Making Reaktor Simple. Learn The Most Powerful Modular Software On The Planet

As a modular sound studio, Reaktor provides musicians infinite power to create their own instruments, effects, samplers and more.

The challenge is that unlimited flexibility can create confusion.

Your enthusiasm and desire to create great music fades if you don’t know what to do next.

Introduction To Reaktor and Oscillators

In the setup video, “Introduction To Building,” I’m going to show you how to set up Reaktor, and which options to turn on to be as efficient as possible. You’ll learn how to build ensembles fast, what mode gives you new options, and how to get extra information.

In Video 1, “Navigating Reaktor Structure,” I’ll show you how to navigate structures in Reaktor, a comprehensive overview of the many ways to navigate, fast ways to set inputs and outputs, and powerful secondary methods to navigate through an ensemble.

In Video 2, “Building With Instruments,” I will be demonstrating the most basic type of building in Reaktor which consists of connecting pre-built instruments together. You’ll see how to add effects to a synthesizer, how to connect inputs and outputs, and how to choose a sequencer.

Video 3, “Building With Macros,” you’ll find out the largest building blocks in Reaktor and how to create them with macros, how to use the built-in components of Reaktor to create a subtractive synth and a major weakness in the macro library and how to overcome it.

In Video 4,“Audio vs. Events,” we learn how to recognize the different signal types, how they interact with each other, how to create with built-in modules, how to select the menu and choose an oscillator, and how to control the speed at which different event rates modules output their events.

In Video 5, “Oscillators,” we’ll go over the oscillator menu modules, which oscillators have pitch and amplitude inputs, how to give the user more control, how to control amplitude of an oscillator with an envelope and how to rearrange knobs by unlocking the panel.

In Video 6, “Oscillators- Part 2,” I’ll continue with oscillators by explaining pulse width modulation, show a very common mistake when connecting modulators directly to the carrier, and how to restart an oscillator to begin again every time a MIDI note is pressed.

Filters and Building Your own FM Synth

Video 7, “Quick Building Tips,” shows you a few methods for quickly and efficiently building in Reaktor, the quickest way to add macros and modules, how to create a basic ADSR envelope, how to set a sine oscillator to have a pitch envelope input and a fast way to add inputs to several types of modules.

In Video 8, “Envelopes,” we will go over the different types of envelopes available to us and how to use them properly. You’ll discover how to understand the “alphabet soup” of envelopes, how to determine the length of the attack, decay, release and sustain of an envelope and how to use ramps to create more interesting modulation effects.

In Video 9, “Filters,” we will go over another common element of synthesis—filters. You’ll discover how they work, how to get a visual representation of a filter, see how the amplitude of any sound passing through the filter is affected, and how to make a simple key tracker to go along with any filter.

In Video 10, “FM Synth,” we will make a simple FM synthesizer. You’ll learn how to how to dampen the level of frequency modulation, how and when to use the switch, and how to expand a sound by increasing the range of the FM knobs. (and get a little more grit to the FM sound).

In Video 11, “FM Synth – Part 2,” we will be making some changes to the sample FM synthesizer that we built last time. You’ll see how to create a very basic pulse width modulation structure, how to get two different FM options, and how to allow each oscillator to contribute to the final output.

In Video 12, “FM Synth – Part 3,” you’ll learn how to add a simple filter to your synthesizer. You’ll learn how to use the frequency cutoff, how to create a switch for user control, how to add any filters you want to use a macro, and how to control which direction the filter frequency is shaped.

Making Your own SAMPLERS & DELAYS

In Video 13, “Mono Vs. Poly,” we will cover the difference between mono and poly signal types in Reaktor, take a look at poly signals, learn how voice stealing works, how mono signals work and what you would use them for, and how to use mono and poly signals together in the same instrument.

In Video 14, “Samplers – Part 1,” I’ll go over the basics of using the sampler modules and show how to make a basic drum machine using them, how to pitch shift samples up or down, little known methods to get some more power out of the sampler module and how the separator works.

In Video 15, “Samplers – Part 2,” I’ll expand upon the simple drum machine we built last time using one of the more interesting sampler modules, go over how we used a poly-phonic signal, how to control the speed independently of the pitch, and how to turn on looping for all samples.

In Video 16, “Delays – Part 1,” we will cover the basics of one of the Single Delay modules, how to create a simple Echo Delay effect with tempo sync, how to add a feedback knob, how to have two mixer modules that are receiving the same inputs, and how to use the Audio Smoother.

In Video 17, “Delays – Part 2,” I’ll show how we can add a tempo sync function to the echo delay, how to use the Stacked Macro module to create optional control, how to add a Tempo Info module to help set the number of beats per second and a simple method of calculating a tempo-synced delay.

Event Programming and Sine Banks

Video 18, “Event Watcher” – I’ll focus more fully upon events and how they work. You’ll learn how to use a macro called Event Watcher, how it records all of the events that come into inputs, how to determine if you’ve made a mistake, and how event modules respond to receiving events.

In Video 19, “IC Sends,” I’ll go over a few different methods of controlling knobs and other panel elements in Reaktor from external MIDI devices, how to use Soft Takeover for MIDI controls, and how an IC send can be very useful–especially for monophonic ensembles such as effects.

In Video 20, “Sine Banks – Part 1,” I’ll introduce the Sine bank which is one of the most complicated modules, a collection of sine waves called partials, how to send information to a sine wave, and how to create a macro that will allow you to control the amplitude of a partial.

In Video 21, “Sine Banks – Part 2,” I’ll focus on using a single knob to set up a whole bunch of sine bank parameters at once, how to use an event processing module called the Iteration module, and how a harmonic knob can control the distance in ratio between each sine wave partial.