Reason Refill review: Synthetic Kits by Nucleus Soundlab
Time for a new review, this time I have had the opportunity to review the recently released Synthetic Kits refill from Nucleus Soundlab.
This is what Nucleus says about the refill: Synthetic Kits uses Thor, Malstrom and Subtractor to go beyond the tired, old x0x electronic drum sounds. Instead of retreading that synthesis ground, Synthetic Kits continues on to create kits based on FM synthesis, formants, granular and more! These kits will work extremely well in a variety of genres – EBM, trance, filmscore, ambient and even pop.
And I must say that this is a refill well worth investing in, the Combinator kits included are very tight, new thinking and good sounding. If you are making electro, synthpop, ambient or electronic music you will definitely find several Combinator patches that will fit nicely into your songs and add that extra spice. The only thing that disturbs me a little is that most of the patches are auto-triggered, which means that they more or less acts like a rex-file – in essence a little hands-on is needed if you want them to follow your specific needs.
The Combinator patches are as mentioned well designed and I especially enjoy the handling of the bass in the patches. It is quite easy to add specific FX sounds and beats, but adding a well tailored bass that so easily fits with electronic compositions is what makes this refill very attractive. There are also specific sounds for Malström and Subtractor in the refill, but it is the Combinator patches you pay for.
Something that is very useful is that these kits are composed out of pure Reason synths, and you are able to tweak them into totally new sounds in any way you like based on the fact that there are fully-mapped Combinator and Thor knobs. I have done some extensive experimenting with the patches and they are working properly all the way.
Rating: ☻☻☻☻☺
If the refill had been bigger it would have received five smilies.
News from Nucleus:
Pure Synthesis Refill Bundle Released + Demo Links
Nucleus SoundLab is proud to announce the Pure Synthesis Refill Bundle. Pure Synthesis contains not a single sample, but instead pushes advanced synthesis in the Reason environment to the absolute limit! Read on for more info on each individual Refill included in the bundle.
Demo links:
Synthetic KIts Demo
Pantheon Demo
Filter Research Demo
In-depth on Propellerheads Record
Three nice tutorials on yesterdays announcement on Record – audio recording the thing the whole music production community that enjoys Reason has been dreaming of for the past 5 years.
This series of videos offers a very in-depth look at Propellerhead Record, a recording application for Windows and Mac.
Propellerhead Software’s Gerry Bassermann digs deep into Record, without layering on a lot of hype.
Part 1:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYE5gX7hN80&feature=player_embedded]
Part 2:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GI84SU0ano&feature=player_embedded]
Part 3:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6eP2b2m_aQ&feature=player_embedded]
Music production tips and tricks from Sound Libraries
Sound Libraries and Pro Audio developer Prime Loops have announced a new section which contains a large selection of Free Music Production Tutorials, Tips & Tricks that you can download directly from their website. You can watch the videos online, or download them for your PC/Mac/iPhone or MP4 Compatible device. There are also a good selection of step by step PDF Tutorials with helpful screenshots which can be downloaded for free too.
The tutorials span a variety of genres and techniques for programmes such as Logic, Ableton, FL Studio, Reason, MPC and others with around 10 new video tutorials added monthly and future videos in the making for Garageband, Cubase, Pro Tools and many others.
Current Tutorials include ‘The Reverse Vocal Effect’ and ‘Clever Automation’ also ‘Vocoder Vocals’ and ‘The Art of Compression’ plus dozens more.
The tutorials cover basic to advanced techniques, and aside from the programme specific tutorials, there are also tutorials such as ‘EQ Masterclass’ ‘Licensing your music for TV & Film’ and many other tips and tricks that will appeal to all levels of music composers.
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From basic to advanced, hardware to software, discover new and exiting ways to take advance your production skills to the fullest! This section will be updated every month with new videos! |
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Exclusive techniques from industry professionals to help enhance your music production, mastering skills & gain exposure. Experience the most up-to-date, inventive methods currently available. |
Precision, step by step tutorials compiled by high profile experts, sound engineers, producers & DJs. Including precise modern software & hardware tutorials to maximize your creative output and technical knowledge.
How to make Chiptunes in Reason
A friend tipped me on this great introduction on how to make chiptunes in Reason. If you’re into this don’t miss it 
There are three videos at Synthopia, but I am posting the first one here so that you can see what it is all about, the rest you will find here >>
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYs0-BubNRc&eurl=http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/02/20/fake-n-bake-chiptunes-in-reason/&feature=player_embedded]
Nice Recycle tutorial on the Prop-site
An in-depth introduction to ReCycle 2.1 and Reason Adapted version 4 for ReCycle. This video tutorial, courtesy of ASK Video, will help you get started with the ReCycle toolkit in no time.
In the tutorial, ASK Video’s Mike Baggley will take you step by step from installing and setting up ReCycle on your system, to slicing your samples and turning concrete-rigid loops into musical modeling clay.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3u2grB9sQ&eurl=https://www.propellerheads.se/shop/index.cfm?fuseaction=product_detail&ID=10258&Cat=5000&short=D1A3D407&feature=player_embedded]
New fat refill from eXode >> DOWNLOAD ASAP"""
Propellerhead has released the Massive Synthesis 0.99b ReFill by eXode MSX.
Features :
– 650 Combinator Instrument Patches.
– 50 Combinator Effect Devices.
– 250 Malström Patches.
– 380 Subtractor Patches.
