Since effectively shutting down Reason Patch A Day almost a year and a half ago, I've kept busy making a few new patches here and there, but for the most part it hasn't been the kind of daily effort I put in for over four years. I've been building a few sounds and effects for my own use, but today I got inspired and thought I would share the results of that inspiration with the few of you that still drop in to visit.
Started as an attempt to make an artificial sounding series of percussion hits, the Cricket series grew pretty quickly from "strange noises" into an entire kit of sounds, all created using Reason 4's Thor synth. We're spoiled for options in Reason these days, with a number of capable and powerful built-in tools for drums, as well as a number of new and different Rack Essentials. It's easy to forget how much fun "old" tools can be and I had a blast putting these together today.
I spent a lot of time working with the Mod Wheel on each of these patches, something I rarely do when I put together percussion patches. I am pretty happy with the added effort, however, so if the default sound of a patch doesn't fit your project, move the Mod Wheel up or down to fine-tune it a bit.
While experimenting with the Percussion 6 patch, I started getting sounds that made more sense as bass tones, than percussion elements so I went ahead and created a couple of bass patches that should fit well with the rest of the series.
The next logical step, given that I stepped away from straight percussion patches in this series, was to put together a couple of synth patches. Like the bass patches these were created from the Percussion 6 patch and really benefit from use of the Mod Wheel.
With over thirty patches there is a lot to work with here, but I do feel like the series is still missing a few vital pieces. For example, although there are six closed hi-hat sounds, I haven't provided any useful open hi-hat patches, to say nothing of the complete lack of any toms.. Also, there are the typical missing sounds like shakers, rim shots, and claps, which are a little tricky to build using Thor, but not impossible. I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for an expansion of these sounds, but it's not that far-fetched either. If I come up with something else, you can be sure I will post it here.
Enjoy! And, if you use these to create something awesome, please be sure to let me know. I'd love to hear it!
Edit: I stupidly forgot to put any velocity programming into the Cricket series, so if you've already downloaded these, you might want to take the time to grab them all again and get the option for a little expression to your drums. Sorry about that! I'm a little out of practice!
