Useful Tips. lists of Tutorials for new and intermediate Reaktor users

Okay, flaming Cubase isn't helpful and I'm sorry I did not respond fast enough on the other thread. Is there a time limit? I did make it a point to thank everyone for their comments. I have a few other things going on and hey, it's not a chat. It's a forum. Instant responses aren't required are they?

 

forget about it. .. all fine. what you call "flaming cubase" is actually a working method i gave you for cubase (the easiest method. otherwise you'd need to do strange internal feedback connections between your sound card and new added cubase "inputs" from your soundcard...)
you are a happy owner of a new i7 9th generation as you said with latest cubase 10.(and maybe went into frustration - that can happen!)
U2 ! can help everyone to give your concrete results with that great new purchase.

think about it like that: your questions could always help those who are taking time answering you as well. otherwise you would have just called the NI support, right.
to get even better answers on your new bought i7 of 9th generation id lov to welcome you to join in here
https://www.native-instruments.com/...nes-omnibus-thread.343659/page-3#post-1727839
(download the ens of post #51 and provide your results)

best. (dont be "lying ted" but "beautiful ted" ) (take it with a smile "they" are here to help you)

 

Awesome thread (I'm still reading pages)... considering that it's pinned I don't feel too guilty for responding despite its age.

Now, at the time of writing I'm a Reaktor newbie but that doesn't imply that I'm also new to synthesis and building stuff. I've been a happy Live & Reason user for 10 years now and I also consider myself a Max programmer on top of that. Mentioned just for context. So what could a newbie have to offer to this thread? Well...

How does one get started with Reaktor? That's a question I see pop up so many times ever since I started looking into Reaktor myself and even though one part of this honestly boils down to "RTFRM" (Read The 'Fine' Reaktor Manuals ) I'll also be the first to agree that this can get a bit boring.

So my approach is to get your hands dirty by starting with something small and easy, and trust me... if you do that right you'll dive right in. So where should you start?

Well... let me share what I did and maybe that can inspire some of you too. If you don't feel like reading through a small essay (sorry, what can I say.. I've become passionate about this!) then no worries: I'll add a summary of my newbie tips below.

Shell's first ensemble


This doesn't only look simple but it also is simple. But do not underestimate the stuff you can learn from building something simple! And let's be honest: if you really think this is simple then that's only because you know how this works. Which means you're no longer the target audience of my post, shoo!

As you probably know Reaktor is awesome for building your own synths. But... building a whole synth yourself definitely sounds daunting. So.. the trick here is to break up your problem into smaller (easier to manage) parts. This holds true for Reaktor, for Max and basically for every programming language in existence. Break down problems into smaller parts, solve the smaller parts one by one and when you're done...

SO where does a (soft) synth start? I dunno about you but I'd say it starts with midi input. When I load Absynth 5 (which is one of my favorite synths) then I play my keyboard (or midi controller) which sends MIDI into Absynth and I get sound. So my obvious question would be: what does this MIDI look like? It's obviously a bunch of values but... are we really sure about this?

Which sounds like the perfect problem to solve using Reaktor if you ask me.

Fire it up, and if you get into the start screen (which I seriously recommend to keep if you're new!) then select "Build".

Lost your start screen and now you feel lost? Don't worry! Open the Reaktor preferences (control + ,) and you'll find the option right in the General tab: "On startup". I prefer the start screen for now but eventually I'll probably move to "Don't load anything".

And for those who don't want a start screen but still feel like following my story: create a new ensemble using control + n (but you probably already knew that ).

There are probably some core modules shown on screen which we don't want: control-a and then delete 'm using 'del'.

In Reaktor 6 you build at the bottom of the screen and the interface which you create by doing so will be shown on top. We want to explore MIDI so right click on the lower section of the screen, hover the mouse over "build-in module" and prepare to be amazed by looking at all the cool stuff we can do Now, I said we wanted to examine MIDI so... obvious choice: explore MIDI in:



Just look at all that cool stuff!

Of course this does mean that you'll need some basic understanding about MIDI signals. But this is what I like about Reaktor so much: the interface makes it seriously accessible. Sure, we could look into specifics such as the note pitch (should be obvious enough) and the velocity but... note the bottom option? MIDI uses channels, and it sends data which is often referred to as messages. So that bottom option looks really appealing to me, lets select that!

And then a new problem arises... Now I have this thing on my screen but I don't know anything about it. Now what?

Well, 2 things.. First make sure you have the round I icon in the upper bar selected (see my screenshot above, it's right before the MIDI/OSC option and after the tape icon). This will ensure that if you hover your mouse over something you'll get a pop-up to explain some details.

Small sidestep: this is why I enjoy Komplete so much; there are solid standards put in place throughout all devices. Learning about this I icon in Reaktor will also make sure that you'll know what to do if you get stuck in Kontakt sometime.

