Tim Exile PTNSHIFT is a new generative music performance instrument for Reaktor that is fully controllable with the Ableton Push controller.
Tim Exile is a British music producer and developer. Most people know him for his innovative Reaktor 6 instruments, which he developed in partnership with Native Instruments (Flesh, The Mouth…). Then, their paths diverged, and Tim created Endlesss, a fascinating music collaboration network and jamming tool.
Unfortunately, this had to be discontinued due to health reasons. In 2024, I shared the news from his wife that Tim had been suffering from cancer and was dependent on donations to pay the bills. He used the time of rehabilitation and developed new music tools.
Last year in November, he made a comeback with Scapeshift, a generative groovebox and sequencer for Reaktor 6. The sister to the Tim Exile Scapeshift is called PTNSHIFT and continues the generative concept and takes it to the stage. It’s out now.
Tim Exile PTNSHIFT
Important note: behind the fascinating Scapeshift engine lies an unique combination of generative groovebox and sequencer that explicitly doesn’t work with artificial intelligence. This also applies to the new Tim Exile PTNSHIFT release.
Like Scapeshift, PTNSHIFT is a tool for Reaktor 6 (full version) that creates rhythms, melodies, and textures on the fly. These are constantly changing, merging, and essentially “fertilizing” each other.
The exciting thing about this engine is that you can morph patterns and entire tracks from one to another—impossible in a traditional DAW. You do this without losing the ability to interact with the engine.
It uses the same generative non-AI engine that consists of five drum synths, two mono synths, a polysynth, a resonator, a noise generator, and different effects. Plus, you can find multiband mixing and mastering options.
This is driven by a powerful sequencer engine with dedicated controls that allow you to manipulate and morph entire patterns in real-time. Tim Exile ships it with a pre-populated PTNSHIFT with 350+ patterns. It’s also fully customizable.
If you want to deeper, you can also create your own pattern banks from scratch using the bank state. On top of that, you will get additional pattern packs to explore: Electric Gamelan, Hypnotic Acid, Atonal Techno, Joist, and Vapourwave.
Performance Instrument
A main difference to the Scapeshift from November 2024 is its playability. PTNSHIFT is designed to create complete setlists and perform live with them on stage. Tim Exile made it fully controllable on the Ableton Push 2 hardware for this purpose.
Niklas Bergius created a companion app for PTNSHIFT that streams the Reakor interface to the Ableton Push 2 controller. This looks very exciting and interesting to use.
The output of PTNSHIFT can be published, but there are some limitation you must know.
PTNSHIFT’s license permits you to create, publish and make money from finished music created with PTNSHIFT. It does not permit the sale of stems, sample packs or other creative content created with PTNSHIFT, with the exception of Pattern Packs for use within PTNSHIFT itself.
First Impression
This is another fascinating release from Tim Exile. I’m happy to see Tim back as a developer. He’s picking up where he left off, developing innovative musical instruments and tools.
Tim Exile PTNSHIFT is available now for $59 + tax from its Patreon store. It runs as a Reaktor 6 instrument (full version required) and ships with a companion app for macOS and Windows that casts the graphic interface to the Ableton Push 2 screen. Push 3 compatibility is not yet confirmed.
Existing users of the recent Scapeshift can find a discount code in their inbox or get both releases for $99 + tax. Adventurer Patreon backers with 2+ months of support will get it for free.
More information here: Patreon
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