Twisted Tools

[Mehalic]

Hey guys,

any of you played around with any of the Twisted Tools Reaktor stuff? Particularly Vortex or Colorflex. Watched a tonne of video's but would like to hear from people that have tried or actually used these.

Any input would be great, thanks all!

[dum]

well, they look fabulous. top marks for the GUI.

They're fun instruments and appropriately priced, but I think they dance the fine line of being a 'suppatrigga' style effect.

but, besides the audio they churn out, I think their interface concepts are where they truly excel.


Anyway - there's demos. Try them. Make your own decision.

[exper]

Yeah, I've purchased Vortex, and it is amazing. And really, just replace the internal samples with your own, and the cliche-ness of the presets disappears. I'm waiting on Colorflex for now, but it looks promising as well. IMO, Vortex is WELL worth it...

[Mehalic]

Thanks Exper! Any chance you have any tracks with examples? Would love to hear its use in the context of a track. The Mike Huckaby overview was pretty kool as he did a quick overview and gave some brief examples. Sounded dope!

I think I'll give this a whirl tonight.

[:Metaphor:]

Yeah, I've purchased Vortex, and it is amazing. And really, just replace the internal samples with your own, and the cliche-ness of the presets disappears. I'm waiting on Colorflex for now, but it looks promising as well. IMO, Vortex is WELL worth it...

This comment makes me giggle considering that the samples are made by people like Richard Devine, Si Begg and Tipper

[exper]

Yeah, I've purchased Vortex, and it is amazing. And really, just replace the internal samples with your own, and the cliche-ness of the presets disappears. I'm waiting on Colorflex for now, but it looks promising as well. IMO, Vortex is WELL worth it...

This comment makes me giggle considering that the samples are made by people like Richard Devine, Si Begg and Tipper

NO, I'm definitely not trashing the samples. I'm just saying, if one is worried about Vortex sounds becoming overused ala SuppaTrigga as Dum mentioned, then one would just have to put their own samples in. Trust me, I've got plenty of Devine and Tipper/Crunch in my CD shelves...

And to the original poster, unfortunately, I don't have anything online to listen to, but I would just DL the demo. You can get a feel for it, try out the presets, etc. There's definitely more to it than skittery glitchy stuff. You can get it to do nice warm sounds as well. Oh, and try out their freebie section as well. He's made some of my most used ensembles in Reaktor like Colorstrip, Flakes and Debris.

[dum]

Actually I was speaking in terms of composition.
Suppatrigga is an effect, it has no sounds of it's own...

I thought loading your own samples into Vortex went without saying...

[emef]

i bought vortex
it's great
i throw my own samples in it but the demo presets are pretty good

[exper]

Actually I was speaking in terms of composition.
Suppatrigga is an effect, it has no sounds of it's own...

I thought loading your own samples into Vortex went without saying...

Right. So was I. Suppatrigga may be an effect, but it has a sound all it's own and is used quite often. I was saying that there is alot more to vortex than stutters and granular glitches. It also is great for warm, dubby sounds and textures. As for samples and presets, you'd be surprised how some Reakor presets end up in commercial tracks. Some people are happy to tweak a sound to their liking, others want tabula rasa.

[Poster]

one flaw I found with Vortex is that you can't visually set the sample start..
for one shots this isn't an issue but with loops its quite impossible to set sample start accurately to transients..

overall its a nice ensemble but it doesn't do anything you can't do with other ensembles from the UL..

[dum]

Actually I was speaking in terms of composition.
Suppatrigga is an effect, it has no sounds of it's own...

I thought loading your own samples into Vortex went without saying...

Right. So was I. Suppatrigga may be an effect, but it has a sound all it's own and is used quite often. I was saying that there is alot more to vortex than stutters and granular glitches. It also is great for warm, dubby sounds and textures. As for samples and presets, you'd be surprised how some Reakor presets end up in commercial tracks. Some people are happy to tweak a sound to their liking, others want tabula rasa.

I'm not getting into a presets debate.

I'm simply stating that in terms of composition, vortex dances the fine line of being a suppatrigga style effect. i.e. use sparingly.


That has nothing to do with the samples used.

[exper]

Ok. Then I'm simply stating that vortex has more than enough options and range to be as limited as suppatrigga is "compositionally". In use, I've done ambient drones, minimal dub techno and complete noise for noise sake.

Btw to anyone else interested if you own ni's Maschine, there is a vortex template to control it with.

[dum]

Ok. Then I'm simply stating that vortex has more than enough options and range to be as limited as suppatrigga is "compositionally". In use, I've done ambient drones, minimal dub techno and complete noise for noise sake.

First of all I said it dances the fine line of being that kind of effect, secondly I suggested trying the demo.

And while I'm not saying you haven't done so - I would say there's better tools for making ambient drones, minimal dub techno and noise for noise sake... especially if you already own Reaktor.

Vortex excels at chaotic output, and has a compelling interface. I'm standing by my assertion that it could be over used in much the same way as suppatrigga.

And I own it too btw. But I realise it's limitations.

[Mehalic]

Thanks guys. Tried the demo last night and ended up buying it. Will put it through it's paces this holiday weekend (5 days to work on some music - stoked!).

Thanks again all.