Frequency Modulation I will explain in more detail in different articles but in principle it’s like pitch modulation but rather than modulating by an LFO or other subsonic rate, we modulate pitches at audio rate. They correspond to Pitch (pretty self explanatory, spanning four octaves), Kick (a short decaying pitch envelope).įrequency Modulation related to the FM dial underneath this display. In addition, there are several parameters that can be adjusted using the bar charts. In the above image all tones are switched on bar the last two on the furthest right hand side. Adjusting just the x-wrap will scroll through the tone generators colours along the x-axis and the y-wrap along the y-axis:Įach sequencer can be turned on or off with the buttons just below it. Changing the X and Y wrap will add new colours into the board. If you program a sequence you should hear just one tone playing. This colour relates to one of the eight tone generators (more on this next). On the right-hand side underneath the Pattern Display, there X-Wrap-Y, Offset and Sens. The X-Wrap-Y is perhaps one of the harder elements of the sequencer to wrap your head around. If you minimise both controls and looks carefully at thePattern Display you will see all of the dots are a dark blue colour.

Ultimately, this affects the resolution of cells you can draw/load in. You might notice the X-Size-Y changing with different presets this is the width (X) and height (Y) of the Board Display grid, and it can be changed manually, even with a preset loaded. Load relates to the Presets menu, which you can access by click + drag, on where it says 4 Simple Gliders (that took me a while to figure out as I was clicking the up and down arrows, which do nothing). On the left we have Load, Clear and Rnd, which will generate patterns in the Board Display, where Clear wipes the patterns and Rnd (obviously) generates a random patterns. These patterns trigger the sound engine, generating “lively” sequences.Īt the heart of it is two separate ensembles, at the top is ‘life’, a sequencer (in green), the eight tone generators (redy/pink) and the multi-fx unit (white) are both part of an ensemble called ‘NWSCL’: Several patterns emerge over time by this set of rules: Gliders move over the grid, crosses oscillate in several phases, some objects remain stable and don’t change from step to step while others remain unstable forever. A two-dimensional pattern is processed in steps: An element of the pattern becomes alive (dark in this implementation) in the following step if three of its eight neighbors are alive in this step it remains alive in the subsequent one if two or three neighbors are alive in the current one – else it dies (and becomes a light square again). The sequencer is based on the Life model developed by John Conway in the 1970s. It’s a groovebox (unsurprisingly) based on Conway’s Game of Life. Newscool is a flagship ensemble and really shows off what Reaktor can do. This sort of generative, self-evolving pattern can cause some really interesting compositional possibilities, and has been exploited by musicians and programmers alike, for instance iOS app Runxt Life, this sequencer by Grant Muller or this Nintendo DS device named GlitchDS.

Reaktor 6 manual