Instrument Browser 1.6.0

This page is available in English only

Added support for blocks created with Reaktor 6.1.1

(70 Votes)

Author: Colugo _

Version: 1.6.0 (Updated 7 years ago)

File Size: 1.8MB

Created: November 02, 2015

Made with: Reaktor 6

Category: Blocks Blocks (Legacy)

Tags:

Tools

DESCRIPTION

* Please report bugs on GitHub *
https://github.com/Penhorse/Instrument-Browser/issues

This is a Reaktor instrument browser, designed for working with Reaktor 6 blocks. It can be used to browse regular instruments too as long as they meet the requirements (see info below). Only works with instruments generated with Reaktor 6 and up.

Usage
================================

Paste your block library directories into the field on the options screen. On Windows the factory library is typically installed to ':\Users\Public\Documents\Reaktor Blocks\Library' and your user library is typically at ':\Users\YourName\Documents\Native Instruments\Reaktor 6\Library\Blocks'.

Start typing letters to filter the block list! The filter text will be matched against instrument names, and also the names of the subdirectories up to 3 levels above each instrument. For example, type "Euro Reakt" to list all of the Euro Reakt blocks, or "bento" for all the Bento blocks.

Click on a block to add it to the current ensemble.

Information for block developers
================================

If your block shows up without an icon it's because you didn't add a panel icon to the main instrument module.

Blocks must have a background image otherwise they won't show up at all. This is because of the way the *.ism files are parsed - we search the file byte by byte for recognisable patterns of data and the background image serves as a handy anchor from which the rest of the information is derived. For implementation details see ismsnoop (https://github.com/Penhorse/ismsnoop).

If your block has a background image and still doesn't show up, it's probably a problem with the *.ism parser. Please submit an issue!

Usually when NI releases a new version of Reaktor any new blocks created with that version will fail to parse, because the format of the *.ism files changes slightly. In this case an update to the *.ism parser is required. Please bug me until I do it (or do it yourself and submit a pull request ;) )

COMMENTS (72)

Please login to add a comment

Stephan Bobinger

5 years ago

Any plans to update it to work with newer Blocks from 6.3.1? I get a lot of error messages for newer Blocks

Plamen Valchev

5 years ago

Great Browser. Thanks!

Adam Guth

6 years ago

I'm sorry. OS X 10.13.6

Adam Guth

6 years ago

Hm. I'm only getting a few blocks to show up from my User Blocks folder. Reaktor 6.2.2. Any ideas? Thanks!

Elias Chokeir

7 years ago

holy crap this thing is amazing

F. Fruklushnube

7 years ago

Sorting with directories would be cool

Peter Bullard

7 years ago

Fantastic - shame NI has not implemented it.

fred noel

7 years ago

Finally got it to work… sooo precious !! thx a lot :)

Rowan Eldritch

7 years ago

Very useful, thanks!

Donald Martin

7 years ago

is V1.6 only for mac OS X 10.11?

Vaughn Stegeman

7 years ago

So, it appears that this does not work when using Reaktor within a DAW. I'm using Reaper. When I tried to use this Instrument Browser, it opened the standalone version of Reaktor rather than putting my selections into my opened version within my DAW. Is this a known issue, and is there a way around that? Aside from that foible, this is pretty awesome.

david goodman

7 years ago

for anyone having problems with adding correct path on osx, get info on the folder via finder and then in general, where: copy and paste this info. hope this is clear

Malte Klima

7 years ago

Great tool! Thank you for your excellent work!

Simon Rutter

7 years ago

Thanks so much Colugo! You're a star :-)

Brett Lavallee

7 years ago

Thank you

Colugo _

7 years ago

Updated to support blocks created with Reaktor 6.1.1

Colugo _

7 years ago

Will release an update soon with support for blocks created with Reaktor v6.1.1

Stephan Bobinger

7 years ago

Update needed Cant read the some updated Blocks from Snite Collection

Itamar Rosenblum

7 years ago

Very helpful, thank you very much!!! Is there any way to choose multiple block in the browser to send to Reaktor insread of doing it one by one? If there isn't it would be great to have the ability to do that. Thank you very much.

