VST Software of the Week: Conjurer for Reaktor (Free Ensemble)

While the sheer amount of Modular that is populating Steemit lately is incredible to see, there is a certain part of me that realizes how out of reach modular and decent hardware is for a large portion of music producers right now. I love the amount of impressive Modulars and Hardware that I see on here, but I want to post a bit more on the less sexy but arguably more utilized world of VSTs and Software. Why? Because making music should be accessible to everyone at every price point. I have a bit of disdain for the fetishizing of analog that is going on within the electronic music world and think it can be pretty neglectful of the wild variety of tools at your disposal.

With all of that said, I'm going to highlight one of my favorite tool and one that has touched nearly all of my productions over the past 6 to 7 years: Native Instrument's Reaktor.

For those who don't know, Reaktor is a modular software studio that allows musicians to build their own synths, samplers effects, and controllers. It has been a go to for those seeking cutting edge sound design on a budget for an entire generation of musicians and encourages exploring and reverse engineering to customize your tools. Much of its power was locked away behind a steep learning curve, but with a thriving community of people making tools for it, there was almost always a free solution to what you were seeking musically in the Reaktor Community. The only other thing I could compare it to is Ableton's Max For Live which is another constant source of inspiration for me.

Luckily for me, the latest update to Reaktor has brought in the Blocks concept, which has made using it much more in line with what you see in the Modular world and allows you to create elaborate modular-esque builds with relative ease and recall. Add in CV support and you have a perfect companion to your gear in whatever form it might take.

After all that, it is time to get into one of my favorite new Blocks to introduce into your setup: Conjurer. Rather than prattle on about it's capabilities, I'll let the designer describe what it is capable of.

"Conjure sounds and waveforms to please the mind, with only the slightest of efforts necessary, even for a novice synth wizard.

Mixes two oscillators with crossfading and amplitude modulation. The AM mode uses the Blend control to determine the modulator and carrier. A Cross-FM effect is also available.

Each oscillator has a waveform mixer with sine and sawtooth modes, a wavefolder, a harmonics effect with an order parameter, and FM.

The module's output has a lowpass gate attenuator with ping decay time, DC filtering, a XOR based distortion, and an overall gain control.

Companion blocks are provided as well, including Mage, a single oscillator version of Conjurer, and Muse, which is the LPG, XOR, and AM mixer as a standalone effect. "

The end result is silky smooth synth lines that fans of Mind Against or Tale of Us would love as well as a machine that is highly capable of dark drones that would are incredibly appealing to my ears. It's a no brainer for fans of Reaktor and you'll be hearing it in some upcoming songs from me shortly.

The ensemble can be downloaded at the link below and has associated audio demos for you as well. Check out its capabilities and let me know what you think. I'm sure Reaktor fans will not be disappointed.
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/reaktor-community/reaktor-user-library/entry/show/11989/