5/24/2023 0 Comments Newscool reaktor![]() Set the Amt at 0 to more clearly hear the fundamental frequency and increase it to diffuse it. Lastly we have Speed and Amt (amount), both of which control a Slow Random LFO module this affects the incoming pitch to the band-pass filter. Here’s the Fundamental and Offset being increased and then decreased one at a time. Increasing this will give you a similar sound to the Fundamental but less “musical”. Harmonics are integer multiples of our frequency and are a naturally occurring phenomena. Offset is a little harder to understand – this ascends the harmonics associated with the fundamental. Rapidly adjusting this will give something between a filter sweep and running up a chromatic scale. ![]() The Fundamental actually controls our band-pass filter (more on this later). The numeric readouts in the middle control the perceived pitches of our patch. Turn it counter-clockwise to open up the higher frequencies and clockwise to attenuate them. Whilst it sounds a bit like a low-pass filter or low-shelf EQ it’s actually a bit more complicated than that. The Damp is a simple way to control the frequency content of the sound. To finish the top row of dials off we have control for the rate of panning of the voices and an associated Rnd dial, which controls the amount of random panning. Here’s a simple patch with the resonance being slowly turned up: Turning it up to maximum can produce more tonal sounds, akin to a resonator. The Res dial relates to the resonance or Q of our band-pass filter. ![]() When fully clockwise we have a wider dynamic range of sounds and when fully counter-clockwise all voices are at a more constant maximum volume. The Density, Rnd and Dynamic knobs are all related to the Geiger macro which we’ll delve into properly later. Density sets the rate at which our amplitude envelope is retriggered, Rnd sets the randomness of the retriggering and Dynamic sets the range of our potential amplitudes. It’s most easily heard when cranked to extremes, adjusting the Attack and Release settings you can hear the pitch and timbres produced. As it is bipolar it means when at 12’o’clock the dial is having no effect, and moving it clockwise and counter-clockwise will increase the modulation. The Pitch dial is a bipolar control of the amount of modulation our amplitude envelope has on the sounds perceived pitch. ![]() When you look at what’s going on, we actually have an ADR (attack, decay and release) envelope with the Decay knob controlling both decay and release, although sonically it wont make huge amounts of difference. These control our amplitude envelope of our voices. Starting off with the top left and middle left we have two knobs for Attack and Decay. In green I’ve highlighted the remaining controls. We’re also just focusing on the ‘A’ view, which is the sound generation bit, while the ‘B’ view is a reverb unit. They’re quite pretty but don’t really contribute to the functionality of the ensemble so I wont be dealing with them any further than this. They display the volume (in white, on the left) and the position within the stereo spectrum (blue, on the right) of the 96 voices. There are two graphic displays to get out of the way first. It generates white noise tones that are pseudo-randomly band-pass filtered, given an amplitude envelope shape and spread across the panoramic spectrum. To simplify this a little, SpaceDrone is a 96 (yes, ninety-six!) voice synthesiser. SpaceDrone generates atmospheric pads which range from light rain or howling wind noises to deep and uncanny space sounds. Technically, the instrument is based on 96 parallel voices spread across the frequency spectrum. Each voice consists of a noise generator the signal’s amplitude is shaped by an envelope, its frequency content gets modified by a bandpass filter, and finally it gets positioned in the stereo field. This is what Reaktor’s blurb has to say about it: SpaceDrone is a self-playing ensemble, creating sounds ranging from lush, ethereal ambient soundscapes, not dissimilar to the weird and wonderful noises captured by NASA of other planets and moons, cold industrial tones, insect-like chattering and sounds that wouldn’t be out of place in a Andrei Tarkovsky film.
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