Too much patches, how do you handle them?

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pummelfee
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04 Oct 2017

Yeah, well, that's just, like, MY opinion, man but i would like to know how YOU work with those loads of sounds and (fx-)patches. In Reason 9 there are more than 1.000 new ones and trust me or not, this bulk of content is NO inspiration at all. It's the opposite: it scares me, it just knocks me out.
What i would like to see is sort of categorisation like the the Apple patches in Logic or Garageband.

An example: when i grab my iPad and launch this old NanoStudio App with just one synth and one drumcomputer and a handfull of fx devices, i get instant inspiration althought there are not more than 128 sound patches and a few samples included.
I think the inspiration comes BECAUSE of this lack of content.

I would appreciate to learn how YOU handle those masses of posibilities. And when i look into the future with reason 10 on its way... On the one hand the Europa synth and so on are promising but on the other hand it's a nightmare: these masses of content, so much posibilities, so little time...

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aeox
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04 Oct 2017

I start off by either knowing the sound I'm going for and just making it myself, or experimenting for more abstract sounds until I get some nice results.

Any time I've ever loaded a factory sound, it's because I thought to myself "Ah, I want to toy around with a flute for this part" or "I want a piano here"
It's hard to get anywhere just blinding looking for presets that are going to sound good or "inspire" you.

For me, inspiration does not come from what patches are available. I have a chord progression that I lay out, and think to myself what I want to do with it and shape a sound that will play the chord progression. Once I get that sounding good, that's when the inspiration and ideas start popping up for what I can start adding/layering/mixing to build on the idea.

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Loque
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04 Oct 2017

Quality over quantity. Tagging and drill down ftw. I try to make the sound or fx myself and if i fail, i browse and normally get lost.
Reason12, Win10

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Oquasec
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04 Oct 2017

Spend some hours foldering them. After a certain point the layout of synths get really small though man.
Producer/Programmer.
Reason, FLS and Cubase NFR user.

pummelfee
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04 Oct 2017

Oquasec wrote:
04 Oct 2017
Spend some hours foldering them. After a certain point the layout of synths get really small though man.
This is what i thought of too.

BTW: my default song starter file has just some ID8s, one echo and one reverb... This is what i need for song layouts/song writing.
But when it comes to sound design, there is a little devil on my shoulder who says: use those presets, you PAID for them you idiot!!
And the angel on the other shoulder says: throw away those patches. they are evil!!!

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TritoneAddiction
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04 Oct 2017

Pretty much what you mentioned about limitations, I usually limit myself to one synth and make a song with that. It makes for a lot less decision making and a lot more music making. I might use its presets or tweak them to something else.
Also I get to know the synth and its overall character and what it's good at. So in the future I know what synth to reach for.

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sublunar
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04 Oct 2017

Presets and their organization are what I hate about every synth I've ever played with.

I'll never understand why the hell the synth designers can't organize the patches better. So my first order of business is usually scroll through every single preset manually and note the ones that I like. Usually the keepers can be counted on one maybe two hands. Then I categorize them, rename the keepers with names that actually make sense and wipe out all the junk before I go in and create order out of the chaos. I use math to divide up the user-writable banks based on categories of my choosing and save a basic init patch over everything. Then I go in and place the presets that I liked (and the ones I created) into their appropriate bank range. Depending on the instrument, it's goes something like this: Basses (1-30) Leads (31-60) Keys (61-90) Drones (91-120) FX (121-150). That way, when I'm feeling a specific vibe, I know exactly where to go. For example, if I want a lead I go right to banks 31-60. Just like how I grab my guitar or my bass or sit down at the drums. I know what those instruments will sound like, they all have a predicable base (init) sound unless I manipulate it. So until I organize a new synth, the lack of ease in going directly to specific predictable sounds severely reduces my enjoyment of the new instrument.

It angers me how disorganized presets always are. You scroll through looking for something and you encounter a bass, then a space warble, a shitty electric piano, ambient noise, bells and whistles, a shitty lead sound, etc. It's maddening. Organize your shit before you release it!! Put the basses together, put the leads together, put the spaced out warbles and bloops together. Not sure how you're supposed to get inspired when you're facing a barrage of every different sound imaginable.

Or maybe I'm just weird. I started out with guitar long before going into the world of synthesizers.

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kuhliloach
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04 Oct 2017

This resonates with me deeply and I feel this issue is scaring hundreds if not thousands of potential Reason users to other platforms. The browser / factory sound bank is in fact such a mess Reason would be a far more friendly program WITHOUT IT. When you give you users a giant pile of unorganized materials that are hard to navigate it doesn't matter how good the sounds inside are as very few will ever find them. It almost seems that Propellerhead has just given up on making any sense out of it, and instead is now working on new instruments so that you just grab a new dedicated instrument rather than deal with those old pesky things called "files".

