If you remember my book review synopsis from the beginning of 2009, the name Hollin Jones might seem familiar, since his other book "Music Projects With Propellerhead Reason" was briefly discussed and rated with a few other Reason-themed books currently sitting on my bookshelf. While I appreciated the conversational tone of "Music Projects With Propellerhead Reason" and its easy to follow tutorials, I felt it was kind of lacking for the seasoned Reason user. Outside of a few interesting tips and reminders that I found useful, the book skewed a little too much toward the beginner, and I remember thinking that while the book's author knew a great deal about Reason, his format, a brief examination of several popular genres, was actually hampering his ability to provide any useful tips or workflow enhancements to those of us who've been using the program for an extended period of time.
With that in mind, I was eagerly anticipating "Propellerhead Reason 4 Tips and Tricks," hoping it would allow Jones to better display his obvious knowledge and provide some new information that would be useful, regardless of genre, about my favorite music making software. So, did Jones succeed in providing a book full of useful tips and tricks, as its title suggests?
Unfortunately, the short answer is no. "Tips and Tricks," like "Music Projects With Propellerhead Reason" before it, seems written with the Reason beginner in mind, tackling very simple topics like program installation, to slightly more tricky issues like exporting your finished tracks. Like a lot of Reason books, it has separate chapters for different pieces of the Reason rack, and talks you through each device, its basic operation, and provides numerous sidebar tips for how you can tweak or use a device. Its pretty basic stuff, really, with the sidebar tips being the most interesting pieces of the book, providing little reminders and ideas for how you can use each device more efficiently or in more interesting ways.
"Propellerhead Reason 4 Tips And Tricks" is a well-written book and maintains the conversational, friendly tone of Jones' other Reason book. If I were just starting out with Reason, rather than celebrating my ninth year of using it, I think this book would be indispensable. Many of its lessons and tips seem very basic, almost frustratingly so, but for someone just starting to dip their toes into the Reason waters, this book would be a great companion to the Reason manual, or perhaps even a good replacement, until a new user feels ready to digest the more technical presentation of the Reason manual.
Using the same rating system I used with the previous books, I'd give Reason 4 Tips and Tricks:
Overall Usefulness: Great for beginners
Patch Design Tips: Poor
Reason Version: 4.0
Hollin Jones also writes for Music Tech magazine. He's a good writer and really seems to know his stuff. I don't know how well it would sell, but if he were to write a "Reason 4 for Masochists" book, I'd be first in line to buy a copy.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The AREX 2011 VSTi Site Has Moved
I've put up a few posts about the Yamaha RX11 VSTi. It's a neat little Windows VST that emulates one of my favorite pieces of hardware, the Yamaha RX11 Digital Rhythm Programmer. Alex, the brains behind the VST, posted a comment recently letting me know that the site has moved. So, if you haven't checked this out yet, or want to make sure you have the latest version, look for it at:
If you're using a Windows machine, it's a lot easier than trolling eBay for a RX11 of your own!
If you're using a Windows machine, it's a lot easier than trolling eBay for a RX11 of your own!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
AREX 2011 Has Been Updated!
Over a month ago, I posted about a new Yamaha RX11 VSTi being created by an ambitious programmer named Alex. Having a physical copy of the machine, I served as "technical advisor" to Alex, as he worked out the bugs, but ironically got the model of the drum machine wrong in my post... so much for being a very good technical advisor!
As you may remember, the VST was created in Synthedit and is a very faithful digital recreation of one of my beloved, old eBay conquests. It looks great and sounds terrific, and as I frequently like to say here on Reason Patch A Day, provides an interesting alternative to the "usual" 80s drum machines that we all sample and use in our projects.
Alex was nice enough to let me know that he recently made an update of his APEX 2011 VSTi available, so I wanted to let everyone here know that the new version is available for download. Check it out at:
As you may remember, the VST was created in Synthedit and is a very faithful digital recreation of one of my beloved, old eBay conquests. It looks great and sounds terrific, and as I frequently like to say here on Reason Patch A Day, provides an interesting alternative to the "usual" 80s drum machines that we all sample and use in our projects.
Alex was nice enough to let me know that he recently made an update of his APEX 2011 VSTi available, so I wanted to let everyone here know that the new version is available for download. Check it out at:
Saturday, October 23, 2010
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:
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!
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!
Monday, October 11, 2010
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:
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:
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:
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:
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Any Denver-area Reason Users?
Fellow Denver Reason user and blogger DJ Mad Wax and I attended the Robert Henke/Monolake concert last night at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. It was a neat evening with intriguing sounds provided by Robert Henke and visuals provided by a local "space doctor," as he was called, running the planetarium controls (if anyone can provide me with his name, please do, I'd like to credit the fine work he did).
The event was heavily attended by visual arts and music students from DU and CU, as well as a huge collection of folks from the local Ableton Live Users Group, so the crowd definitely skewed towards "geeky." In a lot of ways, I think the make-up of the crowd added another layer to the evening, as many folks were interested in the experience as well as the methods.
