Reaktor: Golden Loop Sampler

As promised, here is another Reaktor ensemble.  I have been needing a good tool for working with drum loops, and didn’t really have anything that fit into my setup right.  So I just made a sample chopper.  There are some good slicers in the library, but, as usual, I wanted something that fit my needs.  

 

This slicer cuts your loop into equal divisions and then plays back those divisions with midi notes.  Each slice can be randomized in pitch, playback speed, and sample offset, and the probability of randomization can be set, too.  That’s pretty much it!

 

 Sampler GUI

 

Here are some quick MP3 demos I did of the slicer:

demo 1

demo 2

 

Here is the Ensemble:

Golden Slicer

Golden Reaktor Grain Sampler!

I haven’t really posted any reaktor patches on this blog.  I have quite a few Reaktor patches that I’ve made that i’m pretty proud of, however!  So, I’m going to try and start parting them out and bringing them here for people.  I try to comment them so they make sense, but you know–these patches were designed for my idiosyncratic way of working.

 

Snapshot of the GUI of the sampler.

Snapshot of the GUI of the sampler.

The GoldenCloudSampler .ens file is here.

This sampler was designed to work with my way of thinking about granulation and sampling.  There is a comprehensive modulation section where you can use clock-synced sequencers as well as LFO’s and envelopes to control the grain, filter, pitch, and volume parameters.  The start time in the sample, and speed of the traversal through the sample, are also randomizable upon midi note input.

There is also a sequencer which lets you flip through the various samples loaded into the sample map, synced to tempo.  I like to use groups of similar-sounding samples, and flip through them, to add a constantly evolving feel.  

Enough of that technical mumbo jumbo!   here are a couple tracks that i’ve written, using this sampler.

“Sun Choke” Mp3 audio.  This track’s sound is all from reaktor, and everything but the drums is from this sampler patch.

“whiteFish” Mp3 audio.  This track’s sampling work is a blend of samples from a shakuhachi, and a persian santur.  Other sounds were added from my synthesizers as well.  The String-like granulated sound that comes in after the introduction, and gets loudest about halfway through the track, is from this sampler.  The flute sounds were produced by another sampler instrument I made, which i’ll post up here soon as well.

g2 Granular Synthesis update

I made a new and improved granular patch for the G2, based on the one I posted here earlier.  This one gives you two streams of grains per-keyboard note: one of bandpass filtered noise, and one of FM synthesis grains, that you can cross-fade between with the control pedal input on the G2.  The speed of the grains is controlled with the mod wheel, and many other controls are mapped to the front panel knobs.  I like how it turned out!  You can also hear this patch being used in the bagger288 track in my previous blog.

 

mm, grains, tasty

mm, grains, tasty

Here is a track where I get some sounds with this new patch:

Strange Grains MP3 audio

here is the g2 patch:

DoubleGrain

Granular Synthesis on the G2

More g2 stuff!  One of the things I was excited about getting this Nord Modular for was doing granular synthesis with it.  I’ve loved playing with granular synthesis in Reaktor and Audiomulch, and with various VST plugins.  Doing granular synthesis was somewhat limited in the Nord Micro Modular I had before getting this G2 because of the limited polyphony.  But the G2 is much more powerful, and it handles granular synthesis/processing easily!

granpatch

A simple patch for FM granular synthesis in the g2!

This patch only uses 17% of the DSP power in one patch on the g2.  So this is really just a starting point, I have a lot of options!  Using all the control data on a keyboard to modulate granular synthesis parameters is a lot of fun–here, I have the aftertouch modulating the grain length, velocity modulating the FM index, and the mod wheel adjusting the frequency of the grains.

Here is an audio sample.  This is really just a demo track, of me having a lot of fun getting sounds from this patch by playing it on the keyboard.

MP3 audio of Granular Synthesis on the G2

and here is the patch file:

g2 granular patch