Native Instruments today introduced Skanner XT, a ‘unique and highly distinctive’ virtual instrument, designed by the team behind Reaktor.
Here’s what NI has to say about Skanner XT:
With a strong focus on unconventional tone and genuine musical expression, SKANNER XT is both an exceptional library addition for REAKTOR 5 users as well as an excellent sound resource for the free REAKTOR 5 PLAYER.
Part sampler, part synth, SKANNER XT utilizes a unique synthesizer architecture to create a wide variety of intense and cutting-edge sounds for contemporary electronic music production and sound design. Two oscillators ‘scan’ a sample, which at low frequencies deliver a scratch sound.
At higher frequencies the oscillators, shaped by the sample waveform, become the dominant force. In this way, Skanner XT provides a broad range of highly distinctive sounds – from heavy and dirty bass tones to morphing soundscapes and organic pads.
About Skanner XT
Developed together with NI synthmeister Stephan Schmitt, Skanner XT offers two interface views for different levels of interaction with the complex architecture under the hood. Besides a simplified page with a preset morpher and four macro controls, a second view provides access to more detailed parameters in order to further explore the sonic potential of the instrument. A morph control option allows for convenient switching between eight different snapshots – producing unpredictable, evolving sounds that range from the ethereal to the extreme.
Skanner XT is available at the NI Online Shop for $59 / 49 EUR. See the NI site for details.
they released a free version of this a while back and it is awesome, very unique and expressive tool i would say.
Is that free version still available somewhere?
FWIW, they list an “upgrade” for $29. I would assume the free version released last year qualifies.
It does somewhat irk me that these are all released for Reaktor, rather than as standard plugins. Instruments like Skanner and Razor are exactly the sort of less conventional synths that I am after, but Reaktor’s rather ludicrous CPU overhead and the fact that it costs a small fortune make it pretty prohibitive.
I am aware that I can (and often do) use Reaktor Player, but the fact that you cannot automatically recall presets (only snapshots, which the user cannot modify or save) absolutely kills workflow.
I really want to like a lot of the things like this that NI have been doing recently, but limiting it to the Reaktor platform makes me somewhat less interested.
If only NI could just put a little money into a DAW…. Maybe it would not be as much a hassle. I kind of agree with the above conflict
Maschine is essentially a DAW in a lot of ways. Maybe not a full-fledged one but getting close. Ironically, this is where I’m encountering all my gripes about NI’s somewhat obtuse design decisions.
I have the free version and you can’t load your own sounds… does anyone know if you can load your own waveforms into the XT version? That ability would make this a very interesting synth in my opinion.
I have the free version and you can load you own sounds of course 😉 take a look at your manual if you buyed reaktor 😉 and by the way the free version is mostly the same like the paid version only 2 effects and some more samples…
This is cool. any kind of noise making sh*t i love.