Antblanca MONTAG-E is a new experimental multi-playhead granular sampler for Reaktor 6, from the creator of the Twisted Tools Drone-E.
Often underrated, Reaktor 6 is still one of the most powerful and deep Synthesizer plugins and environments available today. The tool’s strength lies in its ability to create your own instruments, effects, and more from scratch and share them with the community.
Many developers have demonstrated the engine’s power with their “Ensembles”. For example, the releases from Twisted Tools. One of these is Dron-E from developer Antblanca, who is finally back after a long hiatus. Antblanca has just dropped MONTAG-E, a new experimental granular sampler for Reaktor 6.5.
Antblanca MONTAG-E
MONTAG-E is a new granular sampler instrument for Native Instruments Reaktor 6, designed for sound design and experimentation. It runs in the full version of Reaktor 6, but no info about Reaktor 6 Player compatibility. I think the full version is more likely.
Antblanca MONTAG-E has a sample slot that can be processed in real-time with four simultaneous granular playheads. Great, each playhead can have its own audio output, designed for quadraphonic sound installations. So, you can also individually process each playhead with additional FX or external gear.
The granular engine has classic controls such as grain direction, envelope, and more. You can also tweak the sample with different controls.
Thanks to two different operations (normal and spread), it can create different behaviors. In NORMAL mode, each voice receives the same control value, while SPREAD assigns a different value to each voice. This allows for more variation and interesting results with less parameter editing.
MONTAG-E also hosts a polyphonic bandpass filter and delay with modulation capabilities for shaping the sounds.
Things get fun and wild with the X/Y pads and the internal modulations. There are three X/Y pads, each mapped with different parameters: start/pitch with speed, size/overlap with jitter, and delay/feedback with mix slider control. If you use them, you can already go very experimental in sound design.
Modulate It
Antblanca also added plenty of modulation to his new MONTAG-E granular sampler. According to him, most controls can be modulated by a selectable modulation source for each selection.
It includes a wavetable LFO with drawing options, providing you with various modulation movements. Further, it has an AHDSR envelope with delay and loop option, a blend function, and a special pos to modulator. The latter converts playhead positions into polyphonic modulation data.
That sounds like a lot of fun. You can map them to pitch, volume, and pan for designing whooshes, pass-bys, and more. Also onboard is a unique randomness system that lets you add and remove MONTAG-E controls to create subtle changes or entirely new sounds.
You can use eight pads on the bottom of the interface that control the intensity of these changes in the parameter. Thus, you can easily achieve sound variations. Plus, it hosts a polyphonic random oscillator to create generative modulations quickly.
Indeed, there are plenty of modulation sources to add to the granular process, putting it on a wild, experimental path.
To get it started, it ships with 163 Reaktor snapshots and a sample map loaded with 122 sounds. Of course, you can also import your own samples, and almost all controls support MIDI learn and DAW automation.
First Impression
I’m happy that there’s a powerful new release for Reaktor 6. Unfortunately, there have been fewer releases in recent years. MONTAG-E looks like a lot of fun.
This new Reaktor ensemble is definitely on the experimental side, and I’m sure it’s particularly exciting if you want to create highly experimental, granular drones and textures.
Antblanca MONTAG-E is available now for an introductory price of $49 until May 1st, 2025.
More information here: Antblanca
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