Thoughts on Reaktor?

[The_G]

How many of you guys use it? What are your thoughts?

[Mattias]

I've used it for over a decade now. No plans to ever stop using it.

[pimo]

I have also been thinking about getting reaktor lately, but it seems so huge and something that could take me away from actually making music for a long time. At the same time it seems like a nice place to experiment and "find" sounds? would be interesting to hear how you use it?

[The_G]

I have also been thinking about getting reaktor lately, but it seems so huge and something that could take me away from actually making music for a long time. At the same time it seems like a nice place to experiment and "find" sounds? would be interesting to hear how you use it?

This is pretty much where I'm coming from.

[Mattias]

I think that when you decide on getting Reaktor it takes quite some time to get familiar with. You really have to set that time aside and just mess with it and all cool Ensambles and jam stuff out, not necessarily try to make music meanwhile.

[arkos]

Here's my thoughts on it, get it

[PixelKind]

You can always use ensembles like any other VST and not get under the hood to program your own. Also the blocks are very easy to use and dont need much "learning".

[snizpoker]

just picked it up about a week ago, good fun to fuck about with but i definitely feel like it's going to take a while of not making too much else apart from trying to get to grips with it

[Alume]

Wait till its on sale. I got mine for 99 euros

[TimBuys]

I am quite unfamiliar with Reaktor. Any particular reason why I should get it?

[1nfinitezer0]

It's as deep as a modular or max/msp, but it depends how much time you want to invest into it. The amount of available devices in the user library is crazy.

It's too expansive for everyday use, but as Mattias said, great for jamming out new sounds. My typical workflow for it is to make a sound, map a bunch of MIDI control, jam out 10+ minutes of audio recorded, and chop it up afterwards.

The morphing crossfade between patches is a great way to explore stuff you might not produce from fiddling around.

I have no intention of learning how to program it beyond mapping MIDI when it wasn't enabled, or wiring ensembles together (which are reasonably accomplished with some internet searches).

Also, reaktor player is worth having, some of the synths on that engine are useful tools even if their sound is quite recognizable.

Definitely worth the money if it's on sale at all. Especially now since they've shown they're not about to drop support for it because of engine updates and a trickle of dependent releases.

[Planar]

Reaktor rocks, there's a few threads on here about it if you search. Best money I ever spent on music software bar none. Itching for the new komplete so I can upgrade.

[pimo]

Just bought Reaktor and waiting for the delivery. Would really appreciate some tips on what ensambles to check out first and why? Also, do you have any tips on nice sequencers for reaktor?

[Mattias]

It could definitely do with an GUI overhaul though I think it's hard to manage since its such an old plugin. Many ensembles are very old.
Personally I'm okay with it (you get used to it after all that time) but it can probably scare new users.

[mindflex]

Twisted Tools ensembles are amazing. I could never build something like that so I'm happy to buy them. For me they really show case the amazing power of reaktor.

[Hades]

Yeah I can see why you'd stick with it having already made the effort, but honestly, if I was starting fresh into a patching environment, I'd go with Max / Max for Live / or if you want that modular patching thing in reaktor 6, then try Xodular in pure data (which is FREE). I find myself allergic to NI interfaces... Just look at how complicated they made FM8, I think I used to spend ages trying to draw in tiny envelopes on that plugin before realising that just using Operator was as good for the sounds I was making, and with far less heartache.

god, join the club on that one.
I HATE NI interfaces.
NI is most definitely the dumbest company I have ever dealt with. It is a total mystery to me why they are so big.
When I sold some of my licenses a while ago, they made me open a new email-address because they had to transfer my remaining licenses to a new email-address. So yeah, honestly, I had to open a special email-address just for that shit.
"There is no other way", they said.
Seriously, there is no option in your company to delete something from an existing email-address ??
Are you joking me ???

Then, about a month ago, I bought Traktor and wanted to install it,
but yeah, I had to download the demo and then activate it.
Didn't work because I downloaded the demo from my normal email-address and not the one I had to open especially for stupid NI shit.
(and yes, apparantly that gets registered)
So yeah, that meant me having to email them and asking them to activate it for me.
Which meant like another 3 or 4 days of waiting...

Worst customer support I have pretty much seen in my whole life,
and I did a customer support job for 15 years untill recently, so it takes a lot for me to say something like that because I will always place myself in their position as well before I start acting as the frustrated/angry customer...

