If you haven’t been following the Kore @ CDM site, we’ve been picking up some great tips from contributors Peter Dines and Eoin Rossney. This video has inspired me personally to dive a little deeper beneath the shrinkwrap on Kontakt 3, particularly with its scripting capabilities:
Creative Abuse of the Kontakt Sampler
Peter Dines’ tutorial on scripting and modulation in Kontakt 3 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.
Kontakt Tutorial Video: Creative Abuse with Modulation, Scripting
Kontakt 3 users, we’ll be curious to see what you do with that one.
User-Created, Free Modular Reaktor Powers in Kore
Also in the spirit of pushing tools past their usual capabilities, Eoin Rossney talks to Jonathan Adams Leonard, aka sleen, who has built an essential set of modular power tools for Kore, constructed in Reaktor. (He did this entirely for free as a user — nice.) What I especially enjoy about this is that Jonathan is upfront about things he felt like were missing in Kore 2 — but instead of just complaining about it, actually went and built it himself. As he tells the site:
Kore 2 was an ambitious release for any software team, so instead of complaining, I did what any enlightened engineer would do and built something. In some ways, there was no choice. NI created a semi modular matrix into which audio and midi objects can live simultaneously.
… The toolpack represents my preference to communicate where possible with solutions rather than suggestions or complaints.
I like that attitude. Eoin also walks through the toolpack tool by tool, with some tips from him and Jonathan for getting the most out of them, including some very powerful MIDI and audio capabilities. We have some other ideas for how to work with Kore live, and we’re learning from some folks who are using it out in performance, as well, so you can expect more on these issues soon.
Sound Design, Drum Machines, DSP
Also on the site: I find some percussion sound goodies from the So Percussion Ensemble by making use of the Kore Browser’s metadata options, and take a look at a pack full of retro drum machines from Crumar to Linn to Moog and Roland which could be a good use for your free sound pack. Make sure to authorize Kore this week if you have bought it, so you get the Massive synth free.
And lastly, while this is likely to convert even more of my weekends and evenings into sound programming time, I’m especially excited by Peter pointing to this set of tutorials on Core, the DSP geeks-only low-level sound programming engine deep in Reaktor:
She Blinded Me With DSP Science: Learn Core with Reaktor
That’s “Core” with a “C”, part of Reaktor, as opposed to Kore, a separate product. (Hey, I promised you this site wouldn’t just be about Kore.) Reaktor geeks, if anyone wants to join me on this brain-busting journey to the center of Reaktor, say so in comments and we can form an impromptu user group.
Stay tuned, we’ve got plenty more in the hopper for this site. Head over to kore.createdigitalmusic.com, or subscribe to the site’s RSS feed. And if you’re not seeing what you want, let us know in comments or contact us directly.