Simon Rutter

7 years ago

@Raphael Doe Same here. Just getting "Failed to Load ismsnoop.dll" which is a shame. Any chance for a cheeky fix, @Colugo _?

Raphael Doe

7 years ago

Not working with blocks saved under 6.1.1

michael möschler

8 years ago

Thanks!

Rui Lopes

8 years ago

i really need to wait for x64 or there is a way to work with this on a windows 7 x64 ?

Eanna Butler

8 years ago

Great job! Thank you very much! :-)

rui da silva

8 years ago

this is fantastic..thank you... is there anything similar for ensembles?

Malte Klima

8 years ago

Problem solved! Just right click on a file.ism and chose open with and then mark the Reaktor 6.app and activate always open with. That's it!

Malte Klima

8 years ago

Great tool, but if I click on a block to load, the Instrument Browser always open Reaktor 5. Any suggestion how I can solve this problem? I work on a Mac. Thank you for some help!

Michael Fitzsimmons

8 years ago

One of the handiest things I've gotten hold of in quite a while - thank you very much!

Jon Grönvall

8 years ago

Oh wow, this is brilliant, helps immensely in using the current Blocks collections

Aaron Hemeon

8 years ago

So helpful. Thanks

Colugo _

8 years ago

v1.5.0 should support any new blocks created with Reaktor v6.0.3. If you find a block that doesn't show up please report it here: https://github.com/Penhorse/Instrument-Browser/issues

Colugo _

8 years ago

FYI i think this won't work with new blocks created with reaktor 6.0.3 because the file format has changed. Hopefully I'll get a chance to fix this soon

christian ds

8 years ago

Thank you very much for this and all your other ensembles. Top Quality!

James Donahue

8 years ago

This is nice, but it would be so much more useful with the ability to drag and drop the blocks into a DAW. I rarely if ever use the stand alone version. Anyway, many thanks!

John Wise

8 years ago

Something that would be incredibly helpful to me regarding the Instrument Browser is for the main "Info" field of Blocks to popup up when I hover over them. Sometimes and especially while I'm still learning this stuff....if I could see what a "Pickle" "Alien Intellect" "Rotraut" or "Knuertznankel" does without having to open it first I would be much faster on assembling Ensembles.

Todd Krupa

8 years ago

Thank you for this and all your other work. I mention you to students all the time. Would love to see a drag and drop for work in Live etc. As is a great solution, I hope NI recognizes it and gives you props.

Adam Parker

8 years ago

Hmm. I've just downloaded this for OS X and it's not detecting any instruments in the blocks directories that I've set. Any ideas on how to get this working? Looks super useful!

GG.G SakabeaT

8 years ago

love it,man... thx.

Diego Ghiddini

8 years ago

Thanks for this ,i use the OSX version , i' like i.e. it a tool much :9 i'bve a request : is possible have a number thea show how many block there are in the library ?

Colin Webber

8 years ago

I had some old .ism instruments in one of the directories (OSX) and they came up as unreadable. I removed that directory from the list, but the Instrument Browser crashes during startup. Can I clear the list and start again somehow?

Colugo _

8 years ago

thank you daniel and bruno for their assistance in getting an OSX version out ;)

Daniel Hatadi

8 years ago

I've built an OSX version of this and added the pull request. You can find it here: https://github.com/dhatadi/Instrument-Browser

Kai Handberg

8 years ago

Fantastic. Thank you!

John Wise

8 years ago

I didn't know there was a search function until I visited your Github page and saw the invisible box....oh the sad truth in RTFM - had I only read the third paragraph on my left :) Feature request: It would be great if the browser remembered its last state so if I prefer multi-column display it stays that way.

