I’ve been a Clavia Nord Modular G2 user/patcher/programmer/tweaker (pick any that applies) for over 4 years, and I’ve been using the ‘classic’ version (a borrowed Nord Micro Modular) for 3 years before the G2 era. It’s an amazing machine and I’ve seen some people doing some “crazy shit” with it. By the way, if you have a lot of spare time you can dig through this.

I got Native Instruments Komplete a week ago but I haven’t had the time to install it until today, and I only installed a few of its components to start with - Absynth and Reaktor. After reading through the first 50, or so, pages of the Reaktor manual - yes, I’m one of the very few who actually reads an Operational Manual - I started building my first synthesizer.

In the Nord Modular you start off by adding an oscillator and connect it to an amplitude envelope generator before connecting the envelope to the outputs. You also need to connect a gate signal cable to the gate input of the envelope generator. That’s an extremely basic, and quite boring, sound. In Reaktor, however, you start by connecting a gate to the an envelope and the envelope to the input of an oscillator. If you only connect the oscillator directly to the output you won’t hear a thing. But if you connect a Nord Modular oscillator directly to the output you’ll hear a drone - an E4 if I’m not mistaken. So Reaktor actually feels a bit backwards, as I wrote in my tweet earlier today. I’ll probably get the hang of it but I must say that I think the Clavia approach is more logical. Besides that, I really love the way Reaktor is structured (pun intended - but you probably need to be a Reaktor user to get it, sorry) with building blocks and macros and so on. That’s something the Nord Modular G2 is lacking. I’ll try to recreate some of my G2 patches next week if I’m too bored with composing new songs. I know they won’t sound the same, but it’ll just be for fun and I might discover something cool to blog about.

The downside of having a powerful tool as Komplete 5 at your hands is that it actually CAN affect your creativity in a negative way. But it’s just sooo darn fun tweaking, patching and fiddling around with all the nifty tools and toys!

Any hint on where I can find some cool graphics to use in my panels?

Happy patching fellow Reaktorians!

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately - mostly regarding music, what I’m doing musically and why.
What’s the point, really? Why do I have all the gear I’ve got? What’s my goal?

I don’t strife to be in-the-spotlight-famous - don’t think I could coup with that. But I’d like to become someone. I’d like to produce and be a part of something people refer to as “really good” or “simply amazing”. I’d like to play live at more trance parties. I’d like to support, or produce, a big music act.

I’m not giving up, nor am I selling my hardware equipment even though I’m using software solely today - and I got more software coming…

I ended up in third place in a remix competition which was extremely fun, but it didn’t seem to get me anywhere.

But in the end, it’s the heart-warming comments that really is the driving force behind my music creativity.

Tongue-tied Twisted at the Digitally Imported forum wrote the following when listening to Heliosphere:
“was gonna call it a day at wrk… simply cant now….!!!!! yyeeaahh”
There are some other really amazing comments as well which I’m reading a little now and then when I need it. Those can lift me up when I’m down and inspire me to continue creating music.

Fans, friends, family and lover - Thank You for Listening and boosting my driving force!

Next up: mindXpander Live @ Mimerlaven, Norbergfestivalen. See you there!

Just read on Waldorf Music’s webpage that Largo is under way.

It seems to be meeting all the previous specifications and my expectations are high!

KVR says it’ll cost you $299 / €165 (+VAT) to get your hands on this little bugger.

There are some sound clips available in this post over at Waldorf.

One of the things that I truly love about the Clavia Nord Lead 2 is its filter section. It has got four filter types, as I can remember: LP, BP and HP, all at 12 or 24dB. Correct, that’s only three. So which is the fourth? It’s called LP+Notch and it’s got a LP filter (duh!) with a setting of 12 or 24dB in serial with a notch filter (or band rejection, or band stop) at a fixed roll-off of 12dB. As far as I can remember, the lower roll-off of the notch filter had the same frequency as the LP filter’s roll off frequency. Modulate them both for best effect.

FabFilter released Twin² a couple of months ago. Seriously, it’s fantastic so grab the demo and try it out. It’s worth it! Read about the specifications here.

- “So, what about the trick?” you may wonder. Well, here it goes.
I wrote to FabFilter requesting a notch filter. In the current version, 2.01, it got LP, BP and HP - and you have two of them in either serial or parallel operation. You can build a notch filter using both the filters but then you’re one short for the Nord Lead 2 filter setup. FabFilter gave me a hint of using the filters in the delay section (there’s actually a delay section with two filters just as powerful as the main filters - nice work FabFilter!), so I tried it.
The patch kind of explains itself, so put it among the rest of the presets (preferably in a folder named David since there might be more patches from me and perhaps you’d like to keep them together to not clutter up the preset list) for Twin², fire up an instance and load the sound. Use the modulation wheel for filter cutoff frequency and after touch for some vibrato.

Patrik just informed me that FabFilter will be releasing Twin² (YouTube link) tomorrow, the 4th of February, 2009. Nice!