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QVprod
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04 Oct 2017

I'm a little confused. It seems people are asking for organization here but the patches in Reason organized in folders by type of sound. I.e: lead, bass, piano, strings...etc...The REs I have, patches are organized the same way.

What more organization could one want? I'm genuinely asking.

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aeox
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04 Oct 2017

QVprod wrote:
04 Oct 2017
I'm a little confused. It seems people are asking for organization here but the patches in Reason organized in folders by type of sound. I.e: lead, bass, piano, strings...etc...The REs I have, patches are organized the same way.

What more organization could one want? I'm genuinely asking.
May have something to do with some patches being at different octaves. Someone could be browsing bass patches and keep running into stuff that sounds like leads because the person who made the patch had it at a different octave?

That's all I can think of.

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QVprod
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04 Oct 2017

pummelfee wrote:
04 Oct 2017

What i would like to see is sort of categorisation like the the Apple patches in Logic or Garageband.

An example: when i grab my iPad and launch this old NanoStudio App with just one synth and one drumcomputer and a handfull of fx devices, i get instant inspiration althought there are not more than 128 sound patches and a few samples included.
I think the inspiration comes BECAUSE of this lack of content.

I would appreciate to learn how YOU handle those masses of posibilities
One solution is to just use one synth. But I think your issue comes down to direction. If you can write an entire song out with just the ID8 . Then the question you have to ask yourself is; "what do it want to add to this song". Then when you figure that out you can look in a folder of sounds in the category you need. Not much different than how the ID8 is set up, just with more options. They won't all fit. If you're just randomly going through patches with no clue of what you're trying to add then you won't get much done.

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QVprod
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04 Oct 2017

aeox wrote:
04 Oct 2017
QVprod wrote:
04 Oct 2017
I'm a little confused. It seems people are asking for organization here but the patches in Reason organized in folders by type of sound. I.e: lead, bass, piano, strings...etc...The REs I have, patches are organized the same way.

What more organization could one want? I'm genuinely asking.
May have something to do with some patches being at different octaves. Someone could be browsing bass patches and keep running into stuff that sounds like leads because the person who made the patch had it at a different octave?

That's all I can think of.
The fact that leads and basses are essentially the same thing is one thing, but someone mentioned seeing electric pianos and basses in the same location. The sounds odd to me

pummelfee
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04 Oct 2017

Yes they are organized in their genres, that is ok. But when i have used a warm pad from the ID8 and then want to replace it with something different, but also "warm" and "soft" it is hard to find a patch, there are hundrets of good pad sounds, and in the "strings and voice" folder there are patches that can also be used as "pads".
If the propellerheads could tag them with their characteristics like "warm" "metallic" "wide" "bells" etc. it would be easier to find something.
I used logic 10 years ago, but today they write in the app description: "...explore a huge library of over 3000 sounds, with a keyword browser to quickly zero in on what you’re looking for..."
Yes, a "keyword browser" is what i am missing in reason i think...

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kuhliloach
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04 Oct 2017

Not even sure where to begin QVprod.. Here's one- If I open Reason, then add a Re-Drum, then click Browse Patch I'm confused why Reason doesn't show me a list of Re-Drum patches. Instead it puts me in the root of Factory Sound Bank. Shouldn't the program be smart enough to know where Re-Drum patches are? I know where to dig to find some of them it just seems like far too many clicks. But just imagine if Reason had ALL Re-Drum patches on your system already indexed and presented in a way that was user friendly. Now if I add an RV-7000 to that Re-Drum the situation is even worse- Reason defaults to my Desktop as the location for RV-7000 patches - a place where there are none.

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QVprod
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04 Oct 2017

kuhliloach wrote:
04 Oct 2017
Not even sure where to begin QVprod.. Here's one- If I open Reason, then add a Re-Drum, then click Browse Patch I'm confused why Reason doesn't show me a list of Re-Drum patches. Instead it puts me in the root of Factory Sound Bank. Shouldn't the program be smart enough to know where Re-Drum patches are? I know where to dig to find some of them it just seems like far too many clicks. But just imagine if Reason had ALL Re-Drum patches on your system already indexed and presented in a way that was user friendly. Now if I add an RV-7000 to that Re-Drum the situation is even worse- Reason defaults to my Desktop as the location for RV-7000 patches - a place where there are none.
Actually there's a preference setting for this. Make sure this option is checked in the preferences Image
pummelfee wrote:
04 Oct 2017
Yes they are organized in their genres, that is ok. But when i have used a warm pad from the ID8 and then want to replace it with something different, but also "warm" and "soft" it is hard to find a patch, there are hundrets of good pad sounds, and in the "strings and voice" folder there are patches that can also be used as "pads".
If the propellerheads could tag them with their characteristics like "warm" "metallic" "wide" "bells" etc. it would be easier to find something.
I used logic 10 years ago, but today they write in the app description: "...explore a huge library of over 3000 sounds, with a keyword browser to quickly zero in on what you’re looking for..."
Yes, a "keyword browser" is what i am missing in reason i think...
To me it would seem that even with tagged browsing you would end up with the same issue simply as sound descriptions overlap. A bass can also be a lead, strings can also be pads...etc... but there are many who have a preference for this kind of browsing. I have a better understanding of what you mean though. All of the Native Instrument stuff has these kinds of browsers.

