By now most avid followers of Propellerhead Reason are probably familiar with the new hardware audio interface, Balance. Balance is an elegant, 2-channel desktop unit that connects to a Mac or PC via USB and features all of the general connections one would expect from a quality device. There are also Reason specific functions, including Clip Safe control and a button to call up an input monitor/tuner display. Once you’ve moved past the looks and features of the unit, the one question that remains is “how does Balance sound?” Well.. to answer this question, a group of us got together in San Francisco at Robotspeak to compare Balance with a few other popular devices in an audio interface shootout.

Interfaces and Set Up

We looked to devices comparable in features and price, and managed to borrow a Digidesign (Avid) Mbox 2, an Apogee Duet, and a MOTU Ultralite. The interfaces were simultaneously connected to an iMac, making it possible to switch between them by driver selection. Audio was routed to a Mackie Mixer which feeds the Robotspeak house system, a pair of large QSC powered speakers.

To minimize noise and to ensure reproduction levels were exactly the same, the output levels were calibrated with a test tone and a multimeter. This is important because the slightest level difference could alter the results. The Duet and Ultralight were the most difficult to match because the monitor level controls are stepped, but once these were matched, it was easy to use the analog controls of Balance and the MBox 2 to calibrate the tone level to a 10th of a millivolt.

Test Conditions

Those familiar with Robotspeak know that it’s not an ideal space for conducting critical listening tests. The ceiling is low, there’s street traffic, and music from the neighbors can be heard through the walls. However, most Reason users work in less than ideal conditions and the level of environmental noise feels more realistic, especially with the roaming intoxicated indigents (or roosters) who add a certain charm to the neighborhood.

The audio examples were extracted from compact discs and imported into a Reason 6 song file. The content ranged from Classic Rock, Dance, Dubstep, Electronic, Experimental, Hip-Hop, IDM, Indy, Rock, RnB, Orchestral, Opera, Pop, Progressive, Punk, and a few other genres. For playback of the listening test, all device drivers were set for 44.1 kHz sample rate with 24 bit resolution.

Each round of testing placed Balance against one of the other devices, however the listeners could only identify the interface as either A or B. A 30 second clip was played through A, and then through B, and then again through both; so the listeners could compare their first impressions and finally confirm their preference after the second pass.

Listening Test Results

Going into the listening test, I hypothesized that people would not be able to tell the difference between Balance and other unit, and the results would average a 50% favorability for Balance and 50% for other interfaces. After tabulating the data, my hypothesis was proven somewhat wrong. The final results indicate that listeners favored Balance by 68.8% compared to the other interfaces. In one test of a female pop vocal piece, every listener preferred the track when heard through Balance (100% favorability). The lowest margin of favorability was 50% where the listeners were split. To my surprise, there were no results where Balance performed with a lower favorability rating than 50%.

When tested against the MBox 2, Balance was favored on average 66.7%; against the MOTU Ultralite, Balance was preferred at 58.3% – closer to my original hypothesis. Compared to the Apogee Duet, Balance was preferred at 78.1%. The image below describes each test in detail.

The results might be slightly in error since we did not match other interfaces against each other (i.e. Mbox 2 vs Duet), nor did we perform blinds controls like Balance vs. Balance. Also, bear in mind that many of the interfaces are older and considered obsolete, so Balance may have the competitive edge through newer technology and freshly mounted components. Still, we are happy to confirm that Balance performs quite well against legacy devices from very reputable companies.

While overall the group preferred Balance, we cannot overlook some of the details in the results where certain characteristics of the other interfaces were subjectively preferred. The high end detail of some examples was favored through the Duet and Ultralight, but at the same time, others felt the high end detail was too harsh and brittle. The listener notes seem fairly consistent about this aspect where people preferred hearing more treble. Some preferred the tone of electric guitars through the MBox 2, stating that the tone was more natural. Low mid and bass heavy examples fared better through Balance where the listeners noticed more definition, but at the same time, others felt that there was too much bass from Balance. Louder examples (primarily electronic/dance music) with smaller dynamic ranges were favored through Balance, which indicates that it’s complementary to typical Reason productions. Examples with considerable dynamic range (jazz/orchestral) were evenly mixed between Balance and the other interfaces. These are important issues to consider because the feedback suggests that listeners have a subjective bias, and that Balance may not be the most suitable interface for the type of music being produced.

