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Nucleus Soundlab’s release, ReCombination, takes Reason’s Combinator to a new height in a big way. Sound designers Adam Fielding, Ronald Hajewski, Shaun Wallace, Bill Chrapcynski, Nick Hutton, Ed Bauman, and Jeremy Janzen, each craft masterpiece after masterpiece in every patch they designed with extreme professional detail.

The release is available for purchase in 2 downloadable formats – ReFill, and Multi-Format (suitable for loading in a variety of non-Reason software and hardware samplers.), you can also purchase this release in a Multi-Format DVD as third option.

From the technical aspect of this release, ReCombination comes loaded with 200 Combinator patches, 183 NN-XT patches, 25 Malstrom patches, and 8 Subtractor patches. In addition each Combinator patch uses all 8 virtual controls giving you outstanding control over each patch, great for live and studio settings.

The Combinator breaks down into 11 folders: Atmo Sequences, Melodic Sequences, Percussive Sequences, Modulation Sequences, Bass, FX Atmo, Guitar and Plucked, Keyboard Splits, Keyboards and Polys, Leads, and Pads. The NN-XT breaks down into an jaw dropping 17 folders. The Malstrom and Subtractor each come with 1 folder a piece respectively.

This release is so massive in the sheer number of patches alone that I found myself picking and choosing my personal favorites from each device of the entire product down to the very folder. It’s a bit of a cliche to hear sometimes, but there really were so many great patches that it was hard to pick just one! Since there were so many great patches I’ve decided to list my top 2 favorite patches from each folder in the Combinator as this is the powerhouse of this release. Read the rest of this entry »

The Loopmasters tenth release, Electro Beats, takes the producer through some warpy soundscapes enabling Reason users to significantly enhance their electro tunes. This is a solid CD and as we have come to expect from Loopmasters, delivers in quality, and would keep many a producer happy for quite a while.

The CD comes in the usual formats – Rex Loops, NN-XT patches, WAV loops and one-shot samples, includes a second CD of WAV samples for easy auditioning. Sounds are mostly stereo, high quality and meticulously organized and labeled. In fact, their organization of folders has become quite a strength, and makes finding sounds fairly easy (Not like my own personal refill library). Read the rest of this entry »

Well… Moving on from the 160dB Refill (which is the first commercial Refill I owned), AMG come with the second instalment – 260dB. It’s optimised for DnB production, and delivers a wide selection of patches and files for all of the main Reason devices.

I’ll start with the Dr. Rex files, as for me they’re the most instantly useful element. Contained in the refill are 57 live and 53 more ‘traditional’ programmed breakbeats. The quality of these is great, with well chopped Rex-files, and completely relevant sounds. You’ll be able to cover pretty much every incarnation of DnB from mellow to hard, through experimental and jazzy, and in combination with a Scream 4 unit there’s a lot of sonic possibilities.

The live breaks have a good human feel to them, and the programmed breakbeats are sure to raise a smile of recognition as there’s some ‘classic’ ones included – something you can’t legally get from free refills! Also, moving on a step from the 160dB refill, quite a few of these breaks are now longer than 1-2 bars, which means they have a little more variation and this makes them more versatile overall. Read the rest of this entry »

There are various ways to sample something. You can record sounds through a microphone or you can use analog or digital sound sources to record from. Anything is possible, and with today’s technology in plug-in effects and software, you really don’t have to miss out on the action.

There are various ways to sample something. You can record sounds through a microphone or you can use analog or digital sound sources to record from. Anything is possible, and with today’s technology in plug-in effects and software, you really don’t have to miss out on the action.

Quality
The quality you record in is very important. Some people might say that they don’t hear any difference in quality between a 16 bit and a 24 bit signal. But if you listen very closely to the 24 bit signal you will hear that it has much more detail. The sounds have more room to move in and very soft sounds come through better. The difference between 16 and 24 bit is that the 16 bit signal has much less levels of volume. The amount of Hz in the signal like: 44.100 Hz is the amount of snapshots taken in a one second time span.

So you can see that when you raise these numbers you will have a much more detailed recording. You can look at it like it’s a picture with 16 bit being something like 800 x 600 and 24 bit being 1024 x 768. The higher these numbers the more smooth the signal will be. Also when you record in 24 bit you can record much louder then when using 16 bit. So you will have even less noize (SNR = Sound to Noize Ratio). Read the rest of this entry »

Building patches with the RF-01 ReFill might seem complex and hard to learn, but it’s not. You’ll find yourself building patches in no time after reading this little RF-01 NN-XT Tutorial.

First Steps
First thing to do is to create an NN-XT. Once loaded you press the patch loading button and navigate to the RF-01 ReFill. There you load an NN-XT Osc which comes the closest to the type of sound you want to make. If you want to make a typical synth bass then the Saw and Square waves are your best bet. To make a sub bass you should try the Triangle and Sinus waveforms, etc, etc. You’ll soon find out which waveforms are best suited for a particular sound. But also remember that there are no rules in sound design. You decide how it will sound.

Layering NN-XT Osc’s
You can ofcourse stack multiple waveforms onto eachother to get to richer sounds. Or to create detuning and panning effects. This can easily be done by selecting all the zones in your exsisting patch [Ctrl]+[A], and copy the entire patch by pressing [Ctrl]+[C]. This will copy everything you have in the NN-XT. Now browse to the NN-XT Osc you want to add to your patch and load it. Now you will only see the last loaded NN-XT Osc in your NN-XT. But since we copied the previous settings you made we are now able to paste them into the patch by pressing [Ctrl]+[V]. Now you will have your previous patch plus the last loaded NN-XT Osc in your NN-XT. This process can be repeated as much as you like or till your CPU says no more. Read the rest of this entry »