stylus rmx vs dr. octo rex

[ochaim]

I've been looking at stylus demo vids on its site and youtube. aside from the FX in stylus, are there significant differences between how stylus and octorex handle loops?

I already have reason 6, just wondering if stylus would be a major or marginal addition to my palette.

thanks
owen.

[mazz]

There are things that Stylus does that nothing else I'm familiar with does, or at least it would take several steps in a sequencer track to achieve the same results as a simple menu in Stylus. Dr. Rex is a great tool, no doubt, and there's several ways to process the loops in it, including running them through the Reason effects, but Stylus is really a "one stop shop" for looping, loop mangling and effects, there's really nothing like it out there, even though it's a good decade old already!

Another thing about Stylus: It doesn't run in standalone mode, so you'd need a host to run it. If you're only using Reason, then you won't be able to use Stylus since Reason doesn't host plug ins or virtual instruments.

Dr. Rex and Stylus both do loops well, they are just different animals.

Just my 2c

Mazz

[ochaim]

Thanks, Mazz.

I've seen the demos that show how a loop can get rearranged etc, but they've only been of drum loops. I was hoping to hear the loop mangling effects on something like guitar loops. Couldn't really find any, unless they don't work very well, or it's very hit and miss with tonal loops.

I agree, the fx control and automation possibilities are quite powerful. I think maschine does something similar to the floating between fx snapshots.

[mazz]

I've used stylus extensively on guitar and bass loops. Nine Volt Audio has guitar and bass loops that work well in Stylus, check out their videos. I've gone so far as to assign a controller to the pitch control in Stylus and automate the controller values to transpose the loop where I want it to be. It works great. You can also process individual slices, kind of like in Dr. Rex and you can drag the MIDI data from the files just like you can in Dr. Rex for further flexibility. But some of the things you can do in Stylus, like for instance the "edit groups" function, I've not seen anywhere else, at least not implemented so elegantly.

Of course, the effectiveness of any REX file hinges on how well the file was sliced up in the first place. Nine Volt Audio does a great job of slicing. Their loops also come as REX files and some of their libraries have Kontakt versions as well. Good stuff.

HTH,

Mazz

[ochaim]

Interesting, that transposing idea is exactly the kind of wild and crazy thing I'm looking for. so far, the demo videos have been pretty humdrum. I did find some nine volt audio youtube videos, but they didn't do too much with the loops. I'll dig a little more.

thanks, very helpful of you!

[matto]

It works great on tonal loops provided they were sliced properly to allow for wide ranging tempo manipulation (assuming that's important to you). You can do anything from in your face lead riffs to interesting background textures.

One of the cool things for Rocktronica/Electronica type stuff is that you can use controllers to mangle or "disintegrate" riffs in realtime. And thanks to edit groups you can build several "levels" of manipulation into a single riff, each of which can be manipulated separatly.

I think if you are into messing with sounds you wouldn't be disappointed with RMX, it's easily the most powerful and elegant program for rhythm manipulation. It's deep yet not intimidating. I would consider myself an "advanced" RMX user but yet I often feel like I'm just scratching the surface, and this is after using it virtually daily for some 6 1/2 years now (Stylus RMX is actually "only" about 7 years old, it is its predecessor 'plain' Stylus that came out over a decade ago).

The fact that it's still the top "loop" VI after so many years should tell you something...

matto

[ochaim]

Thank, matto!

I guess I'll have to take your word for it. I still can't find any good videos showing how stylus rmx can be pushed beyond being a plain loop vi. Might be a good idea to do some youtube vids when I get it!

Looks like santa will be coming early for me. Namely tomorrow, on my day off, LOL!