Reaktor/Tutorials/Reaktor as effects processor/Scanners and distributors

Scanners and distributors

Two other related modules also offer powerful and uncommon routing options: The Selector/Scanner and the Distributor/Panner. The Distributor allows you to sweep a send position along the inputs of a stack of parallel routings, so that at any given position you are selecting either a single input, or a crossfade between two adjacent inputs. It's as if you were walking down a corridor at night, pointing a flashlight at one wall which had equally spaced windows on it; your signal would be like the light coming from the windows. The Scanner does the same thing with a monitor position along a stacked set of outputs. You can choose either or both, depending on the sound you're after; distributing your inputs into a bank of delays, for instance, would let the feedback ring out after the input has moved on, while a scanner after the same delays would cut off the feedback tails when it moved.

Here's a simple example, using only delays, each with a distinctive texture.

Here's a slightly more complex version of the same basic idea. It adds several series routings to a basic stack of “in-scanned” effects, and several of the effects have envelop-follower inputs, so there's an envelop-follower instrument included, too (these were swiped from a powerful User-library effect: 4fx 004, by Self Oscillate—check it out... and thanks!).

The first effect chain is a filter feeding a 10-second stereo looping delay with MIDI foot-controlled feedback. With the scanner position at 0, and the feedback all the way up, you can record a loop, then play over it ad nauseam without adding to it, just by scanning to a higher position. Three very different effects (a ring-modded distortion plus a delay, a soft stereo echo, and Martin Brinkman's great Multiband Delay, a distinctive filtered multi-tap) provide a range of tones to crossfade between when soloing over the loop, which can be faded out with the feedback control. The whole thing's very seductive... and it's in the tutorial downloads.