Second is to make yourself familiar with the view menu.. you press f1 to show (or hide) the browser and f2 to f5 to select what you'd like to see. Pressing F5 will replace the browser with a property screen which is just what we'd like.

Time for the next problem: you'll have 4 outputs in the "Chan. message" module: Status, Channel, Note number and Value. So how can we make all of that visible? Well...

If you look at my screenshot again you'll notice that the context menu also has a "panel" section. And the panel is shown at the top side of the screen, this is where you'll build your user interface. If you explore that area you'll come across an option called "Numeric Readout". Which sounds exactly what we need. So select it and it'll be added to our ensemble. Now we don't want one, we probably want 4. So keep control pressed and then drag the new module around, this will create a copy. Do this four times and then connect the cables:



Am I the only one who notices something odd here? Not only do all meters have the same name, just look at that mess in the panel!

Yah, I actually looked this up in the manual. Because if you right click on the upper part of the screen you'll notice that the option "automatic layout" is enabled by default. What gives?!

Well, the layout applies to whole model elements but right now we're actually working with individual modules, my previous screenshot even showed this. The trick here is to unlock your panel which allows you to move these individual modules around. But before we do that we have to sort out another problem: every numberbox has the same name

Fortunately this is easily solved by double clicking on a numeric module, this will allow you to change its name. Then unlock the panel (edit: by clicking on the lock icon right below the 'Edit' option) and drag everything in place:

How cool is this, huh? ​

Now, readers who actually pay attention will notice that we're missing out on a few things. What happened to the pitch bend and aftertouch? Good call, those values are handled by separate modules, so.. right click again and check the midi-in section. You'll be aiming for the "On velocity" and "Poly aftertouch" modules. Just repeat the above steps: add numeric modules, connect them and make sure to drag the panel modules into place.

The end result is this:



I know this looks seriously simple but let's not forget what us newbies could have learned from following these steps...

The Shell summary

• Reaktors start screen is really useful for newbies. If you lost yours then check the Reaktor preferences (control + , or use the 'File' menu), it'll be on the first tab ("General").
• The edit screen is split in two parts: you build at the bottom and the user interface is shown on top.
• Right clicking on your edit section (lower part) will give you access to a whole bunch of modules to use.
• We're building something called an "Ensemble" here.
• The 'i' icon shown on the toolbar will show you extra information if you hover your mouse over things, assuming you selected it.
  • The cool thing about this icon is that it's used throughout most of Komplete's devices. Next time you get stuck in Kontakt.. maybe try clicking this?
• Pressing F1 shows (or hides) the browser, F2 through F5 show different parts. When building an ensemble then F5 is a great key to press because it will show you a permanent properties screen. (note that the VST may behave differently!).
• The panel (= user interface) is locked by default. Press the lock icon and then you can drag panel modules into their place (by default they get placed on top of each other).
• Double clicking on some modules allows you to change their name (you can also use the properties section!).
• Reaktor provides full functional modules which can give you access to several values ("Channel message") as well as individual modules (like "Poly aftertouch").

If my post makes some of you veterans grin a bit then I can seriously see where you're coming from. But.. no offense, then I'd also wonder if you still know what it was like to be a Reaktor newbie. Because I seriously believe that this can be good stuff for a newbie. I learned a lot this evening. Even more than you know, but I'm saving that for the Abes forum

(small) Shell vent...

I've been using Max and "Max for Live" (= Max programming language embedded into Ableton Live) well over 9 years now (the first year was all about learning and experimenting, I really started to take off the year after). And I'll be honest with you guys: at first I didn't think all that much about Reaktor because in my (too) biased opinion it was obviously a "cheap" Max clone (I never really vented that opinion, but it definitely crossed my mind). I loved the Reaktor player though

Reaktor is to Max what Microsoft's C# is to Java. Which is in my opinion: often misunderstood by the experts, not a direct "attack" (or competitor) for the product but instead a rather valuable expansion on the experience. Sounds very vague indeed

So here is the same kind of device in Max (for Live):



I think this is a very good example of why I came to love Reaktor so much while still being a rather die-hard Max programmer. Do you spot the major differences here (I know I'm years late to the party, watch me no care)?

Max is more about the programming part, you can see an example above. Getting a midi signal isn't enough, you also have to process this and even if you do ('midiparse') it sometimes still isn't enough and you need even more.

Reaktor on the other hand provides us with modules that are much more to the point and thus much easier accessible. I'm not only talking about the 'Chan Message' module but also modules such as 'On Velocity'. One module in Reaktor can take up several components in Max.

If you want "quick" (sorta) modular sound then you'll want Reaktor. If you want in-depth control up to micro management levels then you want Max. Make no mistake about this: I'm not dissing one above the other, because within synthesis micro management is also often an important aspect.

But I can honestly say that as a passionate Max programmer I've also became quite passionate about Reaktor. I love this stuff!

Yet as with so many things... "seeing is believing", which is why you got this post

Thanks for reading (?), I hope this could be useful for some of you out there.