This got me thinking back to an older "project" of mine that I dreamed up around the same time I started this blog and that's forming a local Reason Users Group. It might be nice to meet up from time to time, grab a cup of coffee or a beer, swap some ideas, and if we're lucky, inspire each other a little. Any readers from Reason Patch A Day interested in joining the Rocky Mountain Reason Users Group? Let me know in the comments or via email at patchaday (at) earthlink (dot) net.
The event was heavily attended by visual arts and music students from DU and CU, as well as a huge collection of folks from the local Ableton Live Users Group, so the crowd definitely skewed towards "geeky." In a lot of ways, I think the make-up of the crowd added another layer to the evening, as many folks were interested in the experience as well as the methods.
This got me thinking back to an older "project" of mine that I dreamed up around the same time I started this blog and that's forming a local Reason Users Group. It might be nice to meet up from time to time, grab a cup of coffee or a beer, swap some ideas, and if we're lucky, inspire each other a little. Any readers from Reason Patch A Day interested in joining the Rocky Mountain Reason Users Group? Let me know in the comments or via email at patchaday (at) earthlink (dot) net.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Reason 101's Generations Refill
Have you taken a look at the new Generations Refill provided over on Reason 101? If you haven't, you should definitely check it out.
I'm usually the first person to be skeptical about new refills. Refills, like this site if I'm going to be completely honest, are a collection of sounds and ideas that suit someone else's music or someone else's ideas. Refills are generally instrument patches and effects that fit someone else's notion of what is clever or what sounds good, and so even when I find one I like, I usually only find a few patches that are useful to me among hundreds of patches that I would rather not be bothered with or required to sift through. So, what makes the Generations Refill different?
Do you remember how you felt when you finally understood how Reason worked and how flexible it was? You realized that the cabling wasn't the gimmick so many people claimed it was and the various devices suddenly made sense. You understood that within Reason, you were only limited by your own creativity. Well, the Generations Refill is a lot like that, but in place of Reason's existing devices and Factory Sound Bank provided samples and Combinators, Rob at Reason 101 has provided a series of Combinators that are meant to be used in the same way that Reason's devices are intended to be used, cabled together in clever ways, to achieve intriguing and sometimes surprising sonic results.
I should explain that a bit more. Rather than provide you with, say, a UN-16 Unison that can be used in a variety of ways, the Generations Refill provides Combinators that fill those same roles, routed with other Combinators saved within song files, so that you're essentially given Combinators filled with other Combinators, resulting in routing and effect options that go far beyond what is usually provided in a refill.
Interestingly, this isn't a one size fits all proposition. The Generations Refill provides a number of setups that will be immediately useful to you. In addition, it provides many useful instrument patches and effect Combinators, allowing you to build your own setups and processing, by creating new routing with tools he has provided. Basically, the Generations Refill is a massive toy box and comes with permission to play.
I've been lucky enough to have seen "sneak previews" of this refill as Rob has built it and I've been impressed and intrigued by his approach. Seeing it as a complete package is even more impressive. While many refills provide you with basic sounds and ideas, the Generations Refill provides you with tools, powerful ones. Simply put, the Generations Refill will be useful to Reason experts and newbies alike and I really can't say enough good things about it. Well done, Rob!
I'm usually the first person to be skeptical about new refills. Refills, like this site if I'm going to be completely honest, are a collection of sounds and ideas that suit someone else's music or someone else's ideas. Refills are generally instrument patches and effects that fit someone else's notion of what is clever or what sounds good, and so even when I find one I like, I usually only find a few patches that are useful to me among hundreds of patches that I would rather not be bothered with or required to sift through. So, what makes the Generations Refill different?
Do you remember how you felt when you finally understood how Reason worked and how flexible it was? You realized that the cabling wasn't the gimmick so many people claimed it was and the various devices suddenly made sense. You understood that within Reason, you were only limited by your own creativity. Well, the Generations Refill is a lot like that, but in place of Reason's existing devices and Factory Sound Bank provided samples and Combinators, Rob at Reason 101 has provided a series of Combinators that are meant to be used in the same way that Reason's devices are intended to be used, cabled together in clever ways, to achieve intriguing and sometimes surprising sonic results.
I should explain that a bit more. Rather than provide you with, say, a UN-16 Unison that can be used in a variety of ways, the Generations Refill provides Combinators that fill those same roles, routed with other Combinators saved within song files, so that you're essentially given Combinators filled with other Combinators, resulting in routing and effect options that go far beyond what is usually provided in a refill.
Interestingly, this isn't a one size fits all proposition. The Generations Refill provides a number of setups that will be immediately useful to you. In addition, it provides many useful instrument patches and effect Combinators, allowing you to build your own setups and processing, by creating new routing with tools he has provided. Basically, the Generations Refill is a massive toy box and comes with permission to play.
I've been lucky enough to have seen "sneak previews" of this refill as Rob has built it and I've been impressed and intrigued by his approach. Seeing it as a complete package is even more impressive. While many refills provide you with basic sounds and ideas, the Generations Refill provides you with tools, powerful ones. Simply put, the Generations Refill will be useful to Reason experts and newbies alike and I really can't say enough good things about it. Well done, Rob!
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