PAD Challenge: Ostbahnoff "That's a Great Color Combination," By DJ Mad Wax

I got this contribution from DJ Mad Wax yesterday, but unfortunately was too caught up in meetings at my son's school, to do anything with it until now. Sorry about the delay in getting this up, Wax!

Inspired by a chance encounter in Berlin, DJ Mad Wax has this to say about his Ostbahnoff "That's a Great Color Combination" track:

Programmed Drums: Goldbaby's Tape 808 and 909 refills
Drum Loop: Computer Muzik magazine
Reason Patch-a-Day: Thor, Snickers of Shadows; Combi Effect: Airport Music; Maelstron, Fugitive; Maelstrom, Catharis; Subtractor, Rubberband;
Additional: various effects from the Filter Research Refill; various use of patching and standard Reason effect devices

Note: I'm mostly deaf, and this was mixed on headphones as my studio is not set up yet. If its too heavy on a frequency, blame the DJ Magic Mike albums and my bass system when I was a teen, or blame my DJ booth years :)

Thanks: to Robbneu for inspiration and the awesome blog.

Ostbahnoff "That's a Great Color Combination," By DJ Mad Wax by Reason Patch A Day

Read about what DJ Mad Wax is up to at City of Bass.

Thanks Wax! And, thanks to Hydlide, 1.44MB, Chris Stallone, and V2057 for your time and effort in this short challenge. It's been a lot of fun and the results have been really inspiring to me. Thanks for participating.

If you were working on a track, and I think there still might be a couple of you committed to turning one in, you can still get it in to me. Missing the deadline isn't a problem, so send it over and we'll get it posted up here with the rest.

PAD Challenge: Tarnac 9 (Rough), By V2057

Just got another PAD Challenge song from V2057. He describes his new track, Tarnac 9, saying:

I've been in a frenzy to finish this. Been working on it since wednesday, and its no where done but I wanted to send it out anyway. I used some of your combinators, but I honestly can't remember which ones and there was a lot of heavy tweaking going on. I really appreciate your dedication to Reason/Record, it keeps me motivated as well to work on songs. This song is titled Tarnac 9, under my artist label Lost Integrity.

Tarnac 9 (Rough), By V2057 by Reason Patch A Day

Learn more about V2057 at http://www.last.fm/music/Lost+Integrity

As is the case with 1.44MB and Chris Stallone, V2057 provided me with an MP3 of his song, which I uploaded to the Patch A Day Soundcloud. I, in no way, claim any ownership of his work and all rights belong to V2057.

PAD Challenge: Sunrise and Space Clouds, By Chris Stallone

Like 1.44MB, Chris Stallone shames me by turning in two songs in the time I took me to only complete one. He has only a few comments about his new songs, but those comments are provided below:

"sunrise" i made in the week and spent more time on (various patches. yours, hydilde, L72 & my own)

"space clouds" is only hours old and i only used your patches although i tweaked alot of them

i dont think i completely finished them but i'd send them anyway

Sunrise, By Chris Stallone by Reason Patch A Day

Space Clouds, By Chris Stallone by Reason Patch A Day

As is the case with the submissions from Hydlide and 1.44MB, feedback is welcome and appreciated, but please keep the comments constructive and in the spirit of this challenge.

PAD Challenge: Burn Area and Vathi, By 1.44MB

I received these two tracks from 1.44MB last night and instantly felt inadequate. I started the challenge and only came up with one song, while 1.44MB managed to crank out a couple during his lunch break! Sigh. Good job, 1.44MB!

Of his songs for the Challenge, 1.44MB says:

Burn area is pretty similar to a lot of stuff I make whereas Vathi is much more upbeat. I'd like to be more upbeat more of the time but I feel I (my tracks) sound cheesy when I try. So, cheesy or not, I want to push Vathi out there for comments to see how I might be able to tweak it to sound a little cooler?!. Apart from your latest subtractor drumkit (which isn't really used with enough variation here) Vathi doesn't include much PAD input hence I've included Burn Area which is 100% PAD...... and in the spirit of the challenge only took 2 lunch times to lash up!

BurnArea, By 1.44MB by Reason Patch A Day

Vathi, By 1.44MB by Reason Patch A Day

Please note that 1.44MB provided me with MP3s of his songs which I uploaded to the Patch A Day Soundcloud. I, in no way, claim any ownership of his work and all rights belong to 1.44MB.

PAD Challenge: Drones2, By Hydlide

Hydlide was the first person to get his entry to me, sending in Drones2 yesterday, stating:

I started on friday with one 'experiment', it failed... however, I did make this huge pad from the ground up. So I re-used that in a new production where I made a new rack, took the pad again and worked with that as a basis.

