Reason Drum Kits - Refill

[KC Kelly]

Hey All,

What do you all think of the new Reason Drum Kits - Refill?

How do you all think it would compare to DKFH any version and BFD?

It seems it might be easier to work with then ant of the other 2 programs.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Ken

[KC Kelly]

Maybe I should rephrase my question/request.
If you get a chance please check out the new Reason Drum Kits refill and let
us know what you think.

Please.

It seems to have some great acoustic kits. The demos on the site sound
very impressive. The way its described it seems to work in a manner very
similar to Drum Kit From Hell and BFD and should give a very similar results
with a lot less effort. Of coarse this is just speculation at this point.

If you have Drum Kit From Hell or BFD maybe you could check out the Reason
Drum Kits for those of us that like using reason with PT. Ultimately we
could all benefit greatly from your observations.

Oh! I forgot to mention the Reason Drum Kits only cost $129.00

Thanks for your time and effort,

Ken

P.S. No I don't work for Propellerheads!

[silverlode]

The demo clips, and the fact that it comes from Propellerhead, is enough for me. I use Reason all the time...it's my main synth/sampler into PT, so this drum refill is an obvious choice. The clips just sound amazing. Considering the flexibility of Reason and the ability to manipulate those sounds is so many ways...I'm really looking forward to it. I'm just waiting to purchase until I start an appropriate session.

[KC Kelly]

I agree is sound good to me. I posted on the gearslutz.com and some of the people there don't seem to like reason that much. They seem to think that BFD would be more open sounding. I guess when you compare the size of the 2 different programs that maybe BFD should sound a little more open and probably pristine. But at 22gigs of sample or what ever it is and twice the price a would that it would.

I can't wait until someone has it so they can make a real comparison. I just don't want to buy it and then wish I would of bought BFD instead. Maybe I'll just buy it and find out for myself.

Oh Well, nothing ventured nothing gained!

Thanks for your comments,
Ken

[KC Kelly]

Bump

[max cooper]

I use BFD a lot and I use Reason for the Subtractor because it makes nice bass lines. I listened to the drum refill on the Props site, and it's very underwhelming. The drums are very squished sounding and to be brutally honest, I wouldn't download them if they were free. Another thing to consider is that of all the things I like about Reason, it's compression and EQ aren't among them. If I had to use those samples, I'd want to use some really good dynamics processing on them, but the Props aren't letting us bring that stuff into Reason. Lastly, there's that weird sheen that everything in Reason has on it, which I can live with on a synth bass, but I wouldn't want it on my drums. Reason can be a great tool, and if your drums don't matter too much, the refill's probably fine. I found it to be really flat and dull. BFD works great, but it's still not a drummer with a drumkit. DFHS is really good too. Start with those two.

BTW the really embarrasing "metal" demo almost made me spit up my coffee. The "grunge ballad" sounds like the soundtrack to an ABC After School Special. I know dorky demos are requisite for selling this stuff, but those are among the cheesiest I've heard. Aren't there some really cool Reason users who could come up with some nice stuff in five minutes?

[max cooper]

Oh...as far as easier to work with, BFD's a little buggy. Nothing that ever stopped me from working, and my experience with the guys at fxpansion has always been great. BFD is also a major CPU hit, especially if you use three stereo tracks and eleven mono tracks as I sometimes do. You should also have a dedicated FireWire drive for the BFD data. In my estimation, though, it's absolutely worth it.

Reason has, of course, always been pretty stable and a low CPU hit. Which still wouldn't make me want to use that drum refill.

[silverlode]

max cooper: a lot of what you cited against Reason has come up in the past, for sure. And I think we can appreciate that you're not just blasting Reason; you said yourself that you do use it for some things. In terms of the "sheen" coming out of Reason, i haven't heard it. I'm totally willing to accept that my ears are not trained enough to detect it, though. But regarding the EQ and compression I have to ask, have you tried the various approaches to comp/eq beyond the ReMix and the little red compressor (can't think of the name right now)? I've found the vocoder to be a great graphic eq, and the scream to be an awesome compressor. Besides, everything is coming into ProTools, and can be manipulated there.

[stereo type]

Max:

I think a lot of the appeal for the refill is that BFD and DFH are so huge and require such fast and large computers to really be impressive and Reason is so much more effecient. I've heard both BFD and DFH and they're really wonderful. But they require a lot of power that many users just can't jump up to yet and for the modest price, the refill is intriguing.

Personally, I'm going to wait to hear the actual refill. Hopefully, a store (or friend) near me will get a copy soon where I will be able to audition it in person. I seem to recall some pretty blah demos either BFD or DFH put out. I know you have other issues with Reason, but I don't think I could ever make a judgement completely on cheesey MP3 demos. The cymbals/hats on some of the refill demos sound phony and brittle to me. But that's also how MP3s sound right around that frequency range.......so how can you really be sure?

I too am not entirely happy with the sound of Reason, but when I disconnect from the mixer and just use the hardware interface rewired into PT, things get much more tolerable. Some of this is because of the known volume drop the mixer creates (for headroom I suppose).

What I wish is that for apps like this, everyone would stop trying to make demos that showcase styles and genres so much. I understand the point of trying to show the samples in use, but it would be so much more telling of the sonic quality if you could just hear quarter note hits at different velocities with no processing and no music track to distract. Maybe a few simple patterns, such as when you're eq'ing a drumkit, finish going through all the seperate mics and ask the drummer to now play the kit. Kik/Hat/Snare......maybe some toms every bar or 2; cymbals every few bars............etc. Propellerheads came close at least by offering the demo where they just play a pattern and change FX and settings; close but still not as good as just hearing a raw hit or 2. I've found the same problem with piano sample players, too. So much room FX or processing on the demo that I can't tell how the actual instrument sounds.

[max cooper]

silverlode:

I think Reason is great for lots of things. When I mix drums (real or BFD or a mix of both, usually) I get lots of plugins going on individual drums. Sometimes the snare gets split into two channels and run through a guitar amp emulation. It's just not feasable to do that stuff in Reason. Much more flexibility there. What I like Reason for is futzin' with Subtractors until I get some gawdawful subsonic bass that sounds really wet and weird. There's just something I like about it, which is what it all comes down to. I've taken lots of software off my rig, but Reason always stays. For electronic drums, it's great (none of those in BFD). But when I see a bandwagon-jumping move like Reason putting out that drum refill AND I think it sounds lame, I'd like to get some potential buyers to take a second listen. Using BFD, I get a not-small sized CPU hit with a dual 2.0G and 3.5G of RAM. I'm sure lots of 002 and Mbox systems don't meet BFD's sys. requirements.

The main point I'd like to make is that BFD's not for everyone, but that Reason drum refill is hardly for ANYone. I like how the p-heads say how "these sampled drums actually sound like real drums" and that's a TWIST!! Gee, wasn't that yesterday's news when the Ensoniq Mirage came out?

Anyway, do yerself a favor. Check around first. There's some good stuff out there. Really put stuff side by side and listen carefully. Then get whatcha like.