Reaktor For You Community - Simple delay tutorial 8/2/09 4:01 PM

reaktorforyou
Reaktor For You Community
Native Instruments Reaktor Community

Simple delay tutorial

reaktorforyou March 5th, 17:43

Current Mood:
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Hi everybody!

I've recently got through Reaktor's Wikibook and I've noticed, that users were asking to make a tutorial about
building simple delay. I've made a short one and hopefully it will help you to develop your futher skills (building
stereo delay with different parameters).

Simple delay tutorial

This tutorial is mostly made for people, who are just started to learn Reaktor, mostly for newbies.

I advice you to load new ensemble, make 1 output connected to Audio Voice Combiner. Output of instrument
is connected to L & R channels of your soundcard. It looks like this:

(http://pics.livejournal.com/reaktorforyou/pic/00006z72/)

I'm sure you know at least how to connect wires inside your structure, work with modules (move, delete, etc.)
and with your panel window (moving, deleting knobs, sliders etc.).

First we need to make some signal which we want to delay. Let's insert simple oscillator and connect Pitch
and Amplitude inputs of this oscillator. For example, Triangle oscillator with Midi Note Pitch and Midi Gate
inputs. Go to your structure and insert Triangle module from Built-in module -> Oscillator (by entering
submenu in your instrument's structure). Then add Note Pitch and Gate modules (Built-in module -> Midi In).
Connect Note Pitch output to Triangle oscillator P input and Gate to A input. Remember to keep your structure
clean!

Let's now make new macro module where we will store delay modules and panel elements. Add new Macro

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Reaktor For You Community - Simple delay tutorial 8/2/09 4:01 PM

module (Macro -> _New - 1in1out). Name it Simple Delay (by double clicking and entering Simple delay
properties), so you won't get lost in your structure. Connect oscillator output to Simple Delay In and Simple
Delay Out to Audio Voice Combiner. It will look like this:

(http://pics.livejournal.com/reaktorforyou/pic/00007zwg/)

Done! Now go inside Simple Delay module. We'll build simple delay with ms feedback.

Little theory. Basically the structure of very simple mono delay can be described as follows: input signal
of original volume that goes to delay input and it's delay, that is determined in some time period, are summed
up and this sum is the output value. You have to notice here, that if you simply place delay module and
connect your input to it, you will hear only delayed sample. Also, if you will simply add output value and delay
to each other, you won't be able to control volume of each one and you will hear constantly repeating delay.
That's why we are going to use Mixer to control volume of signal and volume of delay.

Let's start. First, add two modules - Amp/Mixer (Built-in module -> Signal Path) and Single Delay (Built-in
module -> Delay). Connect Out of Mixer to Single Delay In and to Out port. Now connect In port to first In of
Mixer and Single Delay Out to second In of Mixer (you can do it by moving wire with pressed Ctrl on PC or
Cmd on Mac and there will be second In for Mixer). Now we're going to add some controls on our panel, so
we'll be able to control:

- Delay time (in milliseconds);

- Triangle signal volume;
- Triangle delay module.

Right click on Single Delay Dly input (which is used to control delay time in ms) and choose Create Control.
Make the same action with Lvl inputs of Mixer (this will be controls for volume of Triangle signal and Delay
signal). You'll see 1 knob (Dly input) and 2 sliders (Lvl inputs) elements that will uppear on panel. Don't forget
to arrange your structure and panel window and name all the elements. In the end you should get something
like this:

(http://pics.livejournal.com/reaktorforyou/pic/0000883h/)

We're done! Congratulations!

Try to play some note on your midi controller or keyboard and you'll hear that delay is repeating over and over.
All you have to do is to control Echo volume (say try to make it -6).

Before we will make some advanced trick for delay time: if you don't understand the process that happens

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Reaktor For You Community - Simple delay tutorial 8/2/09 4:01 PM

Before we will make some advanced trick for delay time: if you don't understand the process that happens
inside the structure, be so patient to read whole tutorial from beginning again or ask me, if you have any
questions.

Delay time manipulation

Okay, we've build simple delay of triangle oscillator. I'm sure you have many ideas how to expand your delay
further - stereo, bypass button, filter section.. But before you continue, there is one usefull trick.

Time of delay that we have in our structure is time in milliseconds. What would you do if you want to sync it
to your BPM? This can easilly be done in Reaktor using math module and Tempo Info module (Built-in module
-> Auxiliary).

Say you have tempo of 120 beats per minute. Tempo Info module gives you beats per second, or it will be 2
in our case (120 / 60, because 1 min = 60 sec). To have amount of beats per millisecond you should multiply
with value by 1000 (because 1 second = 1000 milliseconds). Now you have beats per millisecond value and if
you implement this in Reaktor (Tempo Info * 1000) and connect output of multiply module to Dly input of
Single Delay you will get delay for each beat. If you want to get delay for say 2/16 of beats or 5/32 of beat (or
even 2/64 of beat) all that you need to do is to multiply Tempo Info * 1000 by any of these values. And you will
get delay with sync time!

In the end you'll get something like this (there X & Y buttons have values from 1..16):

(http://pics.livejournal.com/reaktorforyou/pic/00009c3e/)

You can play with "offset" or "random" delay as well (setting different values or 1/64th note). It's all limited by
your imagination only!

That's all for today! Hope that was helpful for you!

I'm looking forward to your comments, questions and feedbacks!

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