Recording Tests

SF Musician/Songwriter, Michael Shockey, lent his guitar and vocal talents for the recording tests. I brought along a Wunder CM-7 (large condenser valve mic) to track vocals, and guitar was tracked via D.I. inputs. We were not able to track to all four interfaces simultaneously, but Mike is a consistent and did a great job at repeating his performance as we tracked through each of the four interfaces into Reason.

Despite the inability to conduct blind listening test of recorded material, Mike’s tracks provided a solid template to analyze the differences in tonal quality between the units. I found that the MOTU Ultralight and Apogee Duet distinctly have a bit more sharpness that you find with digital recordings, but Balance captured the coloration of the tube mic better than the other units. While we were only dealing with D.I. on guitar, I preferred the Apogee and Balance more than the MOTU and MBox2.

One person commented that while the sound of Balance is more pleasing, the clinical quality of the apogee might be more useful for mixing. Despite the fact that these results are subjectively biased, we were satisfied in knowing that recording through Balance sounds as good (if not better) than the devices used in this test.

Final Thoughts

We will probably continue with this experiment, and hopefully test Balance with contemporary devices. In the future, I would focus on the recording aspect and prepare blind listening tests of material recorded through different interfaces. With current units, I expect the results to be much more evenly spread. Even though we cannot conclusively say how Balance will stand up to contemporary devices, anyone looking to upgrade from one of these older firewire interfaces should be confident that going to USB based Balance is not a step down in performance or audio quality.

My latest obsession has been the new animoog iPad app from moog music, inc. It’s a brilliant example of the tablet platform and touch control surface as a creative and expressive musical instrument. If you haven’t tried animoog, I highly highly highly recommend getting it.

Animoog’s sound generation system is akin to a vector synthesizer, however the main XY pad merges an eight way source selector against a wavetable grain selector. The modulation of the XY pad can be automated allowing you to explore complex variations between wavetables and granular systems. I’ve found that bypassing the modulation “orbits” and “path” parameters and simply controlling these parameters in real-time offers and incredible performance experience. This has inspired me to try to share the experience with Reason 6 users who may not have access to an iPad.

Reason users have had a similar technology available for quite some time in the Malstrom graintable synthesizer where you have two graintable oscillators. The main difference in the experience is the control over the graintables. Animoog allows you to “crossfade” between each of the sources while Malstrom’s architecture is somewhat fixed and allows you to layer the two sources or fade with envelopes, rather than a real time control.

Using a combinator configured with several Malstroms and a multi source fader, I’ve devised a patch that simulates the experience of the animoog sound source. Due to the limitations of using multiple synth devices, the configuration is limited to a monophonic instrument. Despite being mono, it’s fun nonetheless!

Download

The combinator is contained in the example Reason 6 session file and patch archive available here:

peff-animoog_inspired_combi.zip

Combinator Controls

Below is a description of the combinator controls and the functions they perform. To simulate the animoog style of table/index control try mapping the modwheel and Index control to an XY pad. This particular patch is designed to create aggressive dubstepish tones, however you can modify graintable selections and other Malstrom parameters to customize the behavior.

Mod Wheel: Multi Source fader control fades between the 8 graintables

Rotary 1 - Index: simultaneously controls all graintable index positions.

Rotary 2 - Shift: simultaneously controls all 8 graintable shift amounts.

Rotary 3 - BitCrush: increasing this knobs applies more bit crushing

Rotary 4 - LFO Rate: controls the wobble rate

Button 1 - Index Mod: applies ramp modulation to the index of all 8 graintables.

