Lessons
The Structure of Reaktor
06:04 2Interface Overview and Creating a Basic Synth
11:58 3Adding Modulation
10:09 4Filter Envelopes
09:40 5Setting up an LFO
14:38 6Using Macros
13:54 7Detuning Oscillators
10:19 8Saving Macros and Instruments
06:02What is Additive Synthesis?
13:05 10Building an Additive Synth: Harmonic Series
10:02 11Building an Additive Synth: Pitch and Amp Envelopes
10:55 12Building an Additive Synth: LFO
16:23 13Building an Additive Synth: Combining Partials
22:01 14What is FM Synthesis?
07:43 15Changing a Partial into an Operator for FM Synthesis
18:20 16Mod Matrix and Mixers
20:37 17Troubleshooting Complex Macros
10:41 18Mixing and Modulating Operators with Mod Matrix
14:50 19Organizing Macros and FM Synth Review
11:31 20Working with a Basic Sampler
11:19 21Sampler FM
08:16 22Sampler Loop
13:08 23Granular Synthesis
13:52 24Grain Pitchformer
07:31 25Grain Cloud
15:09 26Closing Thoughts and Final Review
05:18Lesson Info
Working with a Basic Sampler
This is one of the most fun parts of doing modular synthesis is working with samples. Everybody really loves working with samples. So I've already opened up a new ensemble and I just want to get started. So let's go into the structure of you and let's go into the instrument that's just been created. And I'm going to do a save as and say this as sampling Take my inputs out of here now. The difference between using samplers and using oscillators is that the sampler has to be told when to play it sample, whereas an oscillator is always making sound. So let's start with a simple sampler I'm gonna control clip built in module sampler. And here is a very, very simple sampler. I'm gonna go to my Mac Rose building blocks and choose a pitching gate. Now I've got no pitch and gate available, but what's this additional one called Trigger? Well, that's telling the sample to play, So if you think about it, this way triggers the front end. This is hey, sample play and then the audio input here is th...
e output. It's the gate that's opening it up and closing. So even if the sample is playing, it hits that gate and stops. We need to also open the gate for it. So you trigger the sample and it flows to the gate. So I'll take this gate output in getting my trigger input, and I'll select my sampler output and have it go to these ports. Now the sampler does not have a sample in it right off the bat. We have to put a sample in it. So we open up the sample editor by coming up here and choosing this will wave form. We get a keyboard on the right and the list on the left. The list on the left is and the keyboard on the right. They're both the same thing. They're both showing the sample information. It's going to go to the finder and I'll choose. I don't know. I'll choose whatever this bases, drag it to reactor. Now check it out if you drag to the top here, if covers the whole keyboard. But the second I pulled down, it starts to give me a range. So this is how I can select the range for this instrument. I'll put it around, see three, and given an octave. Uh huh. So there we go. Very simple sampler e. I can drag another sample in. Well, put it underneath. So now we have that sample in that sample. Now, the blue key that you see down below is the root note. So that's saying this is the note that this sound was sampled at. So anything above it is going to be higher in pitch and there isn't anything below it. But if I extended the range out, it would also change the range. It's also gonna pitch shifted as well. Now this is a very simple sampler. So literally the only thing it's doing is telling a sample to play. We've given its sample ranges, and we've given it a root note. But that's about it now. What if I wanted to have one key but be able to select via velocity? Well, it's pretty easy to do that. I grab this little zone here at the bottom and I drag it up. I'll take this zone and I'll drag it down from the top. So now we're creating our zones and I want their route notes. If I click on this when you see it has a different route. Note, then this soon, so I'll drag this over to the left. So when you drag a sample in your creating a zone automatically, when you drag a second sample in, they have to zones. But you can layer the zones on top of each other, and now it will allow you to cross fade between them, using velocity by altering my velocity. I'm able to select between those. So when you have them stacked on top of each other, that would be good for multi sampled instruments like maybe drones or a piano or something like that when you're hitting the same key. You wanted to change Tambor, depending on how hard you hit it, when you set things out, sort of in a linear fashion that be good for things like drum kits, where you have a kick on C one and a snare on D one, etcetera, etcetera. Now, in the left hand side. I see that it has this list and it gives me a root note value. So it's gonna be 0 to 1 27 like a lager and MK pitch, right? And right now our route value is 60 so 60 equals C three. Okay, we have our high and low velocity right next to that. So you can actually just the velocity numerically if you wish. If you don't want to do it visually over here, if it's just too much pain, you can always come back here into it. We also have embedding so we can actually take this sample and embed it into this sampler unit. So later on, if I was to pull up a macro or something like that, it would pull the sample data with it. So let's start by building and drum kit. Why not? So I'm actually going to remove these samples, and I will go to my finder and my finder. I have some samples from an electronic drum kit. Here's a and check this out. I'll take bass drum one. Drag it down to see one. Now, watch what happens when I come down. If I go to the very bottom Look, it's actually layering my kicks together. That's pretty cool. So it's an automatic velocity layer when we pulled to the bottom. When I go to the top is trying to spread everything out. Everything is layered right now, but as I pulled down, it decreases the zone range, and then it gets the very bottom. Now, all of those kicks are on C one. Now, when I let go of the key, it's closing the gate really quickly. That's why we hear a little click, so we'll have to fix that in a minute. Now, let's find a snare drum. So did it to do their snare one. I grab snare one. I'd rather get down ago. Two d one Ray. There we go. I'll get some high hats. So I'm looking for closed high hats. In this nomenclature. It looks like C H h is the ticket. There we go. Open. Hi. Hats probably. Oh, h h, Where is my Ohh at There it is. It's only one lonely sample living all by itself, All right? And I want a clap. Of course. Can you have the music without clap? I hope there's a rim shot. Take that and put that right here. Here we go. There's my clap, so that should map it out pretty well on the keyboard. So how do we get rid of that clique? Well, we can either hold down the key, Which is kind of Ah, you gonna be hard if we start to play faster or we create an envelope. We've done envelopes before on oscillators, but not on a sampler. So I'll get rid of that. And I'm gonna create a very simple envelope. Um, usually for drones, something like decay and release is fine because we always want the attack of a drone, or at least most of the time. So there's my gate input. There's the output. There's my decay and release. No click. Okay, so this is pretty cool. I'm looking at my sample map here in the left hand side. And I think what I want to dio is I want to save this as a map. I may be building a sampler in the future, and I may wanna have a very simple map for a 909 That's this drum machine that I'm pulling old samples from. So if I get a sample map here, I can export the sample map, including the audio data. So not just the references. If you had a pool of samples that you like to use, um then you might be able to do it just references, and it will be referencing stuff on the drive. But in this case, we're doing export, including audio data. So all of that stuff is going to be included in our sample map. So I'm gonna go to my desktop, and I have a new folder they're gonna make called sample maps, and this will be called I know nine. So that is the simplest form of sample. And then, of course, we could put a filter on their We could put an amplifier on their We can do all the same things that we do with a synthesizer, but with a sampler instead.
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
This is a GREAT class. I highly recommend it. Reaktor can be intimidating, but little by little he breaks it down. I feel like I have gotten practical use out of it from watching these videos. There is so much to learn here. I have come back multiple times to watch. David Earl is a superior instructor. You will enjoy him. I hope he will do more here.
a Creativelive Student
David Earl (he doesn't care what you call him) is the best! I watched so many tutorials on Reaktor and by his second video I already learned more than the other ones. Thank you!
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