Wanting to learn a bit more about programming synthesizers and effects Reaktor is a good place to start.
I’ve been messing around with Native Instrument's Reaktor for the past couple of days and have merely scratched the surface of its complex and endless possibilities. To get me started i followed this tutorial (http://electrictrumpet.com/SympleSynth/index.htm). This was actually one of those tutorials thats really easy to follow, i everything worked perfectly i didnt have to go back and make any changes to get the thing working.
Heres a screen shot of the synthesizer
It takes you through the basics of creating a synthesizer and has left me wanting to learn more.
Reaktor is amazing! don’t need much programming knowledge and i found its system of Modules, Macros, Instruments, and Ensembles really easy to pick up and understand.
Heres a screen shot of the synthesizer’s structure
The ability to create macros that can contain modules really tidies up the structure of your instrument and makes it easy to each part of the synthesizer.
This is the structure of the oscillator 1 macro
I want to look into Outsim’s synth maker and also Synthedit, witch are both well known programs!
Two reverb signals can often fight for space in the mix and end up clashing, creating a swirl of echo’y muddiness. I’ve been experimenting with side chain compression on the reverb auxiliaries to hold one reverb back while another takes over.
In this case i have a snare track and a vocal track each with a send at 0dB to SpaceDesigners each with a different setting (snare at a time of 1.2s and vocals at 2s)
I noticed that when the snare is played the reverb from the vocals clashes with the snare reverb and really muddies the mix. May be i could just dial down the reverb sends however the reverb in this mix was necessary for effect.
Solution
I put a compressor on the vocal reverb auxiliary with a side chain fed from the snare. The compressor has a threshold of -50dB and a ratio of 20:1 so this is basically limiting rather than compression however it is the release time that allows the reverb signal to slowly creep back in that is important.
So every time the snare is played the side chain ducks the vocal reverb, allowing the snare reverb to cut through!
Evaluation
The mix is a lot clearer and the vocals sound crisp over the snare
Im going away to uni and don't really want to take my Mackie 1604 VLZ so I've been looking around for a small 2 to 6 channel mixer, just to record some guitar and provide a balanced output for my monitors.
So i searched the internet for answers and didn't really find one, i even posted a question on gearslutz forum about it, lots of views but no replies!
