Reason vs. Reaktor Sound Quality?

Not to be provocative or anything... but does Reason sound somehow "brighter and clearer" than Reaktor to you?

Maybe it's just that excellent SubTractor synth.

So... where's the Reaktor SubTraktor knockoff (with all the patches) -- for the head to head comparison?

Get to work.

 

it sounds different. Reason doesn't sound like anything else. I think it uses some sort of compression or some shapers to make that sound. it sounds a bit Japanese to me (like Roland..).

But i prefer a hard and digital sound.. if i want to make it softer, then there are some techniques for that. Making soft sounds more agressive is more difficult (for me..).

but no, it doesn't sound brigther to me.

lx.

 

I think Reaktor blows Subtractor into pieces..
This is almost funny!
Subtractor sounds so thin next to A Reaktor synth or any NI synth.
Put a Pro53 next to a Subtractor line...
C'mon!

 

you say that but look at the quality of the redrum samples / the orkestra library,,,

yes i agree the resonance on the subtractor is ****ed up somehow but its ten times cpu efficent as any reaktor synth and can make some excelent sounds.

Ed.

 

I agree, Reason is much more solid than Reaktor..Reason is way less a cpu hig than R4.
Redrum is a great sampler player..
But Subtractor does not sound as warm or thick than Reaktor.
I am not dissin' Reason, just cannot compare the two..

 

But that's just what I'm getting at -- the sound isn't warm or thick -- but it's also not "thin", it's "transparent".

Just very subtly so... kind of a wine comparison thing.

 

Eh.

 

VERY out of context but... sorry, that says it all as far as i am concerned... : )

 

i agree that reaktor sounsd excellent, although i have not heard anything much from reaktor that sounds like z3ta, to widen the topic. z3ta sounds anout twice as good as the best reaktor synth. i think i would like to try a small emulator like zeta if i can get polyphony right.

i can certainly testify to the fact that the recorder and audio tables play audio at a much lower quality that the reaktor samplers, and that seemingly similair samplers (loop/simple) sound different among themselves.

 

i also feel that reaktor's sound is somewhat thin. sometimes this is wonderful; it can produce a cerebral, ethereal sound better than anything i've found out there. other times one misses a ballsiness.

for an example of a soft synth that i find gobs ballsier in sheer sound than reaktor, try simSynth (which is now sold by www.fruityloops.com). i've never heard a reaktor synth that sounds as powerful as a simSynth synth. (now there's a challenge for ya!)

rachMiel

 

For me it really depends on which ens you are talking about, but Reaktor synths *do* sometimes suffer from a slight weediness. 'Carbon' doesn't sound thin however, nor does 'synthecs' from the library, but why does something like 'manymood', for instance, sound so papery in comparison to other vsti implementations of the minimoog structure? Or why do the pro-52 clones (which are accurate in many respects - you can even visually copy patches from the pro53 across to the 'super-prophetr ens' and get a similarly structured sound) not have the wonderful richness of the dedicated pro-52/pro-53? I mean we have the same filter, we have the same oscillators!

I do hear 'fat' coming out of reaktor sometimes. (I hope I am not just being duped by delay and chorus). Can anyone help to put there finger on what the acoustic qualities we are looking for really are? If we can figure that out, then we can start to work out how to produce them.

I know how infuriated people on this forum can get about the pursuit of 'fat' or 'analog-ness', and they are right that one of reaktor's great strengths is in producing the sounds of the future, not of the past, but this is a challenge that interests me, and clearly a number of other people also. It is not just about nostalgia for the sounds of yesterday, but a real desire to understand sound better.

Wuntun

 

HI
I don't know ,exactly what you are really looking for also I ve never heard a real pro 52 but you might know that analog world is very different of digital world because digital world is full math response than analogic is notdue to component that have a transfer function different than the true math transfert function like the difference betwen tube apmplification and transistor amp,or like in optical lens that give a result different from the math equation due to their materiality.
the best thing you can do is to analyse the signal at the end of the analog synth (using FFT analyser prog)and bring correction to your reaktor modelisation after comparison(need a to good AD converter).
sample the osc of the analog synth and run the sampler module as osc in reaktor,analog wave form are different from true math function(do this with no resonance and filter at the max to have all freq)
do FFT check of your analog synth with different position of the filter freq and reso to see how the filter react then program your filter according to what you have noticed (may be with eq and shaper in your filter)
then check the eg in different pos with white noise or very high freq to be sure to clearly see the env
also the curve of your fader are important for the feeling of your instrument.
I think that just sample your analog synth for ascillator mode should give you a good result if you do it at the highest freq and highest bit depth you can with the best AD converter you have
noide due to electronic component is very important in the sound of analog sound that you don t have in math modelisation
have fun and tell us about the result.;o)
hope my english is not to bad...