Button 2 - Table Sweep: applies LFO to the multi source fader

Button 3 - Crush On: Enables/Disables the Scream 4 bitcrush effect

Button 4 - LFO Enabled: Enables/Disables the modulation of the filter and amp sections

Multi Source Fader control

The eight way source selector relies on an old technique (think power tools for Reason 2.5 era) of using the BV512 Vocoder as an audio to CV converter. When the combi receives a note on message, a Thor polysonic synth is triggered to generate a sine wave. The sine wave acts as a modulator signal on the vocoder and opens specific bands on the vocoder. The CV signals generated by the individual bands control the fader levels of remix mixer. When the pitch of the sine wave is adjusted (by way of the mod wheel), a different range of bands opens, subsequently opening different mixer channels. This is an important aspect of the patch because that recreates the experience of using animoog.

Before proceeding with this process, quit Record and/or Reason 6, and make sure your account has administrator privileges. Otherwise, find the administrator and have them perform this process.

The Reason/Record Browser stores the patch location information in “.favo” files. On a Mac OS system, the files can be found in the following directory:

C: \ Documents and Settings \ username \ Application Data \ Propellerhead Software \

You will see folders for “Reason” and “Record”, and each contain similar files, including “Locations.favo” and any other favorites lists. To transfer your Record locations settings to Reason 6, simply replace the “Locations.favo” in the Reason folder with the one from the Record folder. When you Launch Reason 6, the locations list will appear as it did in the Reason+Record Duo browser.

Instead of deleting the Reason 6 list, I renamed it to “Locations2.favo”, and then copied the Record “Locations.favo” into the Reason folder. “Locations2″ appears as a favorites list, and my old Record settings now populate the browser Locations lists.

As a reminder, you no longer need Propellerhead Record, and should now only launch Reason 6. I recommend that you transition through the upgrade process slowly and try to keep your old files around. If you have uninstalled Record from your system, you may have lost previous locations lists. Rename the old application folder to “Reason 5″ and keep both v5 and v6 installed. Once you’re confident that everything is working properly in Reason 6, then uninstall Reason 5 and Record 1.5.

mØxr is a maxmsp based application that converts audio signals to MIDI note events. The application is calibrated to receive Reason CV messages as audio signals, and in turn generate a monophonic stream of MIDI notes that can trigger hardware synthesizers.

A new build of mØxr has been compiled with the recent update of MaxMSP 5.1.9. This update is recommended for anyone running the latest version of Snow Leopard, Mac OS 10.6.8 and soundflower 1.5.2.

More information regarding this Reason CV Audio to MIDI converter patch on the mØxr page

Lion Compatibility

MaxMSP 5.1.9 seems to address issues of running mØxr on Mac OS 10.7.1 Lion. I personally have not updated to Lion and recommend to anyone using mØxr to stay with Snow Leopard. Until Max, soundflower, and all audio drivers are fully compatible in Lion, it is uncertain whether this patcher will function properly.

Reason 6

Because soundflower is a Mac OS Core Audio extension, mØxr should be fully compatible with the upcoming release of Propellerhead Reason 6. Implementation of the aggregate audio devices and MIDI drivers is still configured in Audio MIDI preferences, outside of the Reason environment, and so there should not be any issue for those who upgrade. The process of converting Reason CV to Audio relies on a Thor Polysonic Synthesizer, so mØxr will not operate with Reason Essentials.

Download mØxr

Anyone with a mØxr+ patcher can use the same link previously distributed via email. The public version of the patcher is available from the link below:

Download mØxr.dmg

You can hear Darin’s tracks along with a few other projects that I’ve been working on. Some of these are mixed in Propellerhead Reason 5 + Record 1.5 Duo:

production and engineering projects by peff

For those of you on Facebook, I’ve posted my personal mastering combinator patch which you can hear being used on some of these tracks. you can get it from the following link:

peff.com/mmm

I’ve also been receiving phone calls and emails from people asking what they could do to show their support. A trust account for James and Nicole’s four children has been established, and people can make a tangible gesture by contributing to this fund. The button below takes you to the paypal portal for the Bernard Childcare Trust:

mØxr is a MaxMSP based application that converts Control Voltages as audio signal to monophonic MIDI note messages. The application must receive two CV signals through audio connections, a Gate CV and a Note CV. While any audio signal can trigger a MIDI note message, mØxr is calibrated specifically for the Note CV values generated by a Thor Polysonic Synthesizer in Propellerhead Reason.

