Reaktor is one of the deepest tools in music technology - a modular environment where you can build synthesisers, samplers, sequencers and effects from smaller building blocks, or simply play the thousands of instruments others have built. Think of it as a box of building blocks: you can use the finished models, or take them apart and build something no one else has.
This chapter is a tour. The next two cover building your own.
Reaktor and Reaktor Player
- Reaktor Player is free and plays instruments built for it - including several from Native Instruments' Komplete range - but cannot open or edit their structure.
- Reaktor (the full version) can play, open, edit and build ensembles of every kind.
Reaktor runs standalone or as a plug-in inside your DAW. Standalone is often easiest for learning: less load on the computer, and more screen space for Reaktor's windows.
The building blocks
Reaktor organises everything in a hierarchy:
- Ensemble - the top level: the complete file you load. It can contain several instruments wired together.
- Instrument - a self-contained unit with its own panel, snapshots and MIDI settings - a synth, an effect, a sequencer.
- Macro - a container for a group of modules, used to organise structures and build reusable sections.
- Module - the smallest building block: an oscillator, a filter, an envelope, a maths operation, a knob.
There are two levels of building: Primary, where modules process signals at a high level, and Core, a lower-level environment for building modules themselves with fine control and efficiency. Most users never need Core.
Panel and Structure
- The Panel view shows the playable front of an instrument - knobs, faders, buttons, displays.
- The Structure view shows the wiring - modules and macros connected by cables. This is where you build and modify.
Every control you see on a panel corresponds to a module in the structure.
Snapshots
Snapshots store and recall every control setting on an instrument - Reaktor's presets. Many factory ensembles come with dozens of snapshots that show off what they can do. Exploring snapshots is the quickest way to hear an ensemble's range.
What to explore
Reaktor's factory library and its huge online User Library contain synthesisers, drum machines, samplers, sequencers, generative instruments and effects. A tour should include:
- A classic-style subtractive synth - many ensembles are modelled on vintage analogue instruments. Try finding a snapshot with a big detuned sawtooth bass, turning off the filter envelope, and MIDI-learning the cutoff to a controller.
- A sequencer or step-based instrument - generative and rhythmic patterns that would be hard to create in a DAW.
- A loop-mangling or slicing effect - rapid chops, stutters and edits on a break in seconds.
- A granular instrument - textures and clouds from samples.
- Blocks - Reaktor's modular-synth environment, covered in its own chapter.
MIDI learn
Right-click almost any panel control and choose MIDI learn, then move a hardware knob, and the two are linked. Mapping a few key controls - cutoff, resonance, a macro - turns an ensemble into an instrument you can perform.
Practice
Synthesis is a discipline that takes time. Theory alone is not enough: spend time with these ensembles, turn every control, and notice what changes. The next two chapters will make much more sense if you have.
Do this now
- Open Reaktor standalone and load three factory or User Library ensembles: a synth, a sequencer and an effect.
- Browse at least ten snapshots of each.
- On the synth, MIDI-learn the filter cutoff and resonance to a controller and play.
- Open the Structure view of one ensemble and identify an oscillator, a filter and an envelope.