Floor Shakers Pack Details
The Floorshakers Pack contains all the modules you need to create a custom modular wavetable synthesiser suitable for huge basses or powerful EDM leads. With features not found on any other wavetable based synthesiser combined with flexible multi-breakpoint envelopes, state-of-the-art filters and effects, patched together in limitless configurations, the pack provides everything you need to put the freshest sounds at your fingertips.
Included modules:
Oscillators
- Wavetable
- Wavetable (HQ)
- Wavetable Basic
Filters
- Multi-Mode Filter
- Multi-Mode Filter (Stereo)
Effects
- Multiband Compressor
- Multiband Compressor (Stereo)
- Multiband Distortion
- Multiband Distortion (Stereo)
- Chorus
- Feedback Delay
- Reverb
- MBP Envelope
- Router
- Router (Stereo)
Wavetable
A wavetable based oscillator. The wavetables can be scanned in 2 dimensions across a 16 by 16 grid of waveforms using the X POS (X position) and Y POS (Y position) controls to select the horizontal and vertical position in the grid. There are 7 built in wavetables and there is an option to add your own wavetables to a ‘User’ slot.
The 7 built in wavetables are:
- DIGITAL = A collection of waveforms sourced from digital synths, mathematical formulas and various forms of digital synthesis. (See credits)
- ANALOG = A collection of waveforms sourced from vintage analog synthesisers, analog drum machines and manipulated analog oscillators.
- FM = A collection of waveforms obtained using FM synthesis.
- SPECTRAL = A collection of spectrally complex waveforms with lots of harmonics.
- SYNTHS = A grid of wavetables made from 16 classic synth sounds arranged along the Y axis, each synth sound is comprised of 16 waveforms. Y POS selects the sound and XPOS selects the position in the sound.
- REAL = A grid of wavetables made from 16 real instruments arranged along the Y axis. Y POS selects the sound and XPOS selects the position in the sound.
- DRUMS = A collection of waveforms sourced from drum hits.
Dragging and dropping a wavetable file onto the waveform display will add the sound to the ’User’ slot. When user tables are in use, click on the left half of the display to select the previous user table, click on the right half of the display to select the next user table. Right-click to clear all user tables.
The oscillator contains 7 unison voices, the pitch of each voice is configured with the 'CHORD' control, and the 7 voices can configured into an 'FM algorithm' using the 2 FM warp modes for very complex timbres. There is a built in scanning circuit that scans the X position in a variety of ways, the 'SCAN' control sets the depth of the scanning, turn the control to the right for forwards scanning and turn to the left for backwards scanning, double click on the control to reset it to the middle (no scanning). The 'SPEED' control sets the speed of scanning. The following scan modes are available:
- LOOP = The position is scanned in one direction, continuously looping.
- PONG (ping-pong) = The position is scanned in one direction and then reverses, continuously looping forwards and then backwards in a ping-pong fashion.
- ONCE = The position is scanned in one direction and then stops when it reaches the end of its scan.
- ENV = The position is scanned in one direction and then stops, the oscillator is muted by an envelope when the scanner reaches the end. The release speed of the envelope is set on the options page with the ‘RELEASE’ control.
- END = The position is scanned in one direction and then loops only the end part of the scan. This is useful for scanning through wavetables of real instruments so that the beginning / attack portion of the wavetable only plays once and then only the sustain portion is looped.
- RAND (random) = Randomly scans through the wavetable.
- STAG (stagger) = Same as RAND except each voice in unison mode is scanned with different random values, good for very thick unison drone sounds.
The oscillator also features a 'WARP' control that bends the waveform in 1 of 8 ways:
- BEND = Bends the waveform to one side.
- ASYM (Asymmetry) = Squishes the waveform from the middle to the edge in a linear fashion for 'Pulse Width Modulation' style effects.
- SYNC = Duplicates the the waveform a number of times, simulating the 'Sync' function found on older analogue synthesisers.
- HYPER = Warps the waveform in an aggressive fashion.
- FOLD = The waveform acts like a wave-shaper to transform a sine wave. Can be used to create very bright / complex sounds with lots of harmonics.
- FM SELF = Modulates the phase of the oscillator with its own output (FM Feedback similar to feedback found in 'DX' style hardware synths).
- FM 1 = The 7 unison voices are connected together using an FM algorithm similar to one of the algorithms found in a 'DX' style hardware synth. The 'CYCLES / FM RATIO' control offsets the ratio between the carrier and modulator voices.
- FM 2 = The 7 unison voices are connected together using a different FM algorithm similar to an algorithm found in a 'DX' style hardware synth. The 'CYCLES / FM RATIO' control offsets the ratio between the carrier and modulator voices.
'CYCLES / FM RATIO' control: when this control is set to a value greater than 1 the warping is only applied to one cycle in a series of waveform cycles and the remaining cycles are not warped. If one of the FM warp modes is selected then this control changes the ratio between the carrier and modulator voices.
The 'HARM' (harmonic) control uses chebyshev filters to boost or cut particular harmonics in the waveform and change its tonal character.
Wavetable Basic
The 'Wavetable Basic' oscillator is the same as the 'Wavetable' oscillator without the unison section or wavetable presets. It also runs at 4 times oversampling by default. The oscillator has no built-in wavetables, drag and drop a wavetable file to load it. Use the ‘SELECT’ control to select which of the loaded wavetable files is being used. As well as being able to drag and drop wavetable files you can also load wavetables into Reaktor’s built in sample map editor which will allow you to embed the files into the block.