– 1000 Thor Patches.
– 70 patches (total) for the RV7000 and Scream4.
– Included packages are: Analogital, Control Synthesis (previously unreleased), Electric Bass (previously unreleased), Mjolnir, Moog ReFill (previously commercial), Moog Tribute ReFill, Sonic Waves (previously Wave Soundscapes Vol.1 and Vol.2), Thor Padding (previously unreleased), Trance ReFill (previously commercial), Voltage Controlled Vol.1, 2 and 3.
The Massive Synthesis is a free download for registered Reason users.
New Refill from Nucleus with free demo refill
Here’s what they are saying about it:
Pantheon takes Refill quality to a whole new level. There are no compromises. Each one of the 164 Combinators inside Pantheon is unique, with a widely varied signal path. Further, all Combinator rotaries and buttons are assigned to unique destinations. And finally, each Thor patch *inside* each Combinator has its rotaries and buttons fully mapped! We have even saved all Thor patches separately so you can more easily build them into your own Combinators. There has never before been a Refill with this many powerful, creative modulation possibilities at your fingertips.
Some of the patches you’ll find inside Pantheon range from physically-modelled drumkits; dirty filter FM basses; majestic pads; heavily sequenced chord patterns; pristine belltone layers; futuristic lead arpeggios and much more. Electronic musicians of all stripes will find Pantheon instantly inspiring, and infinitely tweakable. Details:
- 164 unique Combinators.
- 235 Thor patches.
- 28 Subtractor and Malstrom patches
- 9 .rps demo songs.
- All Combinator and Thor rotaries/buttons uniquely mapped.
- Detailed design documentation for each patch.
Demo refill can be found here >>
New Thor Refill at Combinator HQ
Dave909’s Thor Sounds Vol. 2
Dave909 has been hard at work expanding upon the quality Thor patches he provided for us a few months ago. In SB Thor Sounds Volume 2 he well more than doubles the number of patches to add a multitude of quality tones to bring out the best in your productions. I lost count at over 200 patches and that was just for Thor. Additionally he has thrown in many Combinator sounds to push this refill to the limit.
KORG Polysix – Free Reason Refill from Lizard
Lizard has released yet another Refill for Reason – his previous releases has been highly acclaimed and I have used them a lot myself. I have not tried this one and judging from the ad below I am not sure what we are supposed to expect from this one.
This synthesizer was released in 1981, and features six voice polyphony (as if anyone didn’t guess that by its name), a 5 octave keyboard (61 keys, not touch sensitive), 32 programmable memory slots, 1 VCO per voice, 24 dB/octave VCF’s & normal ADSR controlled VCA, a cool arpeggiator and a quite useful effect section. The VCO is square, PW or PWM with controls for octave(pitch) and speed. The VCF has controls for cutoff, resonance, EG (envelope generator) intensity and keyboard tracking.
The Polysix is full of knobs and buttons, that gives you instant access to all of the parameters and effects. It was the last Korg to have that, since its successor the Poly-61 introduced DCO’s and digital programming. No more hands on knobs when playing, and more tedious programming. The Polysix have 3 different play modes. Normal – as any polyphonic synth, Unison – makes all 6 voices play the same note, and Chord – memorizes a played chord and transposes this when a key in the desired pitch is played.
It also has a sub oscillator, like many single VCO synths, that adds depth to the sound. They say it sounds fatter and warmer then the 2 DCO Poly-61, although this synth has twice the number of oscillators.
The Polysix have SSM chips for its filters and envelopes, and some say this explains its warm sound. It also has a special self-tuning function. In unison mode the six voices are adjusted a little bit out of tune from each other, giving you a real fat monophonic lead sound. There are separate wheels for pitch bend and modulation. The Polysix was one of the last Korgs to have this instead of the (in my opinion) cheaper joystick.
Combinator HQ advertisement below:
This is a refill have been reluctant to release for a long time. There have been several reaons behind not doing so but primarily I felt it didn’t offer much that Thor couldn’t do. It was in partial completion stage when R4 was introduced and I had decided to shelve it at that time. And quite honestly, there are a few P6 refills out there already. The community risked being poly-ed out.
However this set of samples was dear to me since the Polysix was the very first synth I owned when I purchased it way back in 1983. In review of this work, I felt that it made a conscious effort to capture some of the abilities that the original unit had including unision/mono mode and chord memory. As it may not have a huge impact in the average refill library, it does offer authenticity, programing examples and a few interesting layered patches.
So now it’s out there. I also had a few patches in there that were R4 and decided to omit them. This one I believe to be R3 freindly containing no devices that are native to the newest version of Reason. This has variances on 60+ sampled patches. Over 150 Combis in all. Hope it has some value to some one.
Propellerheads feature Bon Harris
A really good feature story, enjoy
Bon Harris is mostly known as a founding member of legendary UK electronic act Nitzer Ebb, but he has also worked with artists such as Billy Corgan, Marilyn Manson, his own band Maven, and many more.
Bon is back in the studio working on the new Nitzer Ebb album and we met with him to talk about how he is using Reason in his work. Check the full story for a detailed explanation of how to fatten a bass sound using Reason’s BV-512 vocoder (with a Harris-crafted example patch to download) and even a little sneak listen to a new Nitzer Ebb track.
And of course a bonus Nitzer ebb video, one of my favorites:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w3A72L3rj4]
DATAMASKIN
