Spent the afternoon playing with Reactable again today. It really is starting to grow on me. It's still frustratingly limited in some areas, but there are still lots of fun little functions to try out.
One of the things I was quite impressed by was the scale quantise. Effectively, you select the scale and key you want, and all notes will be transposed to fit with in that scale, pretty neat. A particularly easy way to make use of this function is by using the randomising on the sequencers. You can set a rhythm and the sequencer will spit out random notes on the pattern you entered. When you combine these two little functions it can get pretty interesting.
The breaks are some I loaded in from my computer, running together into a compressor, both the bass an melody oscillators are ran from random quantised patterns from the sequencers, then through a low pass filter and reverb. I had the window for the melody sequencers rate, and was just switching between a couple different tempos.
So, OK, its not exactly the most inspired piece of music you ever heard, but still pretty neat for a little app. Anyone with an Ipad or Iphone who hasn't tried this out yet, give it a go, its awesome!!
Wow what a tiring last few days, really annoyed at myself for having missed a few days. To be honest I figured it would be somewhat inevitable that I might not manage a sound a day every day. That's the way life goes I suppose.
So, FINALLY got my PC back on its feet. Ended up buying a new Hard Drive, and starting a complete reinstall of everything, backing up everything onto a spare drive, and then moving it all back to the right place. With near enough a Terra Byte of things to keep track of, it took a while!
Kept myself amused in the mean time by drawing on my IPad. I got myself Sketchpad Pro, its really good! Slightly cumbersome interface but you get into it after a while. Here's a doodle I was doing while everything was copying across.
Anyway, I've got some catching up to do, so here's a sound! As I mentioned above, my Ipad has been keeping me busy while my computer recovers, and aside from doodling, I've also been playing with Reactable. It's growing on me I have to say. The oscillators have some nice functions especially. The can each supply 3 different voices, with independent control for waveform, volume, and tuning. Nice way to thicken things up, so long as you keep everything relative. This was an attempt at using this function to make a nice full pad sound. I did at first use the Reactable Reverb as well, but to be honest, it sounds rubbish. Instead I ran the patch dry into Reaktor and used the Space Master verb, and Duel Sync Delay Instruments.
I think it sounds not half bad! Although the Space Master is one of my favourite sounding reverbs, Reactable still has a pretty decent quality coming out of it. And to be fair, reverb is a CPU intensive effect, so there's no surprise that the Reactable one is a bit crappy sounding.
There are still a few bugs that I'd love to see ironed out. You get some weird glitches when muting event data, and I wish there was more modules over all. Also I get frustrated when not all parameters can be modulated. But still, Reactable is definitely a cool way of noodling out some ideas when there isn't a functional PC nearby!
Bought myself Reactable for IPad as my Christmas present this year. Spent the last few days playing about with it. Really mixed feelings with it to be honest. Its a really great interface, really fun to use, and sound results are surprisingly good.
Unfortunately it does feel very limited. There are only so many modules you can place in a table, which makes creating complex synth patches more or less impossible. My other gripe is that it feels far more tailored for playing about with loaded loops, rather than creating them. Everything is monophonic as well which is a real shame, and it's especially noticeable when building drum parts. You cant have a kick and hat on the same beat for example.
All in all though, it's great fun to use, and for only a fiver.
Here's a recording of a little patch I made earlier today. Pretty cool sounds for an App!
It's certainly a fun way to come out with some nice sounds, despite being very limited. I'm back to work tomorrow, but Ill take the IPad with me and make some bleeps and whirs during my lunch break!