Discussions on the propellerhead user forum inspired me to pursue this idea, which began with the MOTU Volta concept of controlling analog hardware synthesizers with software based CV sources routed to a MOTU hardware interface. Experiments in controlling analog hardware from Reason were very successful, so this was the next logical move. I only have a basic understanding of Max, so this is all experimental and will probably sit as one of those never ending works in progress.

How this works

The connection between Reason+Record and mØxr requires an inter application audio routing extension, such as Cycling74 Soundflower, aggregated with your primary audio interface. CV/Gate data is transmitted from Reason+Record to mØxr through Soundflower, while audio signals to and from the hardware interface pass normally. This allows you to trigger a MIDI hardware synthesizer using Reason CV/Gate signals and track the audio back into Record.

As an alternative to soundflower and setting up an aggregate driver, you can also use a purely digital loopback configuration. If your hardware has unused ADAT Lightpipe connections, a digital audio loop from the output to the input can be configured with a short TOSLink cable. (The shorter the better to reduce latency of light). CV/Gate audio data can be routed from Reason+Record to the ADAT lightpipe outputs, and mØxr can receive them from the ADAT lightpipe inputs.

Things you can do

While some work is involved in getting mØxr operational, there are some surprisingly gratifying results. In addition to triggering MIDI synths from a sequence in Reason+Record, Control Voltage pattern devices like the Matrix Pattern Sequencer and RPG-8 Monophonic Arpeggiator can also be used to drive hardware.

RTFM

Support for mØxr is minimal because there’s no efficient way to tech a system remotely. The documentation is rough, but I’ve attempted to cover the key issues regarding installation and operation. The CV to MIDI conversion process relies on so many different parts working together, so it’s rather difficult for me to provide support without being there in person.

It must be reiterated that mØxr generates a monophonic MIDI stream, so results from polyphonic MIDI sequences are unpredictable. Also, latency varies depending on your driver settings, buffer size, and MIDI configuration. Troubleshooting issues are (somewhat) covered in the documentation.

Download the latest mØxr Documentation

Download mØxr

mØxr is a stand-alone application for MacOS 10.6, and operates side-by-side with Reason+Record duo. Attempts to get it working on Windows have been unsuccessful, but anyone interested in exploring this concept on the windows platform can find the original patches in the MIDIRunner topic in the Propellerhead User Forum

Download mØxr.dmg

- updated 9/18/11 Max 5.1.9
- not tested with Mac OS 10.7 Lion

Huge Thanks to those who attended the Producers Conference in San Diego this past weekend. Dave, Matt, and I agree that It was definitely one of the best events to date, and we look forward to future events in the area.

My presentation, on the topic of compressors and sidechain compression, picked up where I left off during the MMM webcast on CV Basics by going into envelope followers and how they work in the process of compression. Below are links for a couple of the example files including the “home made compressor” patch and the aux bus routing system which allows you to automate sidechain compression.

DIYCompressor.rns

SidechainAuxsend.rns

I’ve decided to hold off publicly releasing the other example files on sidechain modulation, but my offer to examine your mixes and mastering still stands. I would need to see the complete Reason or Reason+Record session with all samples self-contained. Please contact me via email, or facebook.

Also here’s the demo that featured some of the more complex sidechaining processes:

CV Demo (for MMM) Record Mix by peff

Starting Monday May 2, Propellerheads will be hosting live webcasts featuring artists, producers, industry specialists, and engineers from around the planet, including Josh Mobley, Adam Fielding, Mocean Worker, Matt Piper, Olivia Broadfield, DJ LuckyDate, Dave Brown, Jessica Gore (NNXT), Terri Winston, Chris Petti, The Freemasons, Gary Bromham, SoundCloud, Kim Nieva, Ed Bauman (EditEd4TV), James Bernard, Amber Rubarth, Giles Reeves (selig), Gerald Simpson (A Guy called Gerald), and the Propellerhead Crew themselves!