Seriously: the best way to get started with Reaktor is to just DO stuff with it! (and bookmark the manuals).

 

Viewing your audio

So.. above is a longer story about how to view incoming MIDI data, but as we all know: audio signals are where it's at. Let's take a look at audio!



So, the reason I wanted to share this with you guys is because I actually started searching for "how to use the scope module" and that led me to this thread. Now, there are some pretty good advises given there (and I really enjoyed the example from CList) but I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion that XY is better.

Of course, very important disclaimer: the thread I linked to is over 13 years old. So, things probably changed between now and then?

So how do we use the scope module in Reaktor 6? Like so:



Based on my experimentation this is the most minimal setting you'd need, as far as I can tell..

So what is happening there?

If you have the I icon enabled you'll notice that the Trig input of the Scope mentions the AE trigger, so that's a nobrainer. If you read up on your Reaktor basics you'll know that white cables (and outputs) indicate audio signals whereas yellow indicates normal (numeric?) values. So I knew that the inputs of the trigger ('Trig' and 'E') had to be audio related. Yes, this was a guess but I simply connected the audio output from the oscillator because it was the only audio signal I had

So now for TS, YP and YS; these are the important factors to make the scope work.

TS is the time scale; the duration of the signal fitting your screen. Although the range of TS is 0 - 1ms I figured that Reaktor might be able to use a multitude. See: the pitch dial has a value set from 0 - 127, which matches the requirements for the Sine oscillator P (= pitch) input. Despite that not matching 0-1 I figured I'd just hook it up

YP is the Y (vertical) position of the signal and nothing happened without something. I assume it should be possible to somehow feed a default signal into it but I figured... add a knob, see what happens.

YS is the vertical scaling. I tried to use the Amplitude knob for this but that wouldn't work. Also because my amplitude knob has a value from 0 - 1 whereas the scale uses a value from -1 - 1. I tried to make this work but... it won't. As such a dedicated knob.

Throw all of these together and you get a really stable scope display if you ask me. I've made something like this in Max too (obviously) but getting my signal to remain steady on the display? I needed a lot more fine tuning for that than with using Reaktor.

The end result should be obvious: a fully working scope with my sine wave oscillator:

The first steps at building a useful tone generator....​

I hope you can agree with me that using a scope module is hardly as difficult as it might seem, though I'll be the first to agree that learning how to set one up can definitely be daunting at first. My next move (for upcoming weekend) is learning how (or if) I can feed a fixed default value into the YP and YS inputs (this is my newbie'ism showing).

And after that? Obviously translating the frequency (or pitch) value of the knob from a decimal value to the actual frequency which the oscillator is generating; '52' doesn't really tell you much.

Once I managed that I'm going to look at the option of switching between oscillators. Sine is always a good place to start, but we also want sawtooth and square waves.

... to be continued?

 

You are using a DAW with a plug-in that doesn't respond to midi Pan. Reaktor can help.
For example, I'm using Chromaphone 2 (AAS) in Digital Performer (MOTU). My midi track has a number of Pan (CC 10) commands that were not having any effect. I used DP's Device Group feature to send the midi output not just to the instrument track with Chromaphone, but also to a hand-made Reaktor 6 effect (shown below) in that track. As you can see, the Reaktor code merges the L and R audio streams output by Chromaphone (identical, for practical purposes) and applies any Pan commands from the midi track. In this screen image you can see the Pan knob of the midi track and the corresponding level meters - these change often as the midi plays through. Now I can hear and record them.

 

You can use also a stereo mixer and control level and pan for each input.

 

Here's a useful one that might not be immediately obvious.

When using a mouse area's BL mouse button event for triggering and controlling stuff, sometimes it doesn't seem as responsive as it should - it's easy to to put this down to bugs in your code, or Reaktor being flaky, however...

What's really happening is that if you click fast enough it registers as a double click instead of a left button click.
The very simple solution is to merge the BL output and the Db output - then you can click as fast as you like baby and it will work real nice!

 

Shell,
Thanks! I've been building in Reaktor for about 1.5 years, but somehow never learned about the F-Keys!
So educational to revert to novice status. There is so MUCH to reaktor, so many manuals, so many pages, so many words and posts that it never hurts to pretend you know nothing and read "Getting Started" again.

 

-GUI-
here is a small tip that I always use with 'Stacked-Macro' - there is an issue with the Stacked macro behavor that for some reason dosn't lets you move the GUI elements that are inside the macros. so first thing Iam doing to workaround this issue is to put an empty Picture module in the macro that I working on in the stuck.
here is an example of A,D,S,R text modules with an empty picture that called 'PlaceHolder' with this I can move stuff around the macro with the arrows of the keyboard as if it was a regular macro

here is a therad with a more accurate explanation
https://www.native-instruments.com/...hic-assets-initialize-in-next-version.379237/

 

If all set correct on the right place create a Group Panel Elements for the first macro in the stacked macro.


After copying all panel elements sits on the right place.