Reason Drum Kits - Refill

[kenkelly81]

Hey All,

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

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

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

Thanks for your thoughts!

Ken

[kenkelly81]

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!

[heinz]

I have DFH, and Reason, and have heard this refill. It's competent enough I guess, sounds are reasonably good in the 24-bit version. And although I enjoy ReDrum & NnXt there are a few reasons why I prefer DFH-style formats.

1) Working in Reason (for me) means getting out eventually. The only way I get decent sonics out of the software is to render individual tracks out in 24-bit and import them into my DAW. The mixer in Reason does something to the sound that is not good, and that's why I don't reWire as well.

2) I do a lot of live drum tracking and enjoy using DFH with Drumagog. To say it's easy to mult or sample-replace with lots of variation options with these two tools is an understatement. It blows me away every time I use it, not like ze old days (shakey crotchety voice).

3) If I really needed to I could import DFH samples into Reason. Not so easy to put Refills out to multisample matrices.

my 2.01 bits....

[max cooper]

Same thoughts as Heinz about the Reason sounds (I thought it was the interface). It makes Reason harder to deal with although I really like the Subtractor for bass lines.

I've heard the drum Refill, and I certainly wouldn't trade BFD in for it. To my ears, the sounds are very squished; I just don't get the sense of "bigness" from them. The sounds in BFD still have a good amount of dynamics in them.

Just my opinion!

'course you gotta trust your own ears in the end!

[drongo]

any other comments on this from users of either or both?

my home studio might get an electronic kit and was wondering what is the best software to map to (BFD or Reason) to get ass kicking acoustic kits that are multisampled

does anyone else think that BFD sounds more natural? (not as squished)

what about latency?

many thanks
Anthony

[fontenele]

I got it because It was cheaper and I did not have enough money to buy BDF, I was going to go BDF instead of DFH. But anyway, It is true, the fact you have to get out of reason is a very considerable drag. But it works well. I am doing a demo for my band with it. I sent the songs to a few friends and they asked me who was the drummer. A drummer probably would have it figured out, but, It does a pretty good job, of couse, if you sequence well enough. It so worked that I got the piano refill too anf I love it. But again if I had more money I would have bough BDF to use on cubase.

[Alex.T]

I have been using RDK lately and I have been enjoying it. The sound is pretty thick. It was recorded with a Neve desk onto tape. Definitely more of a retro sound. The drums and cymbals have a cohesion to them. I like setting up routings with compression and eq and even distortion and saving it as a preset. That is a unique capability. Being able to flip through lots of preset kits is a great thing.

BFD really sounds amazing though. I really like the room and PZM mic sounds. The cymbals do sound kind of spitty sometimes. I actually did recommend BFD to a drummer who wanted to do some midi recording/triggering.

Both BFD and RDK are extremely dynamic -- There is great difference in level between the loudest and softest hits. When you're mixing either of these kits, even out the levels by adjusting the midi velocity level. Using compression here will cost you lots of time and won't sound that good anyway.


_____________________
Alex.T

[drongo]

thanks alex and fontenele -

Alex - how did your drummer get on mapping his e-kit to BFD?

Any other people using it with an e-kit - thing is if it's 'on point' when being triggered electronically then my studio can really go up a notch without getting an ASBO?

Any drummists using them?

[Alex.T]

Originally Posted by drongo

thanks alex and fontenele -

Alex - how did your drummer get on mapping his e-kit to BFD?

Any other people using it with an e-kit - thing is if it's 'on point' when being triggered electronically then my studio can really go up a notch without getting an ASBO?

Any drummists using them?

I think he ended up doing drum replacement with Drumagog. He said he didn’t like the feel of electronic pads. I want to get him to try midi triggers but I'm not sure how well they work. If you could get a system going with a midi triggered kit and BFD, that would be super slick.

Maybe order a set of drum midi triggers just to check them out. If you can't get them working well, return them. Try these:

http://ddrum.com/drumtriggers.htm


_________________________
Alex.T

[drongo]

thanks alex,

I should get an e-kit in a few weeks or so and then I'll try and map it up to see. I can't use real drums in my place so triggers are out.

I notice that BFD is VERY resource hungry and I'm thinking that my powerbook 1.67 with 2 gig ram might struggle with it (even switching mic's/options off)....whereas ReasonDrums are meant to be 'lighter'.

I'll soon find out

Thanks again for the help and comments
Anthony

[Methlab]

I have 2 ggs of RAM and an Athlon 3500+. I can open BFD in Cubase with 8 instances of amplitube, and then mix afterwords, and its all cool. So you should be fine.

As for Reason's mixer doing something to the sound....you can just route all the sounds straight into Reasons outs and rewire those outs into another host. So you dont have to use the mixer at all.

[valiance7]

Here's a song I did with RDK 2.0. It's compressed like crazy and stuff but I think the quality is definitely good enough for me!

http://www.lightningmp3.com/live/file.php?fid=3179


thanks

[Blindside]

I've been solely using Reason since I started making hip-hop beats, and I've always thought that the final product sounds too "thin" and too "digital" sounding. I don't know if it's the mixer or the sounds, but I layer about 8-10 drums for each hit to try to thicken it up, but to no avail. Don't get me wrong, I'm a perfectionist, and it sounds good, just not great. I also don't get that"bigness" I hear on other's stuff using hardware, so I am in the process of switching. Redrum is a really easy way to work though.

[Methlab]

I think Reason is better when you use your own drum samples in it. And you should rewire it into another program in there, and mix that way. The sound won't be thin then.

[bassmutant]

I just learned how to setup Logic Pro to be the sequencer for Reason. I've got Logic Pro 7.2.2 and Reason 3.0.5 with RDK 2.0. To me, with a reasonable amount of mixing, they don't sound bad. I'm a bassplayer, not really a drum programming expert, so I've been stringing together some of the apple midi loops, in standard rock, jazz, and funk formats, in logic, controlling the Redrum Drum Machine in Reason. I don't have BFD for comparison, but would love to demo it.

[drongo]

Yo valiance7 thanks for putting up those clip links....I love audio and picture examples - they really make it easier to demonstrate gear.

My feelings are the playing sounded really natural - dynamics and hats opening up etc - but the sound wasn't crash bang wallop enough...so I'm not fully sold on the sound of RDK I suppose...Is the kit you used atypical of the 'wallop' from RDK in a mix?

Remember how at one point they all thought that electronics could replace a drummer.....it's not bloody easy is what it seems...

[composer]

Funny with all the talk of Strike around, in the DUC Protools TDM for MAC, everyone seems to rave on the 2.0 REASON Drums over strike....and the likes.

One went on to say, the cat is out of the bag and is perfect for that edge Avrail L, type of rock/pop.

Not that they know any better but it is a Digi forum and you know how they can get if you diss the company to much. SORRY THIS TOPIC IS CLOSED/DELETED! stike