Anyway, enough NI ranting,
except that I really want to say that YES their shitty interfaces suck massively.
I've got Komplete (7 or 8, can't remember), and I haven't used ANY of their stuff apart from Reaktor for years now.
Of course FM8 sounds great, but yeah, as you say, I can do most of that stuff with Operator in 10x less time (and I have the harmonics drawing page !!).
But Reaktor is the only reason I would seriously think about upgrading some day.
I have only started properly using it a few months ago, but I absolutely love it (apart from the NI interface of course).

As Mattias says : you shouldn't think about making music, but just spend time with it and see where you end up.
But then again, I absolutely believe you should do this with almost any piece of new gear that enters the studio,
and even then, I believe you should just have days where you spend a few hours with your gear with no plans at all.
I used to do this a LOT a few years ago, and every time I ended up with some part that I liked, I just saved it in my clip library,
and nowadays I can always go back to my clip library whenever I'm a bit stuck with a track,
and chances are big I will find something that will work with the track.
Sometimes I wish the list of tracks I need to finish wasn't so big at the moment,
so I could have more days like that again : just enter the studio and waste a few hours with no real goal in mind.
The perfect anti-dote to our must must must must now now now now society !
Be productive !!!

[michi]

@hades

i feel sorry if you have had such a bad experience with our customer support. At the moment we had such high amount of requests.

Is your Traktor issue now solved?

[Hades]

@hades

i feel sorry if you have had such a bad experience with our customer support. At the moment we had such high amount of requests.

Is your Traktor issue now solved?

dear michi,

first of all, let me thank you for actually posting on here.
Even if this may sound ironic, I mean every word of this.

yes, my Traktor issue is resolved,
most likely because someone from NI manually registered my SN (which I mentioned above)
but I only found this out by trying,
and only several days later (and yes, several days of trying),
not because someone of your support team actually got back to me saying everything should be fine now (which I did ask),
getting back to customers would only take him/her barely 1 minute,
so I don't understand why they couldn't even have the courtesy to do that.

But yeah, I'm still stuck with an email address only for my NI stuff,
which, to me, makes no sense at all.
And I suspect some day I will not have logged into this address for a while (why would I ?) and yahoo will probably have shut it down,
at which point I already fear the "getting in touch with your customer support" part,
because, honestly, it's one of the worst I ever dealt with...

Please do not think I am some kind of frustrated fucker who was born in a case of lemons,
only out to complain about everything and everyone 24/7.
Like I stated above : I have myself, done a customer service job for almost 15 years,
and trust me if I say I know very well how many people are out there to just tell you how much shit X or Y or Z is,
and half of the times they didn't even bother to do A, B or C which were obvious things indicated in the manual,
and they expect a solution immediately, today (!!!), though they will call tomorrow, for a problem that's been going on since last month...
A rough guess would mean I took approx 100.000 to 140.000 calls in all those years,
and handled tons of emails/faxes/....
Does this make me a specialist ?
Not necessarily, but I think it's safe to say I have a lot more experience with customer service than most of us folks.
But that doesn't mean I have the answer to everything.
Any call and problem can be different.
The moment you think you know it all, you'd better just quit the job.
But yeah, looking at the statistics, it does mean I was a hardcore dinosaur when it came to customer support !
(and though I know this sounds arrogant I hope you can believe me when I say arrogance is the last impression I want to leave on people)

I think I have called NI about 3 or 4x, and I have emailed them maybe 10x, during the last decade.
If I say 30% of these interactions gave me a positive feeling afterwards, then I am seriously exaggerating in your advantage.

Yes, it is my honest belief that the interfaces of NI stuff is horrible, frustrating and non-intuïtive at all.
And yes, that is 90% of the reason why I'm not using almost any of my NI gear.
But yeah, the customer service is something entirely else,
and something your company should definitely deal with because I see similar complaints like mine all over the net...

To give you an example :
when I was having trouble activating my Traktor license,
and getting frustrated for hours,
someone else in the room was saying
"dude, I can give you the crack, it'll work fine, even with your controller ! Save yourself all the frustration and stress !!"
Doesn't that say enough ?

Yeah, I'm an honest man, I don't get cracks,
I pay for all the gear I use,
but with NI, I currently have a 20/80 positive/negative ratio...
And I'm pretty sure I am not alone with that feeling.

Again, thx for posting on here...
If you want more detailed info, you can always PM me.

have a nice day !

[michi]

@hades

Again, thx for posting on here...
If you want more detailed info, you can always PM me.

have a nice day !

i will send you a message .-)

[sinesnsnares]

Thanks for the heads up on xodular, looks interesting and will play around with it.