Blog Review: "Reason: Patch A Day"

Robbneu from Reason: Patch A Day very kindly mentioned this site recently, so I thought it would be good to review his site here, since I have been following it myself for several months.

Robbneu updates his site regularly. His goal is to create a new Reason patch, every day in fact, as a means of learning new methods of synthesis and sharing these with his readers. While I suspect real life occasionally gets in the way of such an admirable goal, he's certainly prolific. There are currently over 100 great patches posted since the site began only six months or so ago.

Robbneu obviously spends a fair bit of time creating each patch, and this shows. These aren't your typical trance leads that anyone can create in just a few minutes. Although experimentation and luck can play a large part in designing new sounds, it's clear that he usually has something in mind. Each patch comes with a short description of the inspiration or intended result, and some include suggestions for taking things further. A small RNS file is usually provided to demo the patch, and if it's an effect then the demo may turn the patch on and off to highlightthe change in sound.

The patches are typically of very good quality and sometimes follow a theme. For example, recently the theme was "Saturn's Rings" - a collection of subtle atmospheric sounds that have a definite 'space' feel to them. Other times the patches may focus on a particular synth or effect within Reason, or even a particular type of sound, like drums.

Just to note - you'll need a copy of Reason (full or demo) to hear the patches, as recorded samples are not provided. Patches are developed with Reason 4 although perhaps some would work in earlier versions.

Robbneu was kind enough to allow me to post a patch myself. I thought it would be interesting to imagine a sound and then find a way to create it. I didn't quite end up with exactly the sound I set out to find, but I was pretty happy with what I ended up with.

Summary: a great blog to follow if you like to hear new and interesting sounds in Reason. Regular updates mean there's often something new to download and try out yourself.