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Looking at the "Trio Bundle", each of the refills looks pretty good, but I also know it's been something like six years since they were released. Have they been surpassed, so far as REs?

Also wondering, about the bass and piano samples specifically, how well they handle sustain and release... will I need to choose specific sets of samples if I want a stopped bass note or a staccato piano note, or is there enough tech wizardry going on that means the sounds will react to how I play on a MIDI keyboard (basically, holding down vs quickly releasing the key)? Maybe that's an obvious question but I haven't spent much time in the Reason samplers, using it mostly for synths til now.

Cheers!

These all sound super great and hold up surprisingly well. Reason Drums has a variety of great kits that sound quite natural when using existing drummer's midi (some of the vintage mono drums now in the stock sounds are derived from the same sessions). In my opinion, the drum sounds are far more versatile and better sounding than their A-class drummer series. Reason Pianos has two good grand pianos and one amazing upright, and are not only good pianos, but also distinct from other REs. I've used Reason Bass less but have gotten good results with it as well, when I didn't happen to have a bass guitar handy. If I remember correctly, there are articulations on the keyboard that allow you to switch playing styles, so no, it won't "react to how I play", but it is trivial to switch between styles while you're playing a bass line.

Yip . Go to sounds for me. Also i think if your using Reason for producing band demos (i'm not, but if you were) they are an essential producer tool kit especially the drums which contain an amazing set of quality live kits and producer kits.

Recently i have started to study the song demos that come with all 3 refills and everything you need to know about producing is contained within these demos (all using stock devices) , RDK comes with ready made midi grooves that are handy ( a bit like the octorex loops) and the kits are sensibly mapped accross the keyboard. I love the Piano sounds.

Sus4 wrote: ↑

31 Dec 2017

Looking at the "Trio Bundle", each of the refills looks pretty good, but I also know it's been something like six years since they were released. Have they been surpassed, so far as REs?

Also wondering, about the bass and piano samples specifically, how well they handle sustain and release... will I need to choose specific sets of samples if I want a stopped bass note or a staccato piano note, or is there enough tech wizardry going on that means the sounds will react to how I play on a MIDI keyboard (basically, holding down vs quickly releasing the key)? Maybe that's an obvious question but I haven't spent much time in the Reason samplers, using it mostly for synths til now.

Cheers!

I have all three.

I never use the RDK as the samples in my opinion don't carry enough umph for Trap style beats. I rarely use Reason Bass, but there are some nice patches that go well with almost any genre. Especially rock and Hip Hop. The Reason Pianos are the real star here though. I got a new computer and haven't been bothered to download them again (just lazy I guess) but they sound really good and sit well in your mix out the box. One thing that I notice the Kontakt pianos don't do. The producer pianos folder has some really nice patches that can complement nearly any style of music.

The only downside is it takes a minute for the patches to load up in all three due to the amount of samples in each patch and it can get a little annoying to wait every time you preview a patch to find what you're looking for.

As far as if they have been surpassed, I haven't found anything that surpasses Reason Bass except maybe Trillian Bass from Spectrasonics. That's $279 though. Radical Keys and Radical Pianos are good RE to have but I think Reason Pianos is more versatile. I see that the Reason Trio is only 89 bucks and I have to say that it's a steal at that price for what you get. IMO you should definitely get the trio over Trillian Bass or some other sound library.

Hope this helps.

Drums is cool but I hate the format, I want to wire up redrum and Kong kits myself, not a fan of nnxt drums. Never use it.

Bass is great, so is pianos.

I bought RDK a zillion years ago and still get tons of use out of it whenever I’m needing a live drumkit sound. The pre-effected kits are kind of wonky but if you’re willing to pop open the combinator and do a bit of EQing yourself, the unprocessed preset kits can sound amazing. The included drum midis are useful for getting an idea of how to work with them. Nowadays you can probably get something that’s more out-of-the-box sleek for a competitive price in the VST world, but if RDK is on a decent sale then I honestly do still recommend it. Reason Pianos and especially Reason Bass also sound fantastic, and are full of great instant-gratification sounds that are nicely playable.

The only refills worth buying are Bitley, PinkNoise, and Jiggery Pokery. Nothing but Quality from all three.

It's been more than 6 years. More like 10 years. They're not on the same level as VST options, but for $89 nothing beats it in price. The quality is decent. Only downside is slow loading times and large ram footprint since Reason doesn't disk stream.

Can't speak for bass, but piano is pretty good. It's limited by NNXT. Reason Drums is great but you have to know what you're doing programming and mixing drums...I've found the presets need love, and the routing is all crazy in a combi into a 14:2 mixer. Once you get it it's pretty clear, but *nowhere* near as easy to use and get sounds out of as something like EZ Drummer. YMMV.

Thanks for the answers, everyone! Love this forum.

I've got some experience mixing live drum kits, and really don't like having more VSTs open in Reason than necessary, so it sounds like for $89, the trio's a pretty good good substitute for when I don't want to pay for studio time/session players (ie., always) or rely on my crappy bass through a DI.

Funny someone should bring this up but the Piano and Bass refills are still pretty good. Reason Bass refill is still one of my go to or initial bass I use when creating rough drafts.

Reason drums is Ok but unfortunately All my drum parts are now being done by Toontrack Superior drummer, Heavyocity & Spitfire Audio VST instruments. Reason drums is lighter on system resources.

On a similar note, has anyone else shun away from Props stuff lately? It's a small thing but buying Radical Piano just to have it included in Reason 10 seems like a bummer (but only to those who purchased it as RE). I'm guessing Radical Keys will be bundled in Reason 11, I guess they haven't bundled their own refills with the software yet...

