ReasonBanks - Analogue Monsters 3

AM3 review by HB - Germany

about HB: "I've been making electronic music for 25 years"

Like: Dear Andras,

you have beaten everything with your AM3 and Virology refill.
First, in sheer size. Now, I ve got 5,2 GB reasonbanks-refills on my harddisk - even the sonic refill Gold bundle (original 20 CDs) is 3,8, the whole props including all factory refills is 1,7 and something like the Garritan Orchestra Refill is tiny 0,7.

Second, in quality. I never heard any glitch, noise or distortion, and you caught exactly the sounds I like and are in my opinion useful to reproduce some standard sounds. In my ears it sound better than the original hardware, it's a fresh and clear, brilliant sound, maybe because of three.

Three, the hardware solution. I owned a lot of synth, at least an oberheim. Although I liked the sounds most I felt soon bothered by this machine (and these machines in general) and I put it away. It's DA-converters were noisy, so I went digitally out using other converters, the hardware was often defective, the keys were too few and bad, it weighted more than 12 kg - more than my whole equipment now. A machine perfect for bodybuilder and soldering hobby electronic experts.

Now, thanks to your refill, every problem regarding this unhandy stand-alone-hard-software-solution is solved. I have a perfect, seamless integration of vintage synths into my digital workspace. Thanks to reason and its endless possibilities und unmatched stability I can alter the sound in any way, in ways which would been never ever been possible before, and you made already some pretty good combinator patches. Thanks to my quadcore there are no limitation of processing power in sight for the next years.

And thanks to reaper I can process and master now the sound combined with vocals in crystal-clear-64-bit-quality using rewire in realtime. By the way the quadcore, line6-soundcard and your refill have been much cheaper than just the oberheim itself.

So, this is my conclusion and last remark: Your synths are better than the originals.

Thanks
Holger

Dislike: It could be more;-)

Grade: 5 points - excellent, highly recommended!

AM2 review by Jd - Germany

Like:I bought all of "Reasonbanks"-refills because sounds are best I´d ever heard and working with : ))

Well, really: all "Reasonbanks"-refills brings to you: outstanding sets of sounds for very low price!!

reg. Jd

Dislike: -

Grade: 5 points - excellent, highly recommended!

AM2 review by Bjorn P. (techno lover) - USA

Like:As a beginner producing techno, this refill took my tracks to a whole new level. I love the sounds of the synths on here, and I completely stopped using other sounds. The sound quality is great, and I couldn't be more satisfied. Thanks!

Dislike: -

Grade: 5 points - excellent, highly recommended!

October 2008 - Analogue Monsters 3 in MusicTech Magazine

Reviewed by Keith Gemmell

The Waldorf Microwave, Korg MS-20, Roland Jupiter 4 and Juno-60 were all popular synthesizers back in their day. And along with the Moog Prodigy, Korg Poly800 Mk11and the Korg MonoPoly, they are now collectable instruments the world over. The chances of finding even just a few of these analogue dinosaurs in good condition are slim. But all is not lost because the Pink Noise team have sampled the best sounds from all seven along with two more recent analogue favourites, the Alesis Andromeda A6 and the Studio Electronics SE-1X, and made them available as Reason Refills.

We were very impressed with the original Analogue Monsters collection when we first reviewed it in 2005 but since then Pink Noise have completely rewritten and enlarged the patch banks as well as adding new NN-XT and Combinator banks. They’ve also added samples from another 1980s classic, the Oberheim Matrix, which brings the complete ‘monster’ tally to ten. Noted for its warm sounds this legendary instrument was the last true analogue synthesizer made by Oberheim.

5GBs of content amounts to a significant number of synthesizer patches – apart from the 72 Rex files – but in this case the quantity doesn’t compromise the quality. Our only reservation is that, inevitably, with ten analogue synthesizers in a single collection, many of the patches, although not duplicated, do sound similar. This isn’t a criticism, though, more an observation and for such a reasonable price, true analogue buffs are sure to be delighted with their purchase.

Verdict: An impressive, value-for-money Reason Refill containing samples and patches from 10 legendary analogue synthesisers.

June 2007 - Analogue Monsters v2 review by Amazona

Amazona.de is the biggest magazine for music and computers worldwide in German language. Björn Morgenstern has written a very detailed and deep review about our much-loved Analogue Monsters.

This review is really a meticulous work, and the final conclusion is "Sehr Gut"!;-)

German readers, you can read he full review here!

Björn also e-mailed me a short version in English, so now I publish it here with his kind permission:

"I think it's a really huge library with a good quality. The sound is great analog, nevertheless suitable for any music-style. That's a good point, because libraries often focused on special music-styles, where are only parts usable for the customer. There are no needless breakfillers for me and I think there are many creative potential in this library for future programming. Mostly patches are even for low RAM and CPU, so you can use it on any Computer and loading is mostly fast.

The idea to offer the sampledata out of the refill is fine, because Reason users often have lot of refills and don't use all stuff in it. So you can pick up the sounds you want and make your own personal refills or you can save your songs within all the sampledata, or you can use the sounds in a different sampler.

Price of the Library is very fair and there is no really disadvantage. Only one thing perhaps to do, you had already write it to me, making some more patches / combinators with this huge raw-data. Perhaps with some more Effect-combinator devices in Vintage-Analog-Style (like the nice string-machine Ensemble effect in the refill of Robert Sigmuntowski or some Vintage Sound phasers, delays and so on). However, I wrