Newbie: Difference between a refill and emulation

Need some fresh sounds? Want to show off your sound design skills? Here's the place!
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musicman
Posts: 26
Joined: 09 Jun 2017

15 Jun 2017

Hi,

I am a newbie to Reason, in fact I've not been near music production for about 17 years previously having owned original hardware such as JP8, SH101, Juno 106, TR909 etc (which I sold for peanuts to pay for a divorce before vintage synths become expensive collectibles!). Now getting back into it.

I am looking at software versions of the above to add to Reason but I am a little confused about the differences between refills and emulations and just need some clarification. I've been looking at Softphonics and TAL products. Are the Softronics refills basically soundbanks but you can't create your own where as TAL it's a very close emulation but you can create sounds as well as using preset sounds?

Cheers
Neil

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PurpleMonkeyDishes
Posts: 164
Joined: 25 Jul 2015
Location: Florida
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16 Jun 2017

Yes exactly,
Essentially The refills use recording of the Real instrument via note for note samples.
Emu uses digital recreations

It really depends on how authentic you want the sound to be! I personally have the refills and used them a lot. But my music uses a lot of non digital instruments so it suits.
Music is everything

PurpleMonkeyDishwasher

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Gorgon
Posts: 1233
Joined: 11 Mar 2016

28 Jun 2017

musicman wrote:
15 Jun 2017
Hi,

I am a newbie to Reason, in fact I've not been near music production for about 17 years previously having owned original hardware such as JP8, SH101, Juno 106, TR909 etc (which I sold for peanuts to pay for a divorce before vintage synths become expensive collectibles!). Now getting back into it.
Ouch!
I am looking at software versions of the above to add to Reason but I am a little confused about the differences between refills and emulations and just need some clarification. I've been looking at Softphonics and TAL products. Are the Softronics refills basically soundbanks but you can't create your own where as TAL it's a very close emulation but you can create sounds as well as using preset sounds?
A refill is nothing but patches and/or sounds that make use of already existing devices.
"This is a block of text that can be added to posts you make. There is a 255 character limit."

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musicman
Posts: 26
Joined: 09 Jun 2017

28 Jun 2017

Thanks Gorgon.

Ouch indeed! I'm not bitter lol

User avatar
musicman
Posts: 26
Joined: 09 Jun 2017

28 Jun 2017

PurpleMonkeyDishes wrote:
16 Jun 2017
Yes exactly,
Essentially The refills use recording of the Real instrument via note for note samples.
Emu uses digital recreations

It really depends on how authentic you want the sound to be! I personally have the refills and used them a lot. But my music uses a lot of non digital instruments so it suits.
Thanks. I did actually email the guys at Softphonics in the end and they pretty much said the same thing

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