WillyOD wrote: ↑

05 Jan 2018

On a similar note, has anyone else shun away from Props stuff lately? It's a small thing but buying Radical Piano just to have it included in Reason 10 seems like a bummer (but only to those who purchased it as RE). I'm guessing Radical Keys will be bundled in Reason 11, I guess they haven't bundled their own refills with the software yet...

So far, Radical Piano is the only never free item that's been added to Reason. Everything else had been available for free at some point. I don't think this will be expected behavior, but rather that with doing their first major content upgrade in a long time they needed a "better" stock piano. Radical fit the bill. The electromechanical refill (also free) was already integrated into Reason 9 so I don't see radical keys being added since they cover the same territory.

QVprod wrote: ↑

06 Jan 2018

WillyOD wrote: ↑

05 Jan 2018

On a similar note, has anyone else shun away from Props stuff lately? It's a small thing but buying Radical Piano just to have it included in Reason 10 seems like a bummer (but only to those who purchased it as RE). I'm guessing Radical Keys will be bundled in Reason 11, I guess they haven't bundled their own refills with the software yet...

So far, Radical Piano is the only never free item that's been added to Reason. Everything else had been available for free at some point. I don't think this will be expected behavior, but rather that with doing their first major content upgrade in a long time they needed a "better" stock piano. Radical fit the bill. The electromechanical refill (also free) was already integrated into Reason 9 so I don't see radical keys being added since they cover the same territory.

I agree with QVprod. It can also be argued that Radical Piano likely ran through its product life cycle, in that they probably weren't selling a lot of licenses anymore, so including it as a stock RE was a logical conclusion to its product life. Complete speculation, but not out of the realm of possibility.

QVprod wrote: ↑

06 Jan 2018

So far, Radical Piano is the only never free item that's been added to Reason.........they needed a "better" stock piano.

Oh yuck, I hate Radical Piano and I deleted it from R10. The 'A Grand Piano' from the FSB is better than that piece of crap. IMO, the best Reason piano is any of the pianos in the Reason Pianos refill - but why even mess with all the shitty Reason pianos and shitty Reason refills anymore? Sounds like you want to stay inside Reason. There are much better options outside of Reason. Yeah, maybe not cheaper, but seriously if I started over I would invest in the higher quality plugins and sample libraries from the start because it would have saved me more money in the long run.

Have fun with the Trio Bundle though.

hurricane wrote: ↑

06 Jan 2018

QVprod wrote: ↑

06 Jan 2018

So far, Radical Piano is the only never free item that's been added to Reason.........they needed a "better" stock piano.

Oh yuck, I hate Radical Piano and I deleted it from R10. The 'A Grand Piano' from the FSB is better than that piece of crap. IMO, the best Reason piano is any of the pianos in the Reason Pianos refill - but why even mess with all the shitty Reason pianos and shitty Reason refills anymore? Sounds like you want to stay inside Reason. There are much better options outside of Reason. Yeah, maybe not cheaper, but seriously if I started over I would invest in the higher quality plugins and sample libraries from the start because it would have saved me more money in the long run.

Have fun with the Trio Bundle though.

Interesting response with a lot of really odd assumptions. #1, I never said I thought Radical piano sounded good. In fact I've criticized it plenty of times on this forum. Notice the word "better" is in quotation marks. Some people think it sounds amazing though, but if nothing else it's certainly more flexible in sound than any other Reason stock pianos. I personally own and use plenty of non Reason pianos.

Furthermore, I even said earlier in this thread that the trio bundle is not on the same level with VST options but for $89 the quality is decent. Not everyone needs the most pristine sounding instruments so these still work for people. Heck I still hear the Yamaha Motif Full Concert Grand patch used on recent records. But even if the OP should decide to upgrade to better options in the future, $89 isn't really much of a loss for 3 decent sounding instruments.

Lol, "odd assumptions" because I was quoting you, but my response was aimed at the OP (I'm lazy when it comes to doing multiple quotes). I know what you think of Radical Piano : )

dustmoses wrote: ↑

31 Dec 2017

Drums is cool but I hate the format, I want to wire up redrum and Kong kits myself, not a fan of nnxt drums. Never use it.

Bass is great, so is pianos.

Now you have the great robotic bean's tm1 to trigger nnxt drum preset with redrum or propulsion or whatever. What a great rack extension. It just came out but when it came out i just wondered how nobody could have thought of it before props included.

hurricane wrote: ↑

06 Jan 2018

Lol, "odd assumptions" because I was quoting you, but my response was aimed at the OP (I'm lazy when it comes to doing multiple quotes). I know what you think of Radical Piano : )

Multi quoting is crucial lol. Else the person quoted thinks the response was for them.

Radical Piano sounds great when you tweak it. The velocity key response is crucial . In most cases it better not to have the key hit and release to prominant sounding . The ambience setting is also fantastic on its own or as a send effect combined with a touch of reverb and the echo (delay). As said many times a colourfull characterfull piano is what you need sometimes over a hall steinway.
The problem with Radical is it dosn't work properly with a sustain pedal ... the algorythim is bizzare and all wrong ....totally wrong

What happen to the Abbey Road refill?

Pralijah wrote: ↑

11 Jan 2018

What happen to the Abbey Road refill?

IIRC, this is another example for "License contract has ended" and therefore they no longer can sell it. Every now and then you'll find a copy for sale here @forum.

Sus4 wrote: ↑

31 Dec 2017

Looking at the "Trio Bundle", each of the refills looks pretty good, but I also know it's been something like six years since they were released. Have they been surpassed, so far as REs?

Fun fact:

I was cleaning up some stuff here in the studio and just found a Reason Studio Combo invoice from....

drumroll

2018!!!!

These refills are making 10 years this year and they are still worth it. Not the 244 eur i gave at that time but still!!!

Reason pianos was released 9 years ago: