Reason Patch A Day Archive Refill, Vol 1: The Two Year Anniversary Edition

Almost a month ago, an important anniversary passed here on Reason Patch A Day without notice or comment. On September 25th, the Reason Patch A Day blog turned two years old.

I've said it before, but putting up a patch every day with a few missed days here or there, especially lately, takes a lot more work than I originally expected. Designing a new patch isn't so bad, nor is writing a blog post, but doing them both seems to take a great deal of effort. Maybe it's that jarring switch between right brain and left brain thinking, or maybe it's just the amount of time that those tasks take when combined, but while some of the posts come easily, some seem to kick and scream their way into the world. Thank you for joining me in this sometimes painful, sometimes joyful, process.

To celebrate this belated anniversary, I decided to do one final update of the Reason Patch A Day Archive Refill. As you may remember the first version of the refill was posted back in March of this year, only to be updated a few months later in June, as a way to thank everyone who supported it.

As I have already said in previous posts, my goal in putting together the Reason Patch A Day Archive Refill was not to provide an endless series of updates. So, this is the last time you'll see me posting about a upgraded version of it. Any other Archive Refills released here on Reason Patch A Day will likely be titled Volume 2 or 3.

The updated Reason Patch A Day Archive Refill, Vol 1 contains over 1,100 files, including:

• 100 Bass Patches
  
• 31 Instrument Combinators
  
• 60 Effect Combinators
  
• 18 Effect Patches
  
• 197 Pad Patches
  
• 155 Percussion Patches
  
• 142 Synth Patches
  
• 14 Sampler Patches
  
• 5 Yamaha Drum Machine Kits (with additional variations)
  
• Misc Samples and Loops
  
• And a couple of other surprises....
  

Thank you to everyone who has helped make the site a success by visiting it daily. And, thank you especially to those of you who provided financial donations and patches to support what I've been doing for the last two years. I'm not sure I can express how much I appreciate your donations.

As before, I urge you to go back and check out the Reader Contribution patches, which are not included in the Refill. Reason Patch A Day has hosted some excellent work from readers (and sometimes fellow bloggers) DJ Mad Wax, Ruurd Huizenga, Lewis.72, Rob Anselmi, Ghostly, Dan Reneer, Darryl Miller, Navi Retlav, and Meowsqueak, and I think you'll enjoy their contributions as much as I have. So, check them out!

Thanks again!

Yamaha RX15 VSTi Available: AREX 2011

I've been pretty vocal about my interest, some would say love, of the old 80s and 90s era Yamaha drum machines. I picked up a RX15 on eBay on a lark and have since collected several others, including the RX11, RX17, RX120, and DD5.

They're not as straight-forward to program as the Roland machines and provide static samples, as opposed to synthetic sounds that you can manipulate, so their usability is more limited than the quintessential TR-808 and TR-909s, but they also have a fairly unique sound. And, if you're as cheap as I am, the idea that you could get a couple of crates of them for every Roland machine you could afford is pretty appealing as well.

If you've been even modestly intrigued by the Yamaha machines, or have enjoying the many samples I've posted from them, you have an interesting option available to you. Several months ago, I got an email from a nice fellow named Alex, who wanted to build a RX15 VST using Synthedit. After exchanging a few questions and answers about the machines, his efforts are done and now available online for download.

So, if you want to play with a fairly accurate representation of the RX15, now is your chance. It can be found at:

• AREX 2011 VSTi drum module
  

I can't provide any tech support for Alex's new instrument. I only helped by providing samples and a little advice, but I know that he's worked pretty hard to try to emulate the machine's many idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, the VSTi is Windows only, so I haven't been able to play with it myself, but thanks for your hard word Alex!

If you've missed the samples I've posted in the past (and were used to create Alex's instrument), you can find them here:

• Yamaha RX11 Digital Rhythm Programmer
  
• Yamaha RX15 Digital Rhythm Programmer
  
• Yamaha RX17 Digital Rhythm Programmer
  
• Yamaha RX120 Digital Rhythm Programmer
  
• Yamaha Digital Drums DD-5