Posts tagged ‘sonic reality’
Sonic Reality Sonic Refills Ultra Loaded Review
I have always loved Reason, so much so I have preferred it to any workstation keyboard out there. The mere fact that there are thousands of sounds from all over the world available for Reason in their Refill format is a really great thing – I mean anything and everything you could ever want is probably available in refill format. The downside to this is that there is also so much garbage to sift through. Some of the best refills have always come from Sonic Reality. Recently they started a group buy called Monster Reason Refill which is a huge bundle of the best refills out there. I am privileged enough to have these refills and would like to help other reason users on the fence or even reason users looking to expand their sound library immensely with some new refills.
When it comes to quality Sonic Reality is one of the first names in the business when it come to great sample libraries. The Sonic Refill Collection is Gold. Pure Gold. It alone puts many many many other workstation and sample libraries to shame. It has everything you could think of sound wise: Vintage drum machines, Synths, Basss (Both natural and Synth), Guitars, Rhodes, Pianos, REAL Drums, Strings, Brass – the list can go on and on. When it comes down to it I will say this, there is no shortage for great sounds. So much so that I still have not gone through every single Thor Patch, NNXT multi samples, Rex loops or even the Malmstrom patches but oh how wonderful the sounds are. I picked Reason with a controller instead of a workstation because of the great QUALITY of refills and the endless amounts of refills available. I now have over 15 gigs of Sonic Reality Refills and no one else can touch them when it comes to the quality they provide. I hate trying out refills, workstations, Synths or VSTis that have some great features or even a few great sounds but then the rest are just kind of “meh”.
Homer: Kids, how would you like to go… to Blockoland!
Bart & Lisa: Meh.
Homer: But the TV. gave the impression that–
Bart: We said “meh”.
Lisa: M-E-H. Meh.
When it comes time to compose, or write a song, melody, make a beat or whatever it is you do musically Reason and Sonic Reality Refills are something you want in your corner. You just play. You don’t have to stress about adding a compressor or eqing it to fit. You start with a solid, beautiful instrument that is perfect as is and yet with Reason you can transform it to something totally different. My personal favorite are the drums. I started as a drummer and always pride myself on my drum sounds or “tones” as I refer to them. I really feel a nice full drum sound is hard to achieve and Sonic Reality are some of the best at achieving it. From the Vintage & Monster Drum Refills to the free to members Ocean Way Kit 10 Refill they are solid. And then there are the keys, Oh my the keys. I get all flustered just thinking about choosing the perfect sound for keys. I mean The Meaty Grand, Nice Rhdz, and the A Grand Piano from the Pianos & Organs refills are some of my favorites but sometimes I get to clicking other presets and have the hardest time figuring out which sounds better. It is the best problem I have ever had! We’re barely scratching the surface for the Sonic Refill Collection but we still need to discuss the Ultra Refills too!
dope (dp) n.
1. Informal
a. A narcotic, especially an addictive narcotic.
b. Narcotics considered as a group.
c. An illicit drug, especially marijuana.
d. Sonic Reality Refills (I’m just saying…)
After much playing around I have started digging into some of the refills from the Ultra Series, or more specific the Ultra Hip-Hop, Electronic and Symphonic Refills. Dope. Plain and simple. They are so addictive! They are kind of generalized in a style but there are some awesome natural flute sounds in the Ultra Electronic Refill, an amazing Organ in the Ultra Hip-Hop and then there is the Ultra Symphonic. Doper. Yep. Didn’t think that word existed-and it didn’t…..til Sonic Reality made Ultra Symphonic! I can’t believe the amazing quality of the strings, pianos, and percussion in here. Amazing Timpanis, Choirs and again, by surprise some sweet Synths that are still fitting in with the rest of Ultra Symphonic Refill. When you take just those three, each of which by themselves can hold up against any other collection, VSTi or workstation, you have yet another combination that will keep you busy for a long time not wanting.
What I hate the most when it comes to Refills or workstations or any product I get, I hate it when I hit a brick wall or am not satisfied with my end product. Well I am glad to say that bad music done with this is because the user is at fault, not the sounds. Sonic Reality has brought amazing Refills to the world and you would be a fool to have Reason and not be using these!
Sonic Reality R.A.W. Universal Groove Kit Review
After the last review about the Monster Refill Group Buy I thought I should also review R.A.W. Universal Groove Kit since R.A.W. Miami is apart of the group buy now! I can not stress enough, if you haven’t jumped in on this group buy jump in! You will not find a better deal anywhere for the price! This is the perfect opportunity for anybody using reason to expand their sample library! R.A.W. Universal Groove Kit comes with over 2 gigs of loops! From Jazz, Funk and Rock to Pop, Hip Hop and Raggaeton! Best part of it is there are tons of instruments too! drums, guitars and bass to keys, horns and synths! It comes in three different formats the standard Wav, Rex and Apple Loops!
I use Reaper as my DAW of choice and it can read all three formats on both Mac or PC with ease. After running through a bunch of loops in the Media Explorer I had found a nice full sounding jazzy drum loop. I dragged it on to a track and started messing with the order of the loop. With Rex format loops they are already chopped to the transient so manipulating the loops or triggering one shot samples with Rex compatible samplers from these loops are a cinch! After about 30 seconds I had a basic loop and arrangement for a whole song based of of one loop. I moved parts of the snare hits around a bit to give a different feel to the chorus and verses as well as a intro and outro. All with in 30ish seconds. I have never had a easier time with drums. They sounded awesome and helped me create the basis for my song.
