My recent digs into the Reaktor user library inspired some new tool design for Ableton Live’s Racks. Last night I wanted to create some glitchy drum patterns, there are a plethora of tools for such in Reaktor, but I felt creative. I made a new rack that creates random drum hits from velocities, with a selectable glitch chain after it. When I replace the samples in it with my own I’ll put it up here. It creates very interesting glitchy hat like patterns but it could be used with any sound type.
I first started making this tool with another program, I was using the patching environment VVVV to create a random CC generator, but either my virtual midi wires were crossed or it was spitting out too many value messages because it was not communicating with the knob it was assigned to very well (it was assigned to the Chain Selector). Finally I decided to use the velocity plugin, in a random mode, and put the drum hits at different velocities. Then I use a velocity plugin after the randomization phase to put back a little oomph.
The exercise was quite fun, but it exposed some weaknesses in my ability to patch useful tools. I need to work on this.