 

I'm kind of interested in this topic, too, but from the pov of not getting how instruments with incredibly vast sound possibilities, such as contemporary synthesizers, heard in an enormously wide range of live and recorded settings, from headphones, cars, and bathrooms to stadiums and clubs, and able to be endlessly post-processed both by environments and by fx, can be said to have a characteristic sound in the first place. I mean, sure, a DX-7 has a different sound than a MicroMoog....but WHERE does the apparent consensus about what's "fat" come from? Has everybody else been raised on the same one or two classic songs, or seen the same acts, that indisputably set the all-time standard for fatness?

It seems to me that when a musical experience is exceptional in any way because of its sound, apart from all the other characteristics it might have, it's almost always because the sound is strikingly new and unique, not classic or typical or standardized, even if it's just a distinctive variation on some classic or idiomatic sound....like guitar distortion, for example (another sound that's endlessly talked about by guitarists as if there was an all-time standard that everybody's trying to emulate...and which is always result of some combination of elements, from talented fingers to broken speakers and not-working-right fx boxes?!?!?)

I've certainly always been attracted to music that DOES have a unique sound, and just to sound itself, like I've been totally and irredeemably in love with certain kinds of distortion for over 40 years...but where's the standard? and even if you've settled on one standard out of all the endless possibilities, where's the capacity to duplicate it in any way except very inexactly, esp. for musicians whose hearing is abnormally acute compared to the gen. pop. anyway...I mean, we've all experienced the destruction of our lovingly crafted mixes by somebody else's monitors, right? So, even if somebody was willing to point me to some fatness-defining track or instrument, how could they control the other equipment and the environment that'll be warping the final sound I experience? Or know which aspects of the final sound I heard I found exciting? What are parameters for, anyway?

Not trying to diss anybody....but genuinely confused!
dc

 

Moog Modular
Arturia ain't bad.

 

i posted a similar topic in regards to what i also called an apparent thiness in sound. Reaktor does have it's own signature sound as well, however the end result will always be based upon the depth of the instrument being used, some are more complex than others.

Increasing voices and unison always helps to create fatter, full-bodied sounds - much to the dislike of your CPU-usage though.

Dcoffin said it best though, i must agree..

Reaktor can basically produce any sound I now want, and more I never knew i needed, it takes a bit of creativity, layering of instruments, re-working the architecture but it can be done..

I no longer believe reaktor has a thiness in overall sound as a result of Reaktor itself, rather i believe it's a result of the instrument being used and it's overall depth or how you use it so to speak.

 

Without wishing to drag the conversation down from the sublime to the ridiculous, I have a feeling that part of what I am looking for some of the time has to do with attack characteristics. If you put a compressor, or even that finaliser that came with r4, in front of a lot of synths, you get a 'fattening up', but at the expense of some of the detail and dynamic nuance later in the tone. I'm a little out of my depth here, but does anyone know what I mean/ is anyone able to elaborate on what I am hearing here?

 

I'm very fond of putting a limiter plus maybe a little eq AFTER pretty much any sound that's coming out of my mixer. By limiting the peaks, you can bring up the lower-level detail without losing the louder sounds; sounds louder and fuller without moving the meters...works especially well with complex, layered sounds and distortion. I mix it in with a stereo volume pedal...but it's very tempting to just leave it on all the time;-)
dc

 

OOPS! Didn't know this was fraught.

Not to worry as predictably the thread no longer has anything to do with that subject :|

But anyway, record that squishing sound. It's PHAT.

 

Regarding how phat Reaktor can be see the other thread started by analog_ant. Just using standard oscillators and filters is not enough, especially the oscillators are mathematicly perfect so you need to introduce variation over time.
Inserting random wherever applicable is my quick answer. IMHO Reaktor is capable to create as phat analog sound as any softsynth on the market - it's up to the programmer! But yes, phat doesn't come free with Reaktor - you have to program it!

Regarding if Reason sound sharper appeared at first as a daft question. But thinking back when I compared Reason and Reaktor 3 years ago, I could get a whole bunch of Tractors in Reason working compared to just 5 minimood in Reaktor (on my trusty old PC). I suppose they (Propellerheads) use some clever algorithms in Reason which might just as well result in a sharper sound - I would call that a bug, not a feature. If you want you can get sharp sounds all you can eat in Reaktor, e.g. just check out IcePad in the user lib by Rachmiel.

 

greath post!!!