Blinksonic Collidz, new Reaktor 6 Synthesizer ensemble pairs 4 unique engines with a polyrhythmic sequencer with 12 scaled or micrtonal notes.
Reaktor 6 by Native Instruments is not just a modular synth but a fascinating environment in which you can develop your own synthesizers, modules, effects, sequencers, and more. A look at the ever-growing user library (6000+ entries) quickly shows how deep Reaktor goes. Here you have content for many years. Not everything is free, there are also third-party developers for R6 commercial releases.
One of them is Blinksonic, who have a very complex and comprehensive library of experimental instruments. The latest release is called COLLIDZ and is a multi-engine Synthesizer with a unique feature set.
Blinksonic Collidz
Collidz is described as a generative, autonomous, and multipurpose Synthesizer. The core uses 4 different engines (stroke, friction, ground, shock) all sequenced by a polyrhythmic program of 12 scaled or microtonal notes.
Stroke is a FM percussive synth, friction a modal synthesis string emulator, ground a two-oscillator VA engine, and shock an analog-style percussive/drum synth. The modules come with a large number of parameters with which you can design endless new sounds. Each engine supports up to 12 voice polyphony giving you up to 90 oscillators in total. (36 for stroke, 12 for friction, 24 for ground, and 12 for shock).
You can add an acoustic treatment or simply refine your sound using the four built-in effects processors. Larsen is a resonate/shifter, frost is a micro delay/freezer, feather a digital reverb and juice a SSB radio and tape machine emulator.
Sequencer On Steroids
Big highlight in this release is, however, the sequencer that has many interesting, unusual ideas. Blinksonic says: “Collidz basically aims to be a sequencer that runs pieces of (falling/climbing) squares launching gate events when they reach the bottom of a grid table. Visually it reminds of an old-school arcade game like a 16x pong version where the cube always bounces.
It follows the lamella principe (Kalimba) that makes it possible to anticipate a suite of notes configurations. thanks to custom or forced tuning priniciples. In this case, it iss mainly designed to use the 12 notes of the instruments to create unique melodic content with custom tuning scales defined by divisions of equal intervals.
Yes you can sequence notes like in any other but it goes beyond that. You can pre-select the notes/frequencies you want to play, define individual tempo signatures and rhythmic rules for each of the 16 MIDI tracks. Then, you can uses scales either from classic ones, from different modes (incl. chords midi filter) or using custom tuning scales. You can also apply smart tempo controls, random wrappers, and more.
Further, you get built-in global MIDI transposer, LFOs, custom BPM commands, OTT compressor, random phrase generator, external input and looper, audio to gate converter and more .Now that sounds very adventurous and complex. At first it is, it is definitely an instrument that you have to familiarize yourself with. Blinksonic ships it with 100 snapshots in order to get your hands on the instruments.
Additionally, there is alternative interface (panel B) of the instrument that comes with auto generator of presets. Not the worst idea to start with.
First Impression
The new release from Blinksonic is wild and special. A special kind of multi-synthesizer where the sequence plays the main role. For those using Reaktor 6 a lot, this could be an interesting new tool.
Blinksonic Collidz is available now for an introductory price of 99€ (regl. 129€) with the discount code COLLIDZ on check-out until March 24th, 2022. It runs on macOS and Windows and requires the full version of Reaktor 6.4.3. Reaktor Player is not supported.
More information here: Blinksonic
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