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Review WAVCLOUD by Flintpope

Bee_Abney

How long have I been out?
Today, Flintpope released a new Reaktor instrument that really got my attention, and I just wanted to say a few words and provide a demonstration to see if you may find it worthy of your attention too. As Flintpope is a member of this community, I thought that here was a suitable place to post my review. Plus, I have no website or YouTube channel...

https://flintpope.net/2022/01/12/wavcloud/
Note that this instrument requires Reaktor 6, but that it is otherwise completely free, or you can pay what you wish for it. This policy applies across Flintpope's product range, so you can freely try any of them that might appeal to you and, if you decide that you will use it, return and make a payment if you so wish.

WAVCLOUD

You can use your own samples!
To get this question answered at the start: yes, you can add your own samples! It isn't as easy as drag and drop, but you are given instruction to open the hood and drop in any samples you may wish to use inside the engine.

This instrument is a granular engine featuring 127 samples, bass an independent sub-bass sample. The samples are split in half between two players without overlap, to be played simultaneously. You can pick your start point, speed and volume, grain size and such, for each sample player. Then there is one multi-parameter granular delay that is applied to them both. After that, there are additional features, such as ADHSR, reverb, chorus, and vinyl and hiss noises. The sub-bass can be added if you wish. And there is an LFO, which can range from subtle movement to pumping beats.

This style of instrument is something of specialty of Flintpope, and it is of a kind that has clear and immediate applications across a wide range of music. Textured pads, or blurred, smoother pads (turn up the reverb mix and room size) are staples of screen music and all kinds of popular music, as well as an integral part of hybrid orchestral music. WAVCLOUD can give you cloudy, ephemeral, thick and weighty, bass heavy or light. But it can also give you glitchy and awkward, rhythmic and rough. Packed into its surprisingly versatile engine is a range of options that would usually cost a considerable amount to acquire. But, provided you have Reaktor, this is a very simple and inexpensive (free if you want it!) means of supplementing your other musical tools.

So, yes, I like it, that's why I wanted to call attention to it, and to Flintpope's work more generally. But in addition to limitations - this is not an all in one tool kit and doesn't try to be - there are also some issues that I have with the Engine.

The first is just readability. As with many complex Reaktor instruments, there are a lot of parameters to fit in and so the text can be hard to read for me. It is worth noting that I have unusually inflexible corneas, though, so reading smaller text is unusually difficult for me. On the positive side, the layout is easy to learn and so the problem is very temporary. Furthermore, if you click the little exclamation mark in Reaktor, you get pop up text for the major parameters that you hover over, making it even easier to read.

The second is a common feature of Reaktor (and Massive too). That is the somewhat metallic cast to the sound. Whatever samples get put in Reaktor will acquire a metallic sheen to them. This is something that I like very much, but which isn't suitable for everything that you might be doing. To some extent, though, this can be addressed with further production choices.

WAVCLOUD comes with a sizeable number of categorised presets to make things easier and to demonstrate what the instrument can do. I highly recommend downloading it and giving them a playthrough.

QUICK DEMO

So, this was done rather quickly to show WAVCLOUD in action, to save anyone who was curious clicking further afield to hear it.

Naked (nothing but panning and volume adjustments):



Basic mixing, but not mastered, and with a vocal track added (made with Soundpaint's Barbary - entirely independently, but it happened to fit!)



I have no affiliation with Flintpope and don't know him beyond some interactions through this forum. I just like what he's doing and wanted to share.

With best wishes,
Bee
 
Whoa you’ve got some nice sub drones going on there. Loved your demo and I am also a fan of Flintpope’s stuff, so I think I will have to pay the Ko-fi shop a little visit this weekend. Thanks for the review Bee.
 
Whoa you’ve got some nice sub drones going on there. Loved your demo and I am also a fan of Flintpope’s stuff, so I think I will have to pay the Ko-fi shop a little visit this weekend. Thanks for the review Bee.
Thanks! I've been getting into thick, dense productions with some heavy sub-bass at times. It's been a challenge learning how to mix it! On the one hand, I want it to be dense, but on the other, I don't want it to be indistinguishable multi-masked mud.

WAVCLOUD makes this a bit easier becaues of the great built in samples. They've been chosen/designed well to work in the engine which can do sub bass.
 
This is cool! Thanks Bee. Nice to hear your demos as I rarely hear what other peeps do with my stuff. You have a point regarding the metallic sound of Reaktor (and Massive), this is something I have also noticed.

Can I use this section particularly on my Wavcloud web page?

This style of instrument is something of specialty of Flintpope, and it is of a kind that has clear and immediate applications across a wide range of music. Textured pads, or blurred, smoother pads (turn up the reverb mix and room size) are staples of screen music and all kinds of popular music, as well as an integral part of hybrid orchestral music. WAVCLOUD can give you cloudy, ephemeral, thick and weighty, bass heavy or light. But it can also give you glitchy and awkward, rhythmic and rough. Packed into its surprisingly versatile engine is a range of options that would usually cost a considerable amount to acquire. But, provided you have Reaktor, this is a very simple and inexpensive (free if you want it!) means of supplementing your other musical tools.

And an embed of the first demo too please? I will of course credit you.

Thanks so much.
 
This is cool! Thanks Bee. Nice to hear your demos as I rarely hear what other peeps do with my stuff. You have a point regarding the metallic sound of Reaktor (and Massive), this is something I have also noticed.

Can I use this section particularly on my Wavcloud web page?

This style of instrument is something of specialty of Flintpope, and it is of a kind that has clear and immediate applications across a wide range of music. Textured pads, or blurred, smoother pads (turn up the reverb mix and room size) are staples of screen music and all kinds of popular music, as well as an integral part of hybrid orchestral music. WAVCLOUD can give you cloudy, ephemeral, thick and weighty, bass heavy or light. But it can also give you glitchy and awkward, rhythmic and rough. Packed into its surprisingly versatile engine is a range of options that would usually cost a considerable amount to acquire. But, provided you have Reaktor, this is a very simple and inexpensive (free if you want it!) means of supplementing your other musical tools.

And an embed of the first demo too please? I will of course credit you.

Thanks so much.
Absolutely, please do. There’s no need to credit me, but do feel free to put the blame where it belongs!
 
I added your stuff!

https://flintpope.net/2022/01/12/wavcloud/
Thanks again
I'm genuinely really thrilled! Thank you so much. That really cheered me up on a day of drama (I'm selling my house...).

I shall keep trying to live up to your lovely instruments as well as I can manage!

I only hope more people here give them a try. I have spent good money on instruments no where close to as fun to use or as good to listen too!
 
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