Next up was some actual chord progressions. Now this is where R.A.W. Universal Groove Kits shine. They are labeled so amazingly well! They start with the loops tempo, then the key and lastly the name of the loop. Great thing about Rex files are because they have been chopped accordingly before hand they translate really well with other tempos. Both slower or faster. Plus there is a wide range of instrumental loops here too. Over 300 loops of just guitars, both acoustic and electric, in every key imaginable! So up next I picked out a guitar loop with off beat staccato G chords layered with the drum loop. The song is starting to sound full but definitely needs some bass! I found a nice funkish bass line that fit the song well.
So now I got a basic song thing going but felt I needed to give it something to help fill it out. So I started looking for something synthy or even some kind of Rhodes. Clicked on the Keyboard Riffs folder and after 4 or 5 auditioned loops I found the perfect loop! Its a great rhodes loop that I put a little tremolo and compression and it fit perfectly, I can not believe how easy it is to get what you want when you want it! I have been working in the key of G so far and finding new instruments to add to your work is so easy because of the naming system they have! Plus all these sounds are easily molded to fit any mix!
After about 10 minutes I was able to put together a great song from loops! I never though I would see the day! Plus because they come in Rex format I was able to use ever single loop as single hit drum kits in my sampler! To put together this much in such a short amount of time was very surprising to say the least. Plus when it comes to how well they fit into a mix with other loops is just amazing. They are not overly processed and easily molded with EQ or Compression to fit. The whole R.A.W. series is amazing and drenched with quality!
Sonic Reality Ocean Way Drums Review
If you haven’t heard of OceanWay Studios your really out of the loop. They are a world renown studio known for how well they record drums. Everybody from Eric Clapton to Kanye West have recorded there. Amazing studios. Their A and B rooms were designed by Bill Putnam himself! These are amazing sounding rooms with amazing sounding gear! Custom console, mics the whole nine yards! Well OceanWay Studios along with Sonic Reality have put together a drum collection that will make you drool! Not only in how well it sounds but also in the variety and flexibility in the sounds!
Usually I record drums and if I need to replace any mishaps or mess ups I sample the songs drums themselves and spot replace them. Never bothered with electric sets for a real drum sound. I have heard of some products out there promising amazingly real sounding drums. Never bought it so I never well bought them. Just sounded like a scam. Well when I was told that OceanWay Studios was going to release a drum sample collection it peaked my interest. When I found out about Sonic Reality working on it too I was impressed! I have the Sonic Refill Bundle for Reason and have been using it as my main sound bank ever since!
In this review I will be reviewing the DL version. So after doing some research this is what I gathered. Besides being recorded in a world class studio, having amazing engineers, and amazing gear, there are 5 kits with Dry, Medium and Ambient versions of each kit. Everything is 24 bit/48 Khz EXPANDABLE format. Meaning you can purchase additional DL kits or even upgrade to multichannel kits like in the bigger versions of Ocean Way Drums Silver and Gold Editions. The DL version comes with a redeemable Download Card for either 2 more DL stereo kits or 1 multichannel kit. It all comes packed in their Kontakt Player so it can be added to or used with other Kontakt collections. The player itself is really customizable and has a really flexible routing. After browsing through the site, reading how it was recorded and with what gear my mouth was watering! Next step, install and try it out!
Now after I installed it I was nervous to start messing with it. Like I had said I am a drummer and have never really been impressed much by these collections. After I opened up Reaper and loaded the OWD Kontakt Player I loaded up the Ocean Way Drums collection. I started with Kit 16, Dry and with the IMAP layout. This offers 2 ways to work with the way the samples are layed out. IMAP is a format that Sonic Foundry came up with for a logical way to layout the drum set over a set of keys. The other is made for the universally compatible General Midi (the multichannel kits also feature maps for Roland V-Drums). You can midi this in and play your kit without having to worry about assigning certain sounds and velocities to your set, it is already done for you!
Now my favorite part about this is the sound. Really when you hear it you’re kinda blown away. They don’t sound over compressed and EQ’d. They are natural as can be ready for you to shape into your own sound or use them as is for a natural drum sound. I love the toms in this. Usually toms and cymbals are the easiest way to tell whether something sounds realistic or not and Ocean Way Drums pass with flying colors! Nice deep and round tom sounds and smooth even cymbal sounds really blew me away! Best part is how they let you control the ambiance and mix and match so you can have a ambient snare with a tight dry kick or toms, and on top of that every drum was recorded with both snare on and off!!! The sounds possible here are unbelievable! The attention to detail is something I have never seen in any other drum collection before, you can tell they took their time in dialing in amazing sounds!
Well I finally did it. I admit that samples can replace an acoustic set and drummer. After years of notbelieving I feel both embarrassed and proud. Ocean Way Drums has convinced me that as someone who has always prided himself on their drum sound it is possible to get great drum sounds for your music entirely in the box. Ocean Way Drums has made a outstanding product that engineers, drummers, and musicians can appreciate. After messing with this and getting to know the sounds I feel spoiled that it is this easy to get amazing world class drums for this price!!!!