John Wise

8 years ago

Please tag this a Block - it's amazingly helpful and I only found it because I was scanning everything you work on. Btw, there are a bunch of blocks that are not being rendered. Sure would be nice if we could let others know what they are doing wrong in that their Blocks are not rendered.

Efflam Le Bivic

8 years ago

too bad it is not tagged a block. A lot of people may never find it.

MPad Electronix

9 years ago

c0_0L thx!! der knaller :) 1+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ !

Omar Misa

9 years ago

WOW! Super helpful! Thanks Colugo!

Lee Hume

9 years ago

Would love this on OSX

Martin Géč

9 years ago

It would indeed be nice to have it on OSX. :-)

Colugo _

9 years ago

This is probably done now unless anyone reports any bugs. I would still like to release an OSX version but unfortunately don't have access to a mac, so it's in someone else's hands :)

Colugo _

9 years ago

v1.3.1 - Fixed that bug you might have noticed where block icons get stuck or misaligned, Added a right-click menu to the icons, and minor cosmetic changes.

Colugo _

9 years ago

you're welcome ;)

Martin Wood-Mitrovski

9 years ago

YES! This is beautiful with 2 monitors. 1 for the block browser and the other for reaktor. Now I just need all the block creators to add custom icons :) Thanks again for the tool.

Colugo _

9 years ago

v1.3 - Added a multi-row view mode

Martin Wood-Mitrovski

9 years ago

Brilliant idea and works perfectly here. A grid view would be cool. I'd consider trying to add it myself but my C++ skills are so rusty i'd probably lose a finger or two. :)

Starik Gen

9 years ago

I should be built in reaktor from the start with automatic updating of the blocks new versions, kind of github .

Colugo _

9 years ago

lol what

dj mani

9 years ago

So you're trying to turn Reaktor into windows 8/10 NO, stupid idea

Colugo _

9 years ago

v1.2 adds a search function. works well with block packs such as Euro Reakt and Inifinite Phi

Thomas Helzle

9 years ago

Brilliant! This shows that NI should think about a visual browser for blocks (and maybe ensembles too). Names are not always that helpful...

Colugo _

9 years ago

v1.1 - I've added some better error reporting so if you're having trouble getting blocks to show up it should be more obvious what the issue is.

Christian Linder

9 years ago

realy realy nice! works like a charm and that your app opens the specific Reaktor instrument, is the icing on the cake.

Colugo _

9 years ago

maybe i should start a thread for this. wasn't sure if there would be much interest when I uploaded it

Colugo _

9 years ago

@rick scott hmmmm does it work with your user library instead? Next version I'll add some error reporting to the instrument loader so that we have a some clue of what's going wrong. At the moment this is really just a prototype.

Rick Scott

9 years ago

Sounds cool, but I can't get it to work. My factory library is installed to the default location, but any variant of C:\Users\Public\Documents\Reaktor Blocks\Library that I enter in the Options page displays no blocks in the main page. Help?

Jonathan Canupp

9 years ago

I'm always excited to see external tools/extensions for Reaktor and this certainly seems promising. I forked the repository and am going to try to build it for OSX. Thank you for creating such a useful tool!

m9 cao

9 years ago

cool, please add multiple folder view o(^▽^)o

Christian Huygen

9 years ago

It's a cool way of just gloating over one's growing Block collection, too. (I didn't know what to do or how to install it and then I double clicked on the InstrumentBrowser and bam, it did its thing.) (Navigate to your Blocks director, and right click in the address window, and you can select Copy Address, and then paste that into the settings window of InstrumentBrowser.)

John Smith

9 years ago

Seems pretty cool. I'm an OS X developer but never heard of JUCE... but hearing about it, it seems very interesting and useful for an entirely unrelated project I'm working on :-)

Colugo _

9 years ago

Very cool B) I've tested it with around ~100 blocks. How many do you have? Also reaktor 5 instruments and lower are unlikely to work.

Joey Valizan

9 years ago

Very cool, Colugo. I added my user library, worked for a second and it crashed. Maybe too many instruments?

REAKTOR-COMMUNITY