scope modular vs reaktor

[zoharar]

i'd like to hear some pro's and con's regarding working with the scope modular vs working with NI Reaktor for anyone who had any experience with it.

thanks

[the19thbear]

Reaktor is alot deeper than modular. Its kind of like having modulat and the scope sdk in one program.Plus you Can make your own GUI panels that are way more complex than the ones you can make in mod. After working a while with reaktor I think all the sounds you make have the same character. It certainly has a "sound". I can't really say if it's better or worse sounding than modular. Just different.
Just my 2 cents. Since this is a scope forum I expect to be banned for saying what I did;)

[garyb]

Banned!!!

[ehasting]

We dont ban people... we chase them around the world to have them change their mind!!
There is only one truth.. the scope!


But its correct whats being said. Reaktor is a synth-maker/builder. not a modular synth.

VAZ Modular i guess is a more direct compare with Scope Modular

[valis]

After working a while with reaktor I think all the sounds you make have the same character. It certainly has a "sound". I can't really say if it's better or worse sounding than modular. Just different.

I agree with this, including the ensembles like Lazerbass & Razor. In fact I've felt this way since using Generator 1.x, and so a lot of my efforts over the years have been oriented towards sample manipulation. These days I am lazy and just add user made bits onto my simpler creations and buy things from Twisted Tools (who make great little things to play with). And again I agree that it's not 'good' or 'bad' but certainly 'different in character' which lends itself to suggesting you can even use them side by side.

I build a lot of simple tools to filter the signal chain in mod, from just automating a sweep all the way to complex filterboxes (maybe not quite as complex as Fxpansion Etch. PSP N20 or Cableguys FilterShaper, but the results are still quite interesting and useful. In fact I tend to record and arrange the audio when using scope mod much more than when using plugins (where i tend to use automation and leave things 'live' in the mix), as I do with a lot of Scope tools. I haven't used Vaz Modular, but certainly the results I get from Reaktor/Scope are just as much a result of their workflows as the 'character' of the toolsets.

[the19thbear]

So what do you think of Razor valis? I think it is nothing short of amazing! I use it for sound design for more sci fi stuff for a soon to come Lego star wars series tv show. (you know, space ships, droids, lazers etc) Its over the top amazing fattnes while shredding my ears to pieces.. On the downside though, as you also noticed, it sounds very "Native Instruments" like.... but still extremely good!

Rant over and back to topic:)

[dawman]

For recording Reaktor is deep, for preset changes and audiorate modulations or live perfomance, that Dog Won't Hunt, but then again you can get a girl singer to ask stupid audience participation questions like are there any birthdays in the house, or what town you from, and that extra 5 minutes of stalling will help in preset loading.

I always liked the line,.......Hey, how's your Sterak but that's showrooms only and since they are mostly pre recorded, the days of Nelson Riddle and the Rat Pack are long gone, for full blown, fake musicals...
But just like CG makes a movie now, so do Flying Elvises and overwieght Micheal Jackson impersonators.....

Ever seen a FAT BASTARD Moonwalk....they got 'em.

[valis]

So what do you think of Razor valis? I think it is nothing short of amazing! I use it for sound design for more sci fi stuff for a soon to come Lego star wars series tv show. (you know, space ships, droids, lazers etc) Its over the top amazing fattnes while shredding my ears to pieces.. On the downside though, as you also noticed, it sounds very "Native Instruments" like.... but still extremely good!

Razor & Lazerbass are the 2 main things I pull Reaktor up for atm, while I like Carbon & the user ensembles well enough overall, I'm completely saturated with VA products from my hardware synths to Scope to my other VI plugins so look to Reaktor to "fill out other spaces" in the timeline so to speak.

Most of the user content stuff is cool not for the entire ensembles, but because you can dig in and rip out sections to easily combine with your own creations. I often take 2-3 things and cobble them into a single creation to process external audio or sample playback, and include my own self-made mixers, filters etc to dial in the 'mix' of those elements before feeding back to the audiostream/output. My results are always different than if I'd used Kontakt (if using samples) or other 'glitch' based plugins like Sonic Charge Permut8 or Bram's Supatrigger (or Dblue's Glitch etc).

Honestly though with my daughter and maintaining an income I've gotten lazy so now I have a ton of stuff from these guys (twisted tools) including SLayer, Buffeater and Rolodex. I don't use SLayer in realtime as some people (in youtube vids) seem to be doing, rather I'm generating a folder of hits to use when composing or 'spice' to throw in occasionally over an offtime syncopated snare hit etc. Buffeater & Rolodex get used in a track processing live input by setting the 'sample player' section to the live input ( and audio track with input monitoring on & another track routed to it in Live, in Logic I have to insert it into a VI slot as a 'midi enabled plugin' and route audio in via the sidechain input....both are also useful as hell in Bidule to process the output of other things.)

