Reaktor 5 or AAS collection?

Eraldo Bernocchi · Post by **Eraldo Bernocchi** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:45 am

Reaktor 5...it's unbeatable.
naturally it all depends how much you're into creating your own stuff

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:58 am

Benshik wrote:Downloaded Tassman's demo yesterday - sounds great but very buggy, no automation in LIve, can't even arm the midi track when loaded as an AU, etc.

Did it happen to anyone else????

Ben

Their demos seem to behave best in stand alone, but fwiw I haven't had trouble in plugin mode with the full apps.

Benshik · Post by **Benshik** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:03 am

polyslax wrote:
Benshik wrote:Downloaded Tassman's demo yesterday - sounds great but very buggy, no automation in LIve, can't even arm the midi track when loaded as an AU, etc.

Did it happen to anyone else????

Ben
Their demos seem to behave best in stand alone, but fwiw I haven't had trouble in plugin mode with the full apps.

these are gud news polyslax!
btw r u on a mac or pc?
r u able to automate parameters in Live?

Cheers

Ben

yessid · Post by **yessid** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:10 am

Thanks for the headsup on the Tassman crossgrade offer for Reaktor users...I jumped on it immediately. The sound of it is def worth the money. Just curious about something...is there a global setting in Tassman to sync all the modules to Live's tempo, or do you have to manually switch the int/ext switch everytime?

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:20 pm

Benshik wrote:
polyslax wrote:
Benshik wrote:Downloaded Tassman's demo yesterday - sounds great but very buggy, no automation in LIve, can't even arm the midi track when loaded as an AU, etc.

Did it happen to anyone else????

Ben
Their demos seem to behave best in stand alone, but fwiw I haven't had trouble in plugin mode with the full apps.
these are gud news polyslax!
btw r u on a mac or pc?
r u able to automate parameters in Live?

Cheers

Ben

Mac/AU here Ben. Haven't tried automation, I'll see if I can give it a shot today.

/. · Post by /. » Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:37 pm

yea u can sync tassman 4 to live master tempo, no automation though, hope they will include it in future versions...

glitchrock-buddha · Post by **glitchrock-buddha** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:39 pm

Benshik wrote:Downloaded Tassman's demo yesterday - sounds great but very buggy, no automation in LIve, can't even arm the midi track when loaded as an AU, etc.

Did it happen to anyone else????

Ben

ya, I just checked out the demo yesterday after hearing about the crossgrade, and I had these same problems. Sounded very nice, but I'm not crazy about the gui, which to me is very important. I can't believe you can't change the window size while the plug-in is open for example (you have to tell it in preferences how much of the screen to take up). This would less annoying if scrolling worked in the window, but you have to drag the bars manually, like the stylus rmx browser. Don't know why they do that. It would be much better if it resized to fit the instrument, or even if you could do it manually. Little things like that just make it less pleasurable.

Also, for the person who started the thread, it is very worth noting that reaktor also has some very nice physical modeling ensembles, like steampipe/steampipe2, acoustring (User Library), and others. And also, if you want all kinds of drum machines, classic synth emulations, e-pianos, sample manglers etc, reaktor might be a wise choice. If you don't care about those, and love physical modeling synth sounds and don't mind the tassman gui, that thing sure sounds great. I'm gonna go play with the demo some more, as that crossgrade is tempting. I already have sculpture with logic as well as reaktor though, so that's why a good gui to me is the deciding factor, because out of the various synths that may accomplish a task, you'll reach for the one you most enjoy programming.

cheers,
Rob

Benshik · Post by **Benshik** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 10:23 pm

Im no midi expert (was too young in the 80s

) but I nevertheless found out that automation is possible thru clip envelopes... it's a bit confusing but better than nothing...
anyways. I had tried tassman's demo about 2 years ago and was also a bit turned off by the gui and didnt explore it further... But now that I did, Im just totally blown away. I'll wait till next week, just in case AAS announces smtg new for the musikmesse (anyone knows?), and I'll guess I'll have to sink some more money in software

cheers

Ben

polyslax · Post by **polyslax** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 11:34 pm

Benshik wrote:Im no midi expert (was too young in the 80s ) but I nevertheless found out that automation is possible thru clip envelopes... it's a bit confusing but better than nothing...
anyways. I had tried tassman's demo about 2 years ago and was also a bit turned off by the gui and didnt explore it further... But now that I did, Im just totally blown away. I'll wait till next week, just in case AAS announces smtg new for the musikmesse (anyone knows?), and I'll guess I'll have to sink some more money in software

cheers

Ben

Good stuff Ben, glad you're discovering Tassman's beauty!

