Ableton Forum

ìm curious what's so special about the VST Reaktor.

i read a lot about it on this forum, tho it seems that many
people are using it.

what kind of sound does it produce?
what kind of music would the sound fit into?

just wondering....

sorry

never used it myself

but I think the basic answer to your questions are:

everything,

anything.

reaktor's a real beast

how do you know that it's a beast
when you never used it yourself?

Imagine a big box of Lego, giving you the possibility to build whatever you can think of. That's Reaktor. It's an effect box, synth, sampler, sample player, granular wotsit, sequencer, drum machine, all at the same time.

What kind of sound does it produce? Whatever you tell it to.
What kind of music would the sound fit into? Any and every kind.

ultrasonyk wrote: i read a lot about it on this forum

ultrasonyk

Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Posts: 88

ultrasonyk wrote: i read a lot about it on this forum

longjohns

Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 4749

don't worry - someone will come along to answer. I just had to put some actual words here because I felt guilty for chuckling at first

Why doesn't everybody use reaktor then?
why bother using other vst's?
why going out and spend thousands of bucks for hardware synth's?

what's the DISADVANTAGE of reaktor?

complexity, overkill, cost?

back to the lego example: not everyone would prefer to build a car out of legos. most people would rather just buy a car.

on the other hand one of the strengths of reaktor is the large user library of patches.

so you can find many pre-made cars on there which might suit you.

longjohns wrote:complexity, overkill, cost?

back to the lego example: not everyone would prefer to build a car out of legos. most people would rather just buy a car.

on the other hand one of the strengths of reaktor is the large user library of patches.

so you can find many pre-made cars on there which might suit you.

Exactly. Reaktor's strength, it's complexity, is also it's weakness. While you can build your own all the lib-long day, I'd venture to say that most users simpler peruse the user library for whatever they need and never look at the underlying construction.

Reactor is the one plug in that basically you could buy and never have to purchase another synth, sampler, drum machine, FX, etc. The library has mastering tools, and reverbs, plus all of the above.

Basically, Reactor has a 2000+ library of plug ins as a customer you can download for free off NI's site. If I had to use only one plug in, it would be Reactor.

You can also build your own tools, in fact that's what hundreds of people have done, and load them into the library for others to use.

People can say what they want about NI, but Cycling 74 have not set up this sort of thing for Max/MSP, mainly people build things in Max/MSP and sell them it seems.

reaktor is ridiculous value. the synths/fx/beatboxes/etc. on offer are fantastic. and, while creating your own beasts from scratch may be challenging, it's pretty easy to connect existing ensembles to create your dream patch for mastering, or guitar fx, or whatever.

i'm actually not sure why everyone doesn't have and use reaktor, though it's known for being useful for more experimental stuff, which is somewhat true (that is, if you're just recording bands, folk, whatever, you might not find much in reaktor of interest, though some of the fx might still come in handy).

The disadvantage might be that a lot of ensembles (Reaktor's 'VST') take quite a bit of CPU resources. But there are some really great creations in the user library, highly recommended!

Reaktor. Is. Awesome.

For what you get, and what you can do with it, the price is not even a factor. The biggest selling point is not the stock library, but the community that surrounds Reaktor. The U/L and resources that are available to users both advanced and new are spectacular...and it's not even like you are 'stuck' with using the sounds that other people have come up with! Everything is programmable!

I would recommend R5 to anyone who wants software that thinks outside the box, without a) breaking the bank, and b) making you learn a whole new language to use it!

what you are describing sounds pretty much
as what i can do with for example the arturia moog modular vst.

well each synth, whether be it hardware or software, has it's
own typical sound character.

reaktor doesn't have one?

ultrasonyk wrote:what you are describing sounds pretty much
as what i can do with for example the arturia moog modular vst.

well each synth, whether be it hardware or software, has it's
own typical sound character.

reaktor doesn't have one?

well it's quite complicated to explain basically. I think you're confusing two different types of software. One EMULATES vintage hardware which is Arturia's best selling argument, and it sounds very good indeed, while reaktor lets you create thousands of different structures that will suit your sound and personality, and naturally they will have their own sound character.

Or better: one emulates vintage components, while the other emulates standard components and modules. Does it mean arturia's moog or reaktor sounds better? It's just a choice you have to make for yourself, whether you want to go emulate vintage synths or create your own.


I've been using it myself for a few months, and it's totally amazing, the biggest disadvantage of reaktor is that you can easily get lost creating components instead of working seriously on tracks, while it's biggest advantage is the overall sound quality even at 16/44 and of course the large amount of patches available on the NI website.

L.



L.