For recording Reaktor is deep, for preset changes and audiorate modulations or live perfomance, that Dog Won't Hunt, but then again you can get a girl singer to ask stupid audience participation questions like are there any birthdays in the house, or what town you from, and that extra 5 minutes of stalling will help in preset loading.

One of the big problems with most ensembles is that they have everything embedded, presets/samples/etc. For live performance you can cull out *everything* you don't use, and since I tend to use it for live sample mangling or sample playback mangling, once a tune is written you know exactly which bits you can keep around. I won't claim it has scope-levels of stability or the fastest loading around but as with anything once you know the ropes you can dial things in as needed. Still I tend to avoid it in my current Live (Ableton Live) Rig, where I'm tuning up a live performance rig for doing my visuals in sync with my live clip manipulation. There's a lot of interesting templates out there for Live which I've been ripping into lately too...but this is all an aside from the OP's scope vs. reaktor line of discussion so I digress...

[dawman]

That's my only beefs with bigger deeper VSTi's.
Presets loading, and lack of audiorate Modulations.
But thanks for the Slayer link, that stuff looks very cool...

[Nestor]

I think that they are tools that can do pretty much similar things, using them for regular music making, I mean, if you don’t go to the extreme, but are different in the character of their sound and work environments.

I guess Reaktor is suitable for deep sound design, effects creation and all sorts of really complex electronic music, you can do virtually anything with it, it is to my eyes and ears, one of the most wonderful instruments ever created in software, period. I agree about its “particular sound” or “strong character”, but I also realize that with the tools you have today around, plug-ins to modify its character so to say, you can to a certain extent, modify what you don’t like from its character, which I would call “a little bit plastic”. Then Reaktor is suitable for studio work, not really for live performances. Reaktor comes with such an array of instruments and open possibilities that in terms of possibilities is second to none. When it comes to effects, well…, this is something you should not listen at too seriously, I don’t like it much, I say don’t take me seriously on this one because it is a matter of personal taste, but most effects sound too plastic to my taste.

Scope modular is fantastic, and for me it sounds more “musical”, and I will be clear about this expression: more musical meaning that it is more suitable for traditional music making, it sounds more like we are used to when it comes to recordings and bands. You can go very far too in complexity, but not even close to what you can do with Reaktor if you want to create weird atmospheres, but when do you need to create such things? Very seldom I guess…

As a final though and making of your question a single like answer, I would say: Reaktor for the studio and as an extremely open wide instrument is unbeatable. Scope modular for studio and live performance, song creation, sounds more professional and round, it is not plastic at all. If you play with a band, this will definitely be the option to go with.

Hope it helps

[Nestor]

I'm curios, what will you do so zoharar?

[kensuguro]

I used reaktor for some projects, mostly sound design (effects). I've also used scope mod 2 / adern environment extensively. I definitely work faster in mod 2 since there are more high level modules already built. If I want to build a synth quickly, I'd use scope mod. Also scope mod has a very beefy sound from the get go. In my mind, scope mod is more similar to nord mod, and reaktor is more like max/msp in terms of time required to get a useful patch.

With reaktor, I'd use it as sort of an in between of max/msp and scope mod since you're free to do much more detailed things, including custom interface and more detailed dsp programming. It can also do granular and I believe fft related processing, though I haven't fully exploited them. My conclusion with reaktor takes more coaxing to get the results you want, though you can get them, and most often you can also set up intricate controls exactly how you like them. Not all the high level modular pieces are pre-built, but with enough time they can easily be recreated. It's all just math at the end of the day. I've tried remaking scope mod patches in reaktor, and gave up on all of them since the modules weren't there, and didn't have enough motivation to replicate them using reaktor's lower level modules.

But obviously, since reaktor is native, it's more portable. I can have reaktor patches running on my home DAW and work machine alike, while scope requires hardware. And because of that, I think reaktor is more convenient, esp since I need to create sound effects on demand at work, many times within hours of request. For immediate sound, I definitely like scope modular better since it has the thickness and substance that is common across all scope synths.

[Nestor]

With all things said untill here, if I were to buy any of both Mod or decide which to use for what purpose, it would be very clear to me what to do and why, (thank you Ken for your lines).

Anyway, where are you zoharar? I'm death curious now!