It's time.
I've written this post a dozen times over the last couple of years, but I think that it's finally time. It's time to end the Reason Patch A Day experiment and move on to other things.
It's been a long, weird, enjoyable, and sometimes frustrating trip. I've shared this a few times, in a few different places, but at its most basic level Patch A Day was a challenge. I had been trying to wrap my brain around synthesis and creating a new patch, every day, seemed like a good way to finally hammer home the concepts I had been learning over the years before. It was a way to force myself to actually work through creating new sounds, rather than just cycling through endless lists of other people's presets, and the blog began as an attempt to share those early, tentative attempts at sound design.
But, over time I learned that Patch A Day was also a distraction. I got stuck, musically, and couldn't seem to move forward, so I thought that time spent creating new tools would be time well spent. Once that musical rut ended, I'd have a collection of new, custom sounds that I could use to start creating again. But, over time, I wasn't creating tools for myself anymore; I was just creating them for the blog.
"Feed the blog," was a phrase I used too much and it was an action that was starting to make me unhappy. It was fleeting, of course. Blogging is often its own reward, and I have certainly found this blog rewarding, but I've come to the conclusion over the last year that as long as I continue to work on Reason Patch A Day, I'll never make any music, which ironically, is why I started all of this in the first place.
So, this is my last post. I hope you've enjoyed this weird experiment as much as I have. It's been outstanding getting to know many of you and listening to the amazing music that you've created. I wish you all the best of luck, in life, and in music, and hope that we can stay in touch.
I'll leave the blog up and running for a while. I'll continue selling the refills, if you want them, but I'm off to try to find my muse again and explore the explosions of energy and the chilly shadows of doubt that come from creativity.
Thanks again for your interest over the years and your support.
On to the next adventure....
