschine just doesn't cut it. The way it handles patterns is sloppy and crippled (geist is alot better in sequencing) and doesn't even support Multicore. I think Reaktor with audio lanes and plugin support would make a better Daw. It already has many in/out capabilities, Recording etc . It's almost there already and just needs some new sections to it.

 

That's a pretty apt description of how I think NI seems. No contemporary software maker wraps their userbase in the bondage of archaic user libraries with corrupt rating systems and abusive flash webpages that consistently redirect to the homepag or promise to have a public relations officer to keep in communication and then vanish into the dungeons of Asgard never to be heard from (for several months usually). NI is cold and distant, domineering and unresponsive. There is a unique undercurrent of Cronenbergian tension between NI and the outside world. Not that its a bad thing, I just think it would be unlikely for them to join another company in some loving embrace but If someone like softtube wants to crawl into NI's shadow then that fits the wildly imaginative model I've woven here and makes perfect sense. Whatever ego NI has it has earned.