Multi-Mode Filter
An analogue modelled multi-mode filter with a 'zero feedback delay' design (a more accurate way of modelling the feedback path of an analog filter where no delay is introduced to the feedback path) and internal saturation.
There are 8 filter types:
- LP4 = 4 pole low pass ladder filter.
- LP2 = 2 pole low pass ladder filter.
- HP4 = 2 pole high pass ladder filter.
- HP2 = 4 pole high pass ladder filter.
- BP4 = 4 pole band pass filter.
- BP2 = 2 pole band pass filter.
- ALLPASS = All-pass filter.
- NOTCH = Notch filter.
The filter features pre or post filter saturation with 6 styles of distortion:
- SAT = Low aliasing simulation of analog saturation.
- SINE = Sine-wave shaped wave-folding distortion with lots of tone.
- SINE X10 = Extreme wave-folding style distortion.
- KINKY = Triangle shaped wave-folding.
- DRIVE = Low aliasing simulation of an overdrive pedal.
- FILTER = Drives the internal saturation of the filter.
Turning the distortion control to the left increases pre-filter distortion, turning it to the right increases post-filter distortion. When the distortion control is set in the central position the saturation stage is bypassed.
The resonance control is tuned so that when resonance is set to 50% the filter can be 'pinged' (when fed with a short burst of sound, a clock signal or an impulse the self-oscillation of the filter will decay naturally across the filter's frequency range).
Includes mono and stereo versions. The stereo version has a 'STEREO A/B MODULATION' switch on the 'Options' panel. When this is enabled the A/B modulation is split up: A only affects the left channel and B only affect the right channel allowing independent modulation of each channel.
Note, to save CPU most of the blocks will automatically switch off processing if they are not connected to anything (like an output or another active block). Parts of the GUI display of this block will not update unless it’s connected to something.
Multiband Compressor
A three band compressor. The options panel has controls to select between 5 detector types: Peak, RMS & 3 Opto modes (simulates the detection circuit of optical style compressors). With configurable circuit topology (feedback, feed-forward, feedback saturation, feed-forward saturation & upwards) and 3 different knee options a variety of compression tones can be achieved.
Multiband Distortion
A three band distortion module with a choice of 6 distortion algorithms:
- SAT = low aliasing simulation of analog saturation.
- SINE = sine-wave shaped wave-folding distortion with lots of tone.
- SINE X10 = extreme wave-folding style distortion.
- KINKY = triangle shaped wave-folding.
- DRIVE = low aliasing simulation of an overdrive pedal.
- CLIP = hard clipping.
Chorus
A stereo chorus effect.
Feedback Delay
A feedback delay effect with 6 different delay models:
- CLEAN = Clean delay with no saturation.
- DIGI 1 = Vintage digital delay style 1.
- DIGI 2 = Vintage digital delay style 2.
- TAPE = Emulates a vintage tape delay with some subtle wow and flutter.
- LOFI = Dirty & lofi delay.
- DIFFUSE = The delayed signal is diffused and chorused.
Reverb
Classic reverb effect with a choice of 4 early reflection patterns:
- Room
- Hall
- Church
- Plate
The ‘DIFF’ (diffusion) control sets the smoothness and density of the tail. There are options to reduce sample rate and bit depth and increase saturation for gritty, vintage digital reverb effects.
Multi-breakpoint Envelope
A Multi-breakpoint envelope with up to 50 breakpoints. The envelope shapes can be stored into 8 presets which can be selected manually on the GUI, by using the modulation inputs or via MIDI. There is also a ‘Round-Robin’ option which will cause the envelope to cycle through the presets with every gate received. Right click on the presets numbers to copy and paste between presets. Right click and then click and drag to copy and then paste across multiple presets numbers. The depth control allows the envelope to be scaled or inverted.
The breakpoints (circles), shape-points (small squares) and the loop markers can be moved by clicking on the objects and dragging them. A new breakpoint is inserted by a right click at the desired position. A right click on a breakpoint deletes it.
The loop start and loop end markers can be moved by dragging them between breakpoints. If the loop is active the envelope will loop continuously while the the signal at the 'GATE' port is positive, after which the envelope will continue on to the end.
To simultaneously scroll the envelope and to set the zoom factor click on the background of the envelope. Dragging to the left or right scrolls the envelope, dragging up zooms out and dragging down zooms in. The ruler can be used to shift and to zoom independently, left button click and drag on the ruler to scroll, right click and drag to zoom. The zoom factor defines the grid size of the ruler markings.
A double-click sets the zoom factor so that the whole envelope fits on the display.
There is a control on the options page to enable MIDI control, allowing the presets to be switched by a range of MIDI notes on a hardware MIDI controller.
Router
The 'Router' block can be used to select the routing topology of other processing blocks like filters or effects.
The ‘SELECT’ control smoothly blends between 2 different routing configurations (parallel and serial etc). There are 4 different modes each with different routing configurations and the icons are updated when changing modes to show the connections to the input and output ports in each configuration.
Note, to save CPU most of the blocks will automatically switch off processing if they are not connected to anything (like an output or another active block). Parts of the GUI display of this block will not update unless it is connected to something.