016 Buddha Machines (Refill)

The original Buddha Machine is a lo-fi hardware loop player created by FM3 (available in 7 funky colours):

I first came across the Buddha Machine when I downloaded the LAS-9 app for my Android phone:

A very simple app comprising looped samples lifted from the Buddha Machine 2.0 or 3.0 (samples were downloadable from links within the app) triggered by clicking on any of the 9 cryptic symbols to create a multi-tracked ambient track (the hardware buddha machine was monophonic I believe). Some basic sample properties such as pitch and panning are editable within the app. As the samples in LAS-9 vary in length the sound morphs in time and never fails to tire and shortly after I started this blog I had an idea to create a Buddha Machine Refill.

Contained within the Refill are the following:

• Buddha Machine samples (1.0, 2.0 & 3.0 (Chan Fang) in .WAV format obtained from here, converted using Bias Peak Pro where only mp3 files were provided)
• 3 NN-XT patches
• 3 RNS Song Files containing Buddha Machine Combinator Combinations where the individual loops can be triggered from the Combinator buttons (just make sure the run pattern devices button is selected)

For more details I suggest you download and start experimenting!

The Refill:

Buddha Machines.rfl

The Buddha Machine Combinator Combination Skins (example):

011 Classic C64 (Refill)

There are great free sample resources out there and many thanks to the few who spend hours sampling, trimming and looping audio files for no financial gain. We salute you!

BPB have created a series of three Commodore 64 sample packs which I found myself cooing over lately, I used to love my old C64. The unique sounds on offer are a product of the SID chip found on the hardware running the Mono Synthesizer program. Please see the relevant pages on the BPB blog for more details. Here are the three pages containing the samples which also contain a brief description of their contents.

Commodore 64 Synthesizer Sessions Part 1
Commodore 64 Synthesizer Sessions Part 2
MSSIAH Drummer sample pack (for drums)

What has that got to do with Reason I hear you cry? The Sample Packs only contain the raw audio waves so I have mapped these to the Reason samplers (mainly NN-19s but one instance of NN-XT and a ReDrum). I have also created a couple of Combinators which may be of interest and packaged everything up in a Refill. These files reference a separate Refill containing all the samples which I am not distributing here for obvious reasons. All you need to do is download the files and create your own Refill yourself (like I have done). The file structure I have used is as follows which you need to follow so the patches look for the samples in the right place:

The Refill:

Classic C64 Patches.rfl

The Skin (courtesy of http://william.lamy.free.fr/reason/):

003 Nose Blow (Refill)

Found this on my hard drive when tinkering with the idea of starting this blog. Not meant to be serious in any way, it's me blowing my nose! The Combinator controls are fairly straightforward, Mod Wheel controls LFO amount.

The Refill:

Nose Blow.rfl

The Skin:

002 microKORG ADK (Refill)

In addition to this new blog, I have been working on another blog for my microKORG called Patch a Week. In it, I published a series of posts for an Analog Drum Kit I was making on that synth, to be sampled and used in some of my compositions.

At the end of the process I created a Combinator patch using the samples.

The original post:

ADK Samples / Reason Refill

The Refill:

The microKORG ADK.rfl

The Skin:

001 Omnichord (Refill)

My Omnichord Refill first made it's debut as a reader contribution on Robbneu's great Reason - Patch a Day blog.

Here's a brief description (extract from Robbneu's original post based on my original instructions):

The theory is you set the sequencer playing and a rex drumbeat sampled from the omnichord starts up. You can choose which rhythm program it plays by soloing channels in the drum mixer within the combi. There are three octaves of organ, octave one is C to B Major, octave 2 is C to B Minor and octave 3 is C to B 7th. You can turn the optional layered "sonic strings" on or off from the front of the combi. The rest of the keyboard above that is the lead sound from the omnichord.

I still can't get the muting of the organ/lead sounds at the start of every bar sorted out, no idea why it is doing that. Only workaround is to increase the release of the NNXT instruments to maximum but only issue then is because it is a looped sample it'll go on forever.

I think I know how to sort the muting issue and will tackle it once I find my original unpacked samples and patches.

The Refill:

Omnichord.rfl

The Skin: