18 Nov 2016
About the "red" part, there is a standard maintained by PH in all their refills and soundbanks (and generally adhered to by other sound designers):
- All mono patches should PEAK at -12dB at full velocity, all ranges
- All poly patches should PEAK at -12dB at full velocity when playing 4 or 5 notes, all ranges.
This is to avoid having to jump on the volume fader when trying several patches, and also, quoting Selig: "While this won't necessarily ensure all patches "sound" the same (loudness), it DOES give a much more consistent level to work with for compressors etc. as well as leaving enough headroom so mixes don't clip. Same goes for audio recording, as per the Reason user guide".
Edit: about the internal folder organization, it could be argued that sorting patches according to their author isn't the most convenient, because when looking for a patch you're not looking for something made by Alice or Bob, you're looking for a pad or a string or a bass. Hence PH's choice to sort according to the type of sound, and append the patchmaker's initials at the end of the patch name, e.g. "80s Double Pad -FP.cmb" (there is systematically a double space before the initials, I don't know if there is a reason for this or not, other than esthetics).