BTW, I was able to record Tassman automation using my contoller and midi assigning knobs to Tassman's UI in Live 5.0.3.

Benshik · Post by **Benshik** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:33 pm

Macrostructure wrote:I'm finding that I can do some pretty way out stuff just in Live with the MIDI effects, instruments and clip automation. Sure, it's a different scale, but I'm making a lot of music all of a sudden now that I'm not lost in modular synthesis anymore with programs like synthedit, plogue, reaktor, G2 etc.

I say well done Ableton, once again they have proved (to me) that simple (and native) is best when it comes to actually getting music finished and out there.

ur right, and that's probably one of the reasons I was reticent to get into modular softs like tassman or reaktor. I have a few friends using em and they seem to be more interested in finishing a synth than finishing a song

There's also this snobbism of "oh I made my own synth" that can irritate me a bit coz these guys usually end up w exact same results as anyone else anyways...
Im really glad I got Live at center of my studio, but since I played with tassman and reaktor's demos, I realised they can produce sounds I couldnt do otherwise.
I think if you remain focused, if you don't get totally zombified by the zillion of possibilities these apps offer, you can really pull out some gud stuff.
but yeah, that's pretty easy to get lost in it. yesterday I was supposed to go out w friends but instead stayed home alone playin w reaktors demo, totally hooked

Ben

steve3186 · Post by **steve3186** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:37 pm

Personally i would go for Reaktor 5 hands down, and i have both!

With Reaktor anything is possible, you can create your own synths - very very very good ones too!

You can download the ensembles from the Native Website too, where people post the synths/effects/modulators/sound transformers etc for you to download!

Reaktor is a must!!!!

Musicsoul · Post by **Musicsoul** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:47 pm

Yeah! reactor 5! i do realy like lounge lizard for the electronic piano sounds. but if you have to choose...reactor

deva · Post by **deva** » Sun Jun 25, 2006 11:48 pm

I would pick the AAS modeling collection over Reaktor without hesitation.

I just like how AAS synths sound better than Reaktor. Reaktor has a more polished GUI, more ensembles, bigger userbase... but AAS stuff sounds soooo good. I have tried Reaktor a number of times, but the basic sound always leaves me shrugging my shoulders.

Nobody has mentioned String Studio, but it is an amazing synth that is unmatched by anything from Reaktor (or anything else for that matter). It is so organic, expressive, easy to program and fun to play. It is a musicians instrument.

Tassman has a clunky GUI, and is not nearly so versatile as a modular environment as reaktor, but the percussive sounds are my favorite of any synth. I do not mind the extra work (of course I wish the GUI was better) in exchange for sounds that move me more. The sequencers are fine!

You cannot currently use automation in Live with Tassman, (you can with other AAS synths) but you can record and draw midi cc data to control any Tassman parameter.

Ultra Analog is a straightforward VA synth. Again it is the sound that makes it worth notice. Great bass. Add in Lounge Lizard and you have a diverse, high quality sonic palette that is not matched by Reaktor. Reaktor has its own beauty, especially for the tweaker, but if you want non-sample based electric pianos, stringed instruments, organs, percussion, VA etc that have a playable organic character then that is the strong point of AAS physical modeling.

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:12 am

I'm not going to trust NI again, ever. They basically had us beta testing R4 for them for the best part of a year, and even at the end it wasn't really stable for me.

I found my old dongle and I'm going to put OS9 on my old iBook tomorrow and use it as an R3 sound source. R3 was nice. You couldn't make your own interface widgets but at least it bloody worked...

R5 might be fantanbulous, I wouldn't know, but fuck me sideways with a rusty garden rake if I'm ever going to give them as much as a penny again. Buggy software, lousy tech support, and then they go and add Core and make a paid update instead of giving us a version of the software that does what it said on the box I paid for 4 fucking years ago. NI are the perfect example of how the current business model of software turns users into hostages.

SubFunk · Post by **SubFunk** » Mon Jun 26, 2006 12:02 pm

for me AAS all the way, and they do a modeling collection packed deal... check the website for details http://www.applied-acoustics.com/

tassman4 modular synth nearly endless possibilties depending on your knowledge in synthesis.

lounge lizard3 to me the best sounding rohdes plug (yeah we had that disscussion, the real thing is better, but we are talking plugs here.)

Ultra Analog *simply great and fat, did i said FAT!

String Studio, something i always dreamed of and finally it's there, since i have it it's on everything i made so far... well it does sound like strings.

for 500 dollar an ultimate package, i think.