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jayhosking
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04 Oct 2017

My computer is doing something that prevents Reason from opening at the moment, but whenever I hit the Browse Patch button, it takes me to the folder of that instrument's/effect's patches. Doesn't it do that for all instruments?

These days, I'm usually building sounds from scratch, but I appreciate the organization of patches into categories (e.g. leads, pads) and often use the patch names as starting points. I've found it helpful in the past.

But yes, too much choice is crippling. This is a well-researched phenomenon. I'd encourage anyone feeling that way to just avoid patch browsing unless you absolutely cannot seem to make the sound you want on your own.

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Exowildebeest
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04 Oct 2017

*many

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kuhliloach
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04 Oct 2017

QVprod - that feature is a big problem for a few reasons. I want devices to load empty, initialized, but still be able to browse for patches if I choose to do so. There is almost no scenario I want the "default patch" to load. And why is this feature in any way linked to Reason's devices' basic ability to locate their own patches?

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QVprod
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05 Oct 2017

kuhliloach wrote:
04 Oct 2017
QVprod - that feature is a big problem for a few reasons. I want devices to load empty, initialized, but still be able to browse for patches if I choose to do so. There is almost no scenario I want the "default patch" to load. And why is this feature in any way linked to Reason's devices' basic ability to locate their own patches?
I would assume Reason's browser works that way is because you can load any patch regardless of what device has focus now. I can't remember if it worked the same way before Reason 8. I can understand a bit of annoyance at that though.

michael.jaye
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05 Oct 2017

I spent ages going through the whole FSB & all the Refills I had, re-saving all patches into catagorized folders:
Bass
Sub Basses
Leads
Chords
Arps
Keys
Pianos
Synth
Pads
Atmospheres
Strings
etc

It took ages, but was well worth the time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Marco Raaphorst
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05 Oct 2017

Brian Eno said recently something about the sounds these days which are so perfect and so easily accessible. Anyone OSX should be totally impressed with Garageband. Comes with extremely superb sounding patches. And so convient FX setups. It is so easy. Even on the iPhone.

Anyone can find the great sounds thesedays because we all have them. So it's no longer about the tools. You cannot impress anyone with a certain sound. So we're back to orginality, not in sound, but in melodies, chords, words, rhythm.

Too make my rant short: I try to limit myself. Scrolling though sounds is like scrolling through social media streams... endlessly. It's not about sound, it's about the other things. Of finding the "wrong" sounds and make them work in the track. Just randomly pick one and use it. Limit yourself. And keep thinking: a melody, harmony, a lyrics, is more important. Sound is just a preset. The other things are not.

Just my 5 cent :D

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demt
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05 Oct 2017

out of choas the phenix is reborn
Reason 12 ,gear4 music sdp3 stage piano .nektar gxp 88,behringer umc1800 .line6 spider4 30
hear scince reason 2.5

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aeox
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05 Oct 2017

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
05 Oct 2017
Anyone can find the great sounds thesedays because we all have them. So it's no longer about the tools. You cannot impress anyone with a certain sound. So we're back to orginality, not in sound, but in melodies, chords, words, rhythm.
For some genres of music, this couldn't be further from the truth. It's a combination of everything.

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Marco Raaphorst
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05 Oct 2017

aeox wrote:
05 Oct 2017
Marco Raaphorst wrote:
05 Oct 2017
Anyone can find the great sounds thesedays because we all have them. So it's no longer about the tools. You cannot impress anyone with a certain sound. So we're back to orginality, not in sound, but in melodies, chords, words, rhythm.
For some genres of music, this couldn't be further from the truth. It's a combination of everything.
sure sound is important but not as important as the other elements. change the sounds of Aphex Twin and you still have his composition. but if you change the melodies and harmonies everything changes.

sound is very relative. musical elements though are not. they are what make the composition. stuff that can be copyrighted.

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aeox
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05 Oct 2017

Marco Raaphorst wrote:
05 Oct 2017
aeox wrote:
05 Oct 2017


For some genres of music, this couldn't be further from the truth. It's a combination of everything.
sure sound is important but not as important as the other elements. change the sounds of Aphex Twin and you still have his composition. but if you change the melodies and harmonies everything changes.

sound is very relative. musical elements though are not. they are what make the composition. stuff that can be copyrighted.
I think it's equally important. Some songs have really uninteresting composition but awesome sound design to compensate and make it fresh and unique.
Some have both!

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