During the live webcasts, you can post questions directly to the presenters via chat, and carry on in a live discussion about Reason, music production, and the music industry. To see the full schedule of events, visit the prop’s website:

MMM Schedule of Events

Next Saturday, May 7, I will deliver a presentation on one of my specialities, Control Voltage Routing This will cater towards those who are not familiar with patching CVs in Reason, but I will certainly welcome questions that are more advanced. Hope to see you there.

The news from Japan is terribly sad and this affects me deeply on a personal level. I have family there. Fortunately, they are safe but still feel anxious over the events of the past few days. I also have many friends there, and if you’re involved in the world of music, believe it or not, you too, have many friends in Japan!

These are your friends who work at Akai who made your MPC; the friends at Korg who made your Kaoss Pad; and the friends at Tascam who assembled your old Portastudio - to name a few. These are also the friends at Technics, who built your 1200s; friends at Yamaha who made your old DX-7; the friends at Sony who developed your CD Player; and these are the friends at Roland who invented the TR-808 that was sampled so you could download a fat bass drum for your new beat.

The devastation of the 2011 Tohoku – Pacific Ocean Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami has put a tremendous toll on our friends, their families, and neighbors, and right now they need a favor. One way to help is through the Red Cross: People in the United States can text “REDCROSS” to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Also, people in Canada can text “REDCROSS” to 30333 to make a donation.

I can also vouch for the Northern Japan Earthquake Relief Fund set up by the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California where funds are not reduced for administrative costs: JCCCNC.org

It’s ok if you can’t help with a donation. Next time you hear that 808 bass drop, just think of your friends in Japan, and hope for better days ahead.

I recently performed a live set [video] where I was asked to use ReBirth for iPad. To complement the 303s and RB drums, I built an effect and loop system in Reason 5 that would allow me to process the ReBirth audio in real-time. Additionally, I had all of the Reason parameters mapped to a Livid Instruments OHM64 control surface. This “live set” configuration used the hardware interface audio inputs to route the iPad audio into the Reason effects, and the ReBirth patterns and Reason sequences were switched in and out via the OHM64.

In practice this live setup worked great…but at the party, I couldn’t hear the tracks over the noise. This made it nearly impossible to synchronize ReBirth with the Reason song file, so things went pretty badly. Were it not for the OHM64 (and the open bar), it would have been a complete mess. I had enough material preprogrammed and mapped to the controller, so it was easy to fade out the ReBirth parts and improvise on the fly. It’s too bad that I couldn’t pull off the set better, but I left with a better appreciation for the OHM64.

OHM64 Control Mapping

The video above demonstrates the layout of the controls mapped to Reason. The remote files and livid lua codec are hacked in a manner that bypasses the midi note mappings. The controls are manually assigned to the various parameters in the Reason rack. The image below describes the various knob, slider, and button assignments.

The Measure Counter and Beat Counter section are triggered with a MIDI sequence that toggles the state of buttons on Combinators. These buttons are then mapped to the top row of the OHM64 and change state as the sequence runs. It’s not a perfect solution, but it certainly helps me keep track of the relative position in a musical phrase. With the beat counter and transport controls mapped to the controller, it becomes unnecessary to look at the computer screen. The song file is essentially a 16 measure phrase that endlessly cycles.

The two Bus effects are beat repeater/jugglers based around the CycleOn combinator, and the master fx are two custom patches with one-shot insert controls that engage and disengage in time with the track.