There's some heavy stuff going on in this track, and everything was build from the ground up. I mostly used the subtractors as the main synthesis, added some samples left and right to fill up the transitions and went heavy on the drums (thats what I very often do these days).

I used one section of your patch a day blog, which was (ironically) a loop (Renoise DrRex post). I couldn't find the right angle making it sound electro beat like as I originally planned (hence the first experiment kind of failed on me).

But then again, genre doesn't matter.. so, i threw in a combi of ambience, house and progressive all together. I don't even know if there's a genre that is related to this style. But then again, I often blend certain styles together and go from there.

Drones2 by Hydlide

Please leave any contructive criticism or thoughts you might have about Hydlide's track in the comments. Also, be sure to check out Hydlide's website The Sound of Reason. He has an incredible number of tools and tutorials for Reason available at this site and on YouTube, so go take a look.

Soundcloud Song: The PAD Challenge Results

I started the PAD Challenge a week ago today and although the official deadline isn't until tomorrow at noon, I thought I would post my contribution to the PAD Challenge, a song called Breaching The Heliopause. Predictably, at least to me, Breaching The Heliopause is a little darker in its vibe, falling short of the traditional house or trance sound I was aiming for, but I'm still pretty pleased with the results.

Breaching The Heliopause by Reason Patch A Day

Breaching The Heliopause was created using Record + Reason. As was the case with the other songs I posted to Soundcloud and referenced here, Breaching The Heliopause was created using only instrument and effect patches that I built, most of which have been shared here on PAD. In case you're curious about the patches I used in the song, below are complete lists with links for each patch and post that I used.

Instrument/Combinator Patches:

• 2 AM
  
• Blister
  
• DB-1 Kick
  
• DB-1 Tom 2
  
• Famous Aces: Udet Bass
  
• Fever Dream
  
• Gen-air-ick + Lustral
  
• Homemade Bass 3
  
• Noise
  
• Noise_Pad
  
• Revenant
  
• Ruby
  
• The Snickers of Shadows
  
• Space Static 4
  
• Tinnitus
  

Effect Combinators:

• Borealis
  
• Heft_Mono
  
• Latent Period
  
• Long Echo
  
• Shimmering
  
• Simple Mastering
  
• Stereo Delay
  
• Subtle Wide
  
• Ugly Boy
  
• Vapor Trails
  

There are a few additional patches that I used in Breaching The Heliopause that haven't yet been posted here. My Tinnitus synth sound was processed using the Combinator "A Little Darker," which was included in the Reason Patch A Day Archive Refill, but hasn't been posted separately yet. Also, I used a few DrumBox Drum Machine patches that I created, but haven't had time to post here. You'll be seeing those shortly.

I don't think this would have been possible without Ruurd's help this week. So, thanks again Ruurd!

I'm really looking forward to hearing what everyone else comes up with. Expect more song posts highlighting reader PAD Challenge songs, as they start coming in.

The PAD Challenge: Official Rules

A few days ago I posted my intention to use this week of reader contributed patches to give myself a chance to work on some new music. I decided to open up that challenge to all of you and have already gotten a couple of comments from people interested in joining in.

The Challenge, however, was a little vague so I thought I'd put up a quick post to explain the rules for this little challenge.

Deadline: Friday, April 9th, 12:00 p.m. (Noon)

Genre Restrictions: None. I decided to concentrate my efforts working outside of my usual genre, so I'll be working on a dance track. You're free to bang out anything you like, but if you want to be challenged, try putting together a song in a style you don't normally work in.

Software Restrictions: As this is a Reason-centric blog, I'm hoping that anyone who joins in with this challenge uses either Reason or Record to sequence their work. This may be very important for "phase two" of the challenge, so if you can, please stick to Reason or Record.

Please email me a link to your completed song by noon on Friday, April 9th. You can also email me a MP3 or RNS/Record to be posted on the Reason Patch A Day Soundcloud. Obviously, I'm not interesting in laying any claims to your music. As has been the case from day one here at PAD, the patches here are "bragware," so this is a perfect opportunity for you to brag a little about what you've come up with.

Email me at patchaday (at) earthlink (dot) net. If you have any comments or links you'd like me to post with your completed track, please send those as well.

As I said in the comments the other day, "keep in mind... the goal is to complete a track in a week. It doesn't necessarily have to be polished or good. I certainly don't expect mine to be, so you don't have to be the next Deadmau5 to play along."

So far, it looks like readers Hydlide and BenDarkFox have signed up to take this challenge with me. Lewis.72 expressed some interest, as well, but might not be able to fit the challenge into his schedule.

There are only five days remaining! Have you started working on your new track yet?

Update: DJ Mad Wax, Chris Stallone, V2057, and DBA are joining in on the Challenge! That makes seven entries! Anyone else?