Elektron-Users

i'm curious what everyone here thinks of Reaktor, possibly of version 5 if you have it. i was suprised to hear people on this forum regarding it really high. i'm not too familiar with it though.
i'm really looking for one good soft synth to add to my rig. i liked Absynth ok, but sold it cuz the font was SO damn small! and the Virus Powercore i could do, but apparently has some hefty bugs.

Reaktor 5 (previously Reaktor 4) exists in my setup as the only modular and only softsynth i use.

It's highly versatile and i use it for practicly anything you can imagine. Freaky FX, subtile or hard distortion, synthsounds, samplemangling and so on.

I really couldn't think of my setup being complete without a tool like this. I am not saying there aren't alternatives but reaktor has a very nice GUI and is very configurable in the midi department wich makes it a breeze to work with combines with my Novation RMT25 midi controller.

Reaktor 5 is a very good softsynth but probably not the best if you are looking for emulation stuff like the Arturia synths. IF you are however, looking for a very versatile modular sollution that also supports sampling and sample processing you are in the right spot. In this area it even kills the Nord Modular (G2) with ease (I actually sold my G2 Engine to purchase reaktor).

Reaktor, and any modular soft or hardware sollution are very specific tools and not for the faint hearted. If you like the modular approach, i think u'll be very happy with it indeed. Hope this helps.

cool...that does help. i'm checking out the demo ASAP!

I have to say it is nice. I also recommend getting as many presets as you can. It's pretty hard to figure out. I mean it can take some time. So far I find it easier to solder and follow directions than to figure out how to build with Reaktor.

But yea there are alot of tools there. You also need all the processing power you can get, just like any soft synth.

The new presets are pretty awsome. I don't use that word often, but yea. Definitely worth the money if you got it.

well, i see it sold for even as little as like $400...so between it or something hardware, it's a great deal, so long as i'm not longing for hardware still

I dont care how great it is, if its not hardware, I'm not interested. Theres just something about not being in front of a computer monitor thats nice about hardware synths - I mean, its not the DSP part - I am fine with that. But having a real knob, a real key, and a real modwheel is so friggin satisfying for me. And no latency is nice.

that said - why do you recommend presets?

and this also begs the question - if its hard to use, whats so great about it? Is simplicity not best anymore?

Just probing is all...

milkman:
presets are good in Reaktor because it's modular and its complicated. the presets help you understand how other people did things, so that you can learn them and then do them on your own.

it's not hard to use, but it CAN be. it's not as difficult as Max/MSP at least. but it's there to grow with you and do complicated things if you want it to.

and regarding hardware vs. software... I agree and disagree. I love hardware and I prefer it for many things, but I like software a lot as well. I try not to ignore a tool just because the way of working with it is something I'm not used to or is less-than-ideal. but I understand how one can take this stance.

chiasticon wrote:
milkman:
presets are good in Reaktor because it's modular and its complicated. the presets help you understand how other people did things, so that you can learn them and then do them on your own.

it's not hard to use, but it CAN be. it's not as difficult as Max/MSP at least. but it's there to grow with you and do complicated things if you want it to.

and regarding hardware vs. software... I agree and disagree. I love hardware and I prefer it for many things, but I like software a lot as well. I try not to ignore a tool just because the way of working with it is something I'm not used to or is less-than-ideal. but I understand how one can take this stance.

And on the 123.122.435.523.552.528.956.235.236.742.235.745.246.733th day Doepfer created the midicontroller. And it was good. And other manufactureres saw that it was good. And so they created other midi controller. And so it was all good.

:-D I agree that without midi controller the situations gets less positive. Reaktor does kick-ass however. So damn flexible. Eveything (well ok almost) is possible. I love hardware too, no doubts there, but this is an awesome piece of program.

that's pretty funny...the biblical reference.

anyway, PLEASE let's not turn this into another hardware vs. software thread. (although ironically that's what i'm debating and the reason i'm inquiring about Reaktor)

i'm yet to have time to check the demo...but good to know it seems to be quite powerful.

enough to replace a good hardware synth even, huh?

chiasticon wrote:
...
but it's there to grow with you and do complicated things if you want it to.

Everytime people speak of reaktor, everyone always glorifies how deep and complex things it can do. I'm getting bored to that. I'm _not_ saying chiasticon says that, but I borrow some of his argument which has same kind of vibe.

I'm not denying this at all. Reaktor is a mindbogging program. On the other hand I feel reaktors deepness and complexiness and other same kind of coolness is just an engineering side of things. It's really great program to do odd machines and stuff, but on the other hand odd machines and stuff have little to do with deep and complex music. I think it's easy to explore music from technical view (just what vst-revoltion offers), but much harder from musical view. For against reaktor-deepness-factor I would put the composiotion and arrangement deepness. What I'm really trying to say is that reaktor is amazing program for technical exploring off music machines, but doesn't offer much for the musical workflow. For example compare Ableton Live to reaktor; so different. It would be superduper cool if reaktor engineer side would meet ableton live in on problem (no I'm not speaking off vst-use of reaktor).

Nah.. just nagging around. It's a great program.