REX Jockey Signal Path

A battery of Dr.OctoREX loop players are routed in parallel through two mix busses. Each bus has an insert effect which can be triggered to drop automatically on beat. This allows you to trigger an effect and fade into a different loop. In addition to the loop players, there is a Kong drum machine loaded with 16 NurseREX modules. The Kong is controlled by a Thor step sequencer which sequentially triggers loops over two measures. The image below describes the signal path from the Dr.OctoREXs and the NurseREX sequencer through the switching matrix, effects, and crossfader.

The flowchart illustrates one way of organizing sound sources. The Dr.OctoREX Loop players could easily be replaced with Redrum Drum Computers, Synths, or Samplers, and controls for pattern sequencers can be mapped to allow real-time switching.

Download

peff-rexjockeylividohm64.zip archive

The archive includes a Reason song file with the remote override mappings set for a Livid Instruments OHM64. Also included are the Livid.lua file and Livid.luacodec which replace the default lua codec files. Also the Ohm64.remotemap file must also replace the default map before the setting function properly.

For more information on hacking remote maps and codecs please see the Discovering Reason article on the topic: Control Remote

For the end user who has both Reason 5 and an OHM64, this Reason song file can be used as a template. Customize the setup by loading your own ReCycle loops into the four Dr.OctoREXs, and by modifying the loops loaded in the Kong embedded in the “NurseREX SEQ” combinator. Save the song file and the mapping will remain unchanged. Certain features like the effect triggers will not function without proper mapping, so this file is not compatible with devices other than the OHM64.

Demo Session

peff-REXJockeyDemo.rps.zip

The following file is a demo session sequenced in real time using the OHM64 using the sample set from the video. The file is in the published song file format, but the controls are still mapped to the OHM64. Users with other control surfaces can experiment with this file to get a feel for the system. In the future, I will break down some of these structures, and will post some generic example files for the control system.

I’m happy to announce that the Music Production with Reason & Record tutorial video is finally available from Groove 3! In this edition, we look at Josh’s track, “What’s the Reason” which features the talents and writing of a new artist, Blackjack. You can download the Record+Reason session file from the Propellerhead website here: demo song download

Following the tradition of the Reason 4 tutorial, Josh and I go through and deconstruct his production process and recreate the track from the ground up starting in Reason and moving the project over to Record+Reason duo. It is designed to complement Music Production with Reason 4.0 which focuses more on musical applications, while the latest title focuses more on using OctoREX, Kong, and Audio manipulation in Record. If you are a total novice, I personally recommend that you also look at MPR4, some of the concepts in this title explain a different approach on production.

Surrogate Valentine Trailer and Video Download now available on iTunes

For your Valentine’s Day viewing pleasure, here is the title track from a new film by Dave Boyle, Surrogate Valentine, from Tiger Industry Films. The Film features Goh Nakamura in the starring role along with Chadd Stoops, Lynn Chen, Mary Cavett, Joy Osmanski, Parry Shen, Calpernia Addams, Dan “Damage” Bjornson, Di Quon, Joe Polhemus.

The World Premiere of Surrogate Valentine is at the SXSW Festival in Austin, TX on March 12. At the SF International Asian American Film Festival, the film will be screened at closing celebration on Thursday, March 17 at 7pm at the Sundance Kabuki Theater.

Richard Wong directed this video piece for the SV single which will be released in March 2011. Produced by Seng Chen, the music video features Theresa Navarro. Goh and I recorded this track at my home studio, and the project will be released on 7″ vinyl and as a digital download. Here’s a video of the test pressing:

Surrogate Valentine Test Pressing

For the gear enthusiasts out there, here’s a list of the equipment used:

Wunder Audio CM-7 microphone
AKG C-12 VR microphone
Revolution R.47 MkII preamp
Neve 1095 preamp
RS-124 type Altec compressor
UREI LA-22 comp/limiter
Manley/VTL limiter/compressor/amplifiers
Universal Audio 2192 converters
Dangerous Music D-Box

Propellerhead Record+Reason duo used for recording and mixing.

