tutorials and advice for carbon 2

I am a pretty novice user when it comes to reactor, and am looking for advice specifically for carbon 2. I think it's a great machine, but I've only really been playing around with the presets. I want some tips or helpful links that could explain some of the most important components of this synthesizer and tap into the great potential of its capabilities.

 

Hi! Have you tried reading Reaktor 5 Instrument Guide? Also there are hints inside Carbon 2 when you move mouse on some module. I'm not sure there are any tutorials, but I can try to help depending on what sound do you want to get.

 

The instrument guide is pretty useless; it is so brief and doesn't explain much. I have a whole lot of questions regarding the different components. I don't want to get mired down into all the details right now, just the important ones. Some of my questions at the moment are what does the ring modulator do? What does the synchronization page do? And what does the a/b modulation and source buttons do in the pitch and wave sections? Also, I would like to know what the different filters do; what is a comb filter? As you can see I am quite a novice and I don't know much about basic synthesis to begin with.

 

Hi, and welcome!

These questions are about pretty general sound design concepts. Best is to google and read up on it i think.

You can find a lot of useful information here:

http://www.clavia.se/nordmodular/Modularzone/index.html

and on the Sound On Sound website, in the Synth Secrets series (do a search on www.soundonsound.com)

Hope this helps,

Nicolaas

 

Okay I guess I'll have to do some general research on synthesis concepts. But could somebody briefly explain what the a/b modulation and source buttons do, since they are pretty specific to carbon 2?

 

Ring modulation in simple words is multiplication of two or more signals. Basically if you try to build simple structure in Reaktor with two oscillators (sine and saw for example) and multiply them - you'll get simple ring modulation. In Carbon in Ring field you choose to what oscillators ring modulation should be applied. Level is sensitivity of this modulation.

It synchronizes oscillators phase. Depending on set degree oscillators are shifted in this phase diapason and they can sound more or less smooth with each other. Are you familiar with basic parameters of oscillator? Try to search what phase is and phase modulation.

I'm not sure about this one, but as I know from theory comb filter is filter that is sum of delayed signal and signal itself. So it works more like distortion effect or something.

You choose sources of modulation there for pitch and for wave. Sources can be LFO's for example. It's all about directing modulation in some way which is obtained by some source.

 

Where are the sources coming from? I see things like e1, e2, e3, lf1, lf2 listed as sources. What do they stand for? Also, how big of an effect do the sources have on the overall sound? Do the filters and effects do more?

 

envelope 1 envelope 2 lfo 1 lfo 2 etc.

 

It's hard to answer this question, because it depends on settings. Modulation can affect nature of sound dramatically, but effects and filters do post-processing work.

 

do you know that you can open up different 'sub-pages' to view the different Sources such as EG1, EG2 and EG3 also LFO1 LFO2 and S/C? click on their title buttons for more info. also make sure you have Hints ON so that you can see the information about the different sections - on a Mac it is Apple Command + I to see the hints/info.

as other people have hinted, i think you need to understand the concepts behind Analogue Synthesis to understand Carbon. i also suggest you look at Stephan V's uploads in the User Library, as some of his synths - such as Juno-106 and Nord and Polaris might be easier to understand.

sowari

 

In theory you are correct, but it doesn't work like a distortion effect. Since it's short delay-based, it's more of a chorus/flanger type effect. Try LFO-modulating the cutoff frequency of a comb filter and you'll get basic chorusing; increasing resonance you'll get the typical swirling screaming flangering.

 

It's also one of the basic components in a physical model; it's known there as a tube or waveguide. The frequency determines the length of the tube/waveguide and the resonance provides the width.

ew

 

thanks for that

 

SICK synth. minimizes my selection very easily.