Synthetic Kits Review

If you read this blog regularly you know I love synthesized drum sounds, so when I heard the announcement for Nucleus Soundlab's Synthetic Kits immediately my interest was piqued. I had downloaded demos of other NSL software before and been tempted, but this was my first time purchasing one of their products. Now I don't know about you, but when I purchase soundware I'm always initially worried if the product is going to pan out. You see I've picked up a few different loop packs and refills that had good sounding mp3 demos, but when the product was in my hands the sounds ended up being unusable in most situations. Thankfully this isn't the case with Synthetic Kits at all. In fact I was digging this refill from the moment I downloaded it. And why? First off because the sounds are all synthesized. No samples. Which means the patches themselves can be tweaked very easily. But we'll get into that in a bit, I want to begin with the ingenuous layout and pattern based sequencing.

When you open the Synthetic Kits refill in your Reason rack, you're given the choice of Combinators, Demo Songs, as well as Malstrom, Subtractor, and Thor patches. These individual synthesizer patches contain the building blocks of the combinators, which makes it easy to swap sounds quickly. The Combinator folder itself contains four additional folders grouped according to bpm. And inside, each patch is listed with a recommended bpm number and the initials of the sound designer. I quickly found that some patches listed at 106bpm I liked better at 86bpm and vice versa, so feel free to explore the tempo regardless of the corresponding folder. Now the combinator patches themselves are set up in two basic styles; one relies on a Redrum module with the gate output controlling different synthesizers for sequencing and the other uses different Matrixes set up for each synthesized sound (although some of my favorite patches use a combination of the two - see "Montreal 115 JJ".) At first I found myself gravitating towards using the Redrum based patches because of my familiarity with using the XOX style layout, but the more I've used Synthetic Kits the more I've become enamored with the Matrix based patches. First off, you can open all of the Matrixes at the same time and see your patterns work together. Secondly you aren't stuck using the same grid for every sound. Which comes in really handy, especially for hi-hats and glitchy sounds. For a perfect example of this check out the stellar patch "Futurescape Breaks 130 TP" in which the hi-hats and percussion use a 32 step grid, while the other drums are set up for 16.



This brings us to the sounds themselves, and without sounding like a complete fanboy, I really love this refill. It runs the audio spectrum from Moroder-like clean and crisp to dirty glitchy dubstep and everything in between. And it isn't just beats. There are lots of great ambient pads and textural sounds here; not to mention leads, melodic percussion and bass synths, all set up pattern-based groovebox style. (Which if you started making music, like myself, on a Roland drum machine is a real blessing.) And the best part about the groovebox set-up is each patch comes with a few choice patterns ready to get you going. I could easily see some television composers using one patch alone for a piece; while laptop based DJs wanting to branch out into improvisation during their live sets will be thanking Nucleus Soundlab for creating these combinators. And don't forget with Nucleus Soundlab refills you also get a pdf file that goes in-depth about each patch, something I wish every sound designer did. Here's an example of the write up on one of my favorites:

Divine, 100 BPM, Tom Pritchard

Design Notes:
The beautiful pads in this patch have been created using vocoding – the bass drum and percussion are sent both to a mixer, and to a vocoder, which then act as the modulator signal for a Thor pad acting as the carrier, creating a warm, smooth stab with each bass drum hit. Playing notes between C3 and C5 will transpose the chord.

Inspiration Notes:
This patch is actually inspired by a patch I created for another ReFill by Nucleus SoundLab, Filter Research, which was an effect that automatically vocoded whatever was sent to it with an inbuilt harmonic carrier signal.

Rotary 1:
Selects pattern (if Run Pattern Devices is deactivated for manual input, sounds are mapped from C1 and above).

Rotary 2:
Increases the band count of the vocoder – will basically alter the tone of the pad slightly.

Rotary 3:
Shifts the vocoding frequencies, most noticeable with the filter open (Modwheel).

Rotary 4:
Controls the volume of the chord (removing this will leave percussive sounds only).

Button 1:
Alters the bass drum, making it sound incredibly fat. Deactivating this will provide a softer drum.

Button 2:
Applies echo and reverb to the sound.

Button 3:
Runs the patch through a bit crusher.

Button 4:
Mutes the kick drum (though the chord will still sound).

Modwheel:
Opens the filter on the chord.


As you can see from the above example, the descriptions in the pdf give not only insight into the patches creation, but hints into the ways the author imagined it's usage, which is very helpful when tweaking a patch.

In conclusion I highly recommend Synthetic Kits by Nucleus Soundlab. In fact, shortly after buying this I quickly snapped up their effects only refill Filter Research, which since buying I've had to remind myself not to use on every single track. Plus their new Reason Wizardry tutorial series is a great way to sharpen your own sound designing chops in Reason. If you're interested in looking more deeply into Synthetic Kits I recommend you check out the video that Nucleus Soundlab founder Jeremy Janzen has up on Vimeo demonstrating this refill and be sure to download the DEMO at Nucleus Soundlab's website.