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I have an unopened copy of Komplete 9, and was starting to get really excited about trying out Monark, when I just found out it's a Reaktor instrument, and I'm finding myself extremely bummed.

What I really need to get my head around is the whole Reaktor file arrangement scheme. I tried it out for a few months when I first got it, but I've been completely avoiding and ignoring it since, largely because I find the whole interface and file scheme to be really "creativity draining" even for pre-built synths. But I will admit, the program holds some serious possibilities, and it might be nice to try and calm my fears of it and try again. Mostly, what's with the "Factory" and "User" libraries. I think, when I first installed it, I flew in the face of their system, and just threw everything in one place, now I'm wondering whether I should have tried their scheme, cuz it's impossible for me to find things. One thing that always ticks me off, is every time I want to save a snapshot, it wants me to save a separate version of the synth. So now I have all these different versions of the same synth floating around. Not sure how to combat that.

Second thing is, by default, most of their mono synths don't do tremolo retriggering. You know, when you hold one note, play another, and then let go of the second to return to the first? All the time, it just stops. When I play on a mono synth, I'm CONSTANTLY doing tremolos with one note held. Any way around that? It's a huge deal breaker for me.

I'd like to give Monark a fair shot, but I'm just totally miffed at Reaktor and don't want to have anything to deal with it, any advice would be appreciated.

Reaktor is a powerfull instrument - environment - and it is easy to be intimidate by it.
I for myself never had the courage to program something; I use either the factory ensembles or some enembles I took from the User forum at NI or ensembles I bought from either NI or third parties dev.

You should save your snapshot from the "camera" pane on the left side (Click on the magnifying glass on the right of the Reaktor logo if the left pane side is hide. Then under the same Reaktor logo you'll see a camera icon. Choose or create a bank and click on a empty snapshot to save your edited preset.)

As for the tremolo - which is probably a trill you want to do - what you are looking for on a synth is for the voice or gate to be in MONO and the LEGATO to be in HIGH or LAST Priority. Some synths have different terminology like MONO SINGLE RETRIGGER or MONO 1 LEGATO.

In Monark for instance, click on the B pane -top of the MONARK logo- to show the second editing panel. Most of Reaktor ensembles or instruments have two panels, A and B. Because Monark is emulating the Moog mini retrigger function, if you want to trill differently, edit one of the settings on the panel B to suit your playing; Keyboard LEGATO Priority LAST or HIGH and choose envellope rettriger; NEVER for using the same enveloppe until the note is release or NOTE ON to retrigger the enveloppe every time a note is engaged.

Sorry if this sounds confusing, I don't know why but my english is on the lazy side today!!

Well, since no one else has chimed in, and I am far from a Reaktor expert, I feel your pain. My way of dealing with the file system is to keep all of my user library files on a separate drive with well named folders (tags anyone?), and to never, ever save to the factory library directory. What Reaktor really needs is some kind of search and find browser. That brings up my main criticism: that Reaktor always seems to do way more than I want it to. It is very geeky (which is not a bad thing), but when I want to do something simple like insert a MIDI controller into an ensemble or module I end up coming to a creative screeching halt. I am really at the mercy of other programmers who are more accomplished than I will ever be, and I hope that they decided to add aftertouch to that amazing sounding synth engine they produced.

Thank you both! That's really helpful, Groove, if only to get some of the terminology sorted. Unfortunately, I believe that MOST of their mono synths don't have a choice of priority. Good to know Monark does.

Yeah, I don't mind complexity as long as it can be hidden when you don't need it. Kontakt does that very well, Reaktor does not. The whole idea of Reaktor was to be this funky, do-it-yourself modular synth environment for home-brew synths. Unfortunately, NI has saw fit to make all these professional instruments for it, so it's sorta being used for things that it really doesn't seem like it was meant for. Problem is, it's interface is still designed as a nerdy, techy, home-brew environment, not as some standalone instrument where you can really focus on using it as an instrument, which is what's needed for fine-tuned instruments like Monark and Razor. Another thing that bothers me is the side panel for MIDI channel routing and the like. Very fiddly.

In any case, I'm more concerned about file management than anything else, as it was the one thing that absolutely stopped me from using the program. I'll probably reinstall it this time around, and keep it the way it was intended to be setup.