Reaktor Tutorial - Additive Synthesis

http://www.pointblankonline.net/sound-design-course.php Native Instruments have just launched their latest Reaktor Synth called Razor and it is causing quite a stir in the sound design and production communities. So what makes this synth so exciting? Well it is down to a process called additive synthesis.

Put in the plainest terms possible, additive synthesis is the summation of simple tones to create more complex ones.

The sound is constructed from partials (or frequency components) firing in parallel, changing amplitude and even frequency over time. Additive synthesis is a very powerful sound design tool because the many micro-variations in the frequency and amplitude of individual partials mirrors those that makes natural sounds so rich and lively, and the resulting sound remains clear and precise at all times, even when heavily modulated.

This video demonstrates how to go about building an additive synth in Reaktor plus an overview of some of the other techniques that you will learn on the Point Blank Online Sound Design course ( http://www.pointblankonline.net/sound-design-course.php ). Even this fairly simple example consisting of just 8 partials, you can begin to hear how an additive synth can create an impressively rich and malleable sound. So when you think that Razor's additive engine consists of up to 320 partials you can start to see why everyone is so eager to get their hands on it!

Category:

Education

Tags:

• sound design
• sound design tutorial
• reaktor
• native instruments
• reaktor tutorial
• additive synthesis
• building a synth
• synth in reaktor
• how to use reaktor
• Razor
• native instruments razor
• PointBlankOnline-LTVS4

[WARDISWARD]

@ pointblankonline .The oldsine bank igoes back to reaktor 3.0 ..The sine waves aren't verry clear ..( fuzzy sound in the background .

Better to just use a master fm sine ....exp . math converter ..freq.* 1 *2*3 for the overtones then back to pitch ( log. )

[dudearlo]

is he building a synth from scratch?

[JonnyPaineMusic]

@thresholdify to be honest I don't know exactly what I did, but it works now. after I downloaded razor it seemed to work. but I notice that in fl studio, when go to channels>add one and add "NI reaktor 5" it's the tan one. but when I add "reaktor 5" it's the new one. one is dmi, and the other is a vst. download the 5.6 update tho dude

[Thresholdify]

@JonnyPaineMusic I have the same problem reply please dude

[JonnyPaineMusic]

Why does my reaktor 5 not look like yours? It's a tan interface. Does the 5.6 update complately change the interface? And I have razor as a .rflr (or something) file, how do I open it with reaktor?

[NoMoreVanilla]

@visual1122 With F1 as the fundamental, F2 will be an octave above F1 (first harmonic), F3 will be octave+fifth above F1 (second harmonic), F4 will be two octaves above F1 (third harmonic), F5 will be 2 octaves + third, F6 will be 2 octaves + fifth. The intervals between the harmonics get smaller and smaller; beyond F8, they are smaller than a semitone. The freq control on each osc lets you deviate from the harmonic series, creating (bell-like) enharmonic tones.

[davepermen]

@musicprotutorials i know that feeling :) no offense taken. yeah, razor is really fun to explore from a technical/programming perspective. suddenly, everything is very simple.

[musicprotutorials]

@davepermen - great.. thanks for taking the time out to respond, it's very interesting to hear more about Razor - when I get some time I might develop that synth a little more with some modifications. I'm sorry for the rash response this morning.. i've got a little blinkered recently when it comes to youtube comments - way too many negative types out there and ironically I got a tinge of that myself.

[davepermen]

@davepermen ... filters settings. but there's no processing involved, only adjustment of the partials/sinuswaves. so if you filter at 500hz, every sinus wave that is above 500hz gets put it's volume down (according to the filters settings).

and then, after adjusting the volumes, THEN the sinus partials get summed up for the full sound.

advantages: very flexible (the filter can be anything, essentially an eq for each frequency), and the sounds are still 100% harmonic with no errors possible.

[davepermen]

@musicprotutorials so, coulnd't reply for quite a while.

well, in your example, you generate the sinus-partials, you sum them up (add them, hence additive), and THEN filter out what ever that complex waveform has and you don't want anymore (subtractive, you remove stuff).

in razor, the filtering happens BEFORE the summing/adding up. that means, instead of actually having some complex filtering algorithm with fixed sound, you just adjust the volume of each partials frequency according to the ..