Mastered by Mike Wells

I have a fairly standard response whenever asked about mastering tracks: If this is a serious project headed for a physical or digital product, take it to the mastering studio of a great engineer. A good studio will have the equipment to reveal and correct problems, and balance the tracks to meet current standards and trends. Naturally this presumes you’ve done a good job with the mix, but that topic will have to be covered in a different post.

Once again, I’ve been working again with Goh Nakamura, who is starring in an indy film titled after his song, Surrogate Valentine. The film is due to hit film festivals throughout 2011 starting in March, so Goh has been hustling to get a product available for the release. We tracked the titled song at my place into Propellerhead Record using our collective nice gear. The Rhythm section for the B-Side was recorded in Portland and we redid the lead vocals here. I mixed everything in Propellerhead Record relying heavily on the Record SSL emulation EQs.

Mike Wells in San Francisco mastered the project and provided two versions. One version is the standard PCM master for CD Redbook/MP3, and the second version is for vinyl pressing. I just received the mastered files and took a look at them in a waveform editor. The comparison between the original mix and the mastered versions is quite interesting and I wanted to share some of my observations.

The top set is the final mix (mixed in Propellerhead Record). The Middle set is post mastering, a 16bit 44.1kHz CD master. The bottom set of waveforms are the 24bit 96kHz masters headed for Vinyl pressing.

At first glance the most noticeable difference is the gain between the mix and the mastered versions. I left plenty of headroom with the highest peaks around -9dBFS.

The MP3/CD Master is second set of waveforms. The target for this file is a Digital Download, so Mike optimized this version for typical CD/PCM format or a high resolution MP3 file. The density in waveform and the brickwall limiting reveals that this is pretty tightly compacted making it sound pretty steady, but not overly loud by todays standards. There’s a touch of low end lift which translates well across the board from small format listening systems clock radios and iPod earbuds to home stereo and automotive environments. This file is used for the video which is available for download from iTunes

The Vinyl Master is the bottom set. Straight away you can see that the dynamics are well preserved as the peaks are not jammed to 0dBFS. This version is definitely my favorite. Being that this target format has certain physical limitations, I really needed Mike’s expertise to help get everything balanced. Going into this project, I wasn’t sure if it would be my favorite rendition of the masters, but it best reflects the feel of the original mix.

Audio Examples

I’ve put together a 24/96 Record session which has three 30 second clips which allow you to hear the difference between each version. The session file will play fine at any setting, but for optimal playback fidelity, set the sample rate to 96,000 in the Record audio preferences. The loudness drastically increases from the first clip to the second is drastic, so watch your monitoring levels.

Download the file here: peff-GNSV-mixmastercomp.record.zip

I thought this would be easy… Sample the Roland TR-808, load the files into the Reason 5 Kong Drum Designer… Bam… done! Nope, that definitely is not how things went down.

The primary goal was to create a set of Kong patches that effectively simulate the classic 808. This involved selectively sampling variations of each sound. For example the bass drum required sampling 6 different tone settings, with a normal hit and accent hit at seven or eight different decay settings. This is probably overkill, but I approached this from an archival perspective and wanted a lot of detail. The initial sampling resulted in over 500 individual audio files. The actual sampling part was pretty easy into Propellerhead Record, and I used my standard signal path for sampling: ADL D.I./Neve/UA-2192, from a Roland TR-808 bestowed to me from composer, Stuart Diamond

To address the 808 Accent sound, each combination of the drum tones required velocity switching, where the normal and accent hits could be easily accessed. Initially, the switching threshold was set to a 125 velocity level. According to some testers (Thank you Ph WTF Crew!), this was too high for effective playback on pad controllers, so a second set of patches was created with more moderate velocity switching levels at 101. In the end, this required that all the patches originally programmed with velocity switching zones at 125 needed to be duplicated and modified with lower switching thresholds.

Accent Programming

To take full advantage of the velocity mapped accent switching, there are a couple of production strategies you can employ. One approach is to manually program patterns in the sequencer with the pencil tool and manually make velocity lane adjustments. The second approach still requires some editing, but after setting up the initial pattern, a regroove template can be used to apply accent patterns to multiple sequencer lanes. See the following video tutorial on how both techniques are applied in Reason 5: Accent Programming with the Kong 808 Refill

Analog Variations

The TR-808 is an analog device, and one of the characteristics of the analog charm are the inconsistencies. Certain tones like the Bass Drum and Toms/Conga are fairly consistent, but snares and other percussion tones have subtle, sometimes very noticeable variations. To emulate this characteristic, a set of Kong drum patches with alternating sample zones was created. Each time a NN-Nano sampler is triggered, one of three or four different samples is randomly selected for playback. For example, the patch “808 Hi Hat Alternating.drum” has four closed hi-hat samples and four accented closed hi-hat samples. Each time the drum channel is triggered, a different sample is heard. When a string of hi-hats is sequenced to this drum channel, the variations mimic the analog nature of the device.

While most productions probably do not require the detail of the analog variations, a few Kong Kits were created around this programming method. The patch, “Classic 808 v3.kong”, has several alternating kong drum patches for the snares, hi-hats, claps, and percussion.

To further enhance this experience, the refill includes several ReGroove templates which are extracted from programmed 808 patterns. These quantization templates render slight timing inconsistencies, and when combined with the alternating drum tones, the experience of the TR-808 comes to life.

Hit Types

Programming sampled instruments in the Kong Drum Designer is time consuming, especially with so many details to address. The NN-Nano sampler allows you to program four different sounds in the drum patch, and each sound can be accessed by selecting the HIT TYPE parameter on Kong. You will find that some patches only have one type programmed, however, many have multiple types programmed. While there are only 180 kong drum patches, these patches contain one to four different Hit Types.

There are certain areas where the sounds are a little rough around the edges, so some tweaking might be necessary to make the sounds fit in your productions. Provided it’s available, first try a different hit type.

At the suggestion of ph user, dioxide, the patch, “Classic Pallete 808.kong” uses the hit type feature to switch between percussion tones in the same manner as they are established on the TR-808. For example, the Toms and Conga sounds are switched, so the Low Tom and Low Conga cannot be triggered at the same time. This applies for other tones like the Hand Clap and Maracas.

Mapping

The Kong Kits are mapped to a general MIDI keyboard layout, meaning that the drum channels are designed to be triggered from a MIDI keyboard from C1 through D#2, and the upper register keys. If you prefer the pad controller layout, bring the Kong device into focus, then from the edit menu or right click contextual menu, select the item “Convert GM Mapping to Pad Mapping”.

If you prefer these mappings, it’s recommended that you save the patches into your kong patch library.

Refill Contents

The following is a description of the file organization structure of the refill:

Example Sessions - a few example files in Record 1.5 and Reason 5 file format

Kong Drum Patches - Various Kong Drum Sound patches of the standard 808 set and variations.

Kong Drum Patches (v100) - Duplicates of the 181 Kong Drum Patches with Velocity Switching Accents at 101. Velocity to amp scaling patches are straight duplicates

Kong Patches - 33 Complete Kong Kits based on the TR-808 sample set.

Kong Patches (v100) - The Kong Kits with velocity switching accents at 101. Velocity to amp scaling drum channels are straight duplicates.

NN-XT Patches - a couple of sampler patches based on granular 808 bass drums

Redrum Patches (.drp) - a few Redrum sets from the TR-808 samples

ReGroove Patches - Groove templates extracted from TR-808 ReCycle loops

REX Loops - several ReCycle Loops of TR-808 patterns

Samples - The sample archive of the straight TR-808 samples, and some processed samples including DSP, Bitcrushed, granular, and distorted 808s. Over 800 samples.

Download

Ok, I’ve bored you enough with the details… Get it now for only $8.08!!! While supplies last - limit one per household. kidding of course, this is a free download.

Download the Peff- 036 Kong 808 ReFill 146Mb zip archive

As if it needs mentioning… This refill requires Propellerhead Reason 5.0.1 or the Reason + Record 1.5.1 duo