Electronic Instruments 2 XT

Native Instruments Electronic Instruments 2XT reviewed in The Technofile by MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi

Lock some of the world’s top sound designers in a room with a hundred copies of Native Instruments’ ‘Reaktor’ and eventually they’ll come up with an exclusive range of cutting edge synthesizers, drum machines and effects. Ask Photek, BT, Junkie XL, Speedy J, Richard Devine and others to create presets for these new instruments/FX, then release them as a stand alone package that’s based on the Reaktor Engine, but which doesn’t require Reaktor to run and you have Electronic Instruments 2XT.

Consisting of 3 synthesizers, 3 FX units and 2 drum machines, which share a common general interface, this collection ranges from useful…to essential…to ‘weird shit man’… and back again.

Leading the aural assault is ‘Photone’, a four oscillator, two filter subtractive synthesizer with some unique features, which include vintage analogue drift and detuning emulation to more accurately model analogue synths and a bunch of special oscillator waveforms like the beautifully nasty ‘venom’ and the FMesque ‘Sinus to Sinus’. Other oscillator sources include all the usual ‘analogue’ suspects, plus FM and 37 ‘Digi’ wave sets. Add to this a ring mod/noise source, two effects, a separate EQ section, an incredibly comprehensive and versatile modulation section with two LFOs, four EGs and extremely flexible routing and the results are, in a word ‘lush’. Photone can do everything from classic analogue (including some of the best Moogness I’ve heard in a while) to classic ambient…FM dance bass to pads for Drum ‘n’ Bass… to just plain in yer face…and it has the presets to prove it…

In hot pursuit is ‘Limelite’. Best described as a beatbox on steroids, it’s an instant dance classic that breaks down into three main (completely modular) sections comprising a pattern sequencer, an FX section, and a sample playback section with five sample players labelled ‘kick’, ‘snare’, ‘hat’, ‘tie’ and ‘pod’. Each sample player offers a choice of 128 different sounds (‘tie’ and ‘pod’ offer a variety of percussive, melodic and dance hits, sounds and FX) plus comprehensive sound shaping parameters such as tuning, sample start point, envelope hold/release times, modulation routing, saturation and filter resonance/cutoff….and if you want really fuk dup soundz there’s more FX than you can shake a rhythm stick at, including ‘Pulp’…which thankfully doesn’t make you sound like Jarvis Cocker…XFX which contains a bank of 22 effects and a recordable XY pad with which to automate their parameters, a stereo tempo synced delay unit (with built in LFO and filter naturally), an EQ unit, a 12db lowpass filter…and ‘magic’ which is a notch filter and granular pitch shifter! Add to this a pattern sequencer that’s halfway between a 909 and a CR-78…only better (it offers 127 auto fills, a half speed button and sequenceable modulation amongst other things) and 107 excellent patterns and dance shit happens.

Next up is the Aptly named ‘Metaphysical’…which is…
It’s a synthesizer…but not as we know it. Eschewing keyboard control in favour of 32 automatable faders that control the majority of its parameters, it generates audio from the time it is opened to the time it is closed. If ambient filmscoreseque soundscapes and weird experimental sound design are you’re thing, you’ll love it. I know I do.

Continuing the weirdness is XT’s second drum machine ‘Krypt’, which, in essence, is a six channel sequencer with an intelligent pattern generation algorithm, coupled to a six voice granular sampler that’s packed with drum and percussive sounds. If you thought that Metaphysical was weird and experimental, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet… Admittedly getting something useable from Krypt can take a lot of work, but it’s worth the effort, because when you do, it’s guaranteed to sound unlike anything you’ve heard before…unless you’re a psychopath with a large collection of power tools…in which case this is the instrument for you, as Krypt naturally lends itself to making industrial music…

The last of the instruments is ‘Akkord’, which should be called ‘Loadsakkords’, as it features a 32 step sequencer into which you can program no less than 56 different types of readymade chord from a pull down menu (as well as being able to manually program your own chords and individual notes). This sequencer is coupled to a hybrid Additive/FM synthesizer featuring 3 oscillators, a harmonics generator, 2 feedback envelopes, beat syncable LFOs and various effects options. Despite the fact that it combines two of the most notoriously difficult synthesis systems, it’s extremely straightforward to program, yielding sounds as big as the 13ths it can sequence.

This leaves the three FX units. ‘Cyan’ is a supercharged chorus effect which offers all of the traditional chorus type sounds and more, thanks to features not found on the average chorus unit. ‘Resochord’ consists of 6 feedback units, analogous to the strings of a guitar, which are effectively ‘plucked’ by the shape and rhythm of the input signal, resulting in the generation of chords that are playable in various ways. But my favourite is without doubt ‘FastFX’ which combines a loop player with six live performance orientated
DJ stylee FXs including ‘Freeze’, which makes looping and scratching sounds, ‘zZzzZZ’, which slices incoming sounds into grains and then slides their pitch, and ‘Slice Manipulator, which also slices incoming sound and then shifts their position and playback direction. Naturally there’s also a filter, delay line and sequenced gate. DJtastic!

There are a few minor criticisms… like most NI products, you can’t maximise the screen size and irritatingly, because all 8 plug-ins are completely self contained, before they can be used in stand alone mode (as opposed to in a host application), each one must be set up for audio and midi individually (which is a bit of a pain, though admittedly it does only need to be done once for each plug–in). The most serious criticism is that regardless of screen resolution, the labelling of the knobs and buttons in some (not all) of the instruments is just too damn small…Limelite being a case in too small point size. Also some of these plug ins are extremely demanding on system resources (we’re talking 25% of a high end P4) though this is not a criticism, just something to be aware of. But at a surprisingly low 149 Euros for the whole ensemble, these criticisms pale into insignificance, making Electronic Instruments 2 XT a must have plug-in.

Native Instruments Electronic Instruments 2XT reviewed in The Technofile by MC Rebbe The Rapping Rabbi

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