I hate to say it but I find VCVrack more immediately fun than Reaktor blocks. Three reasons - immediacy, flexibility and CPU.beats me wrote:How does it compare to Reaktor Blocs? (not that I've sue those either)Angstrom wrote:it's good, but right now there's no VST bridge, it's purely standalone. remember to download all the extensions, otherwise you'll only have the basic module set
The patches are text (xml) and paste-able.
I thought of starting a thread here with our patches, but it seems redundant until VCV can integrate with live.
Immediacy ... In Reaktor we must assemble the synth made of blocks in the Ensemble Patching mode, and make our audio and modulation connections in that mode then flip over to the Panel view to play it and turn the dials. Which disconnects patching from dial tweaking and feels very disjointed. In VCV it's all one screen, patching and playing. I can turn a dial and patch a cable at the same time.
Flexibility... Blocks only have two modulation inputs which are "around the back" in patching mode, those two inputs are not named, they just appear on the Panel as mysterious A and B dials. So you have to keep flipping back to patching mode to see what exactly is A or B which is being turned up on each Block. Two mod inputs is simply not enough, and two unlabelled inputs is terrible. In VCV the inferences are via everyone's favourite visual metaphor ... dangly wires! At least we can trace one while we play and say "ah yes, that LFO controls this pitch"
Reaktor Blocks are a bit of a CPU killer. The sound of Reaktor's Blocks are really great, but that doubles the pain when going over 10 blocks and seeing the CPU meter start to climb .
VCVrack seems to have around half the CPU load of Reaktor using Blocks when constructing a similar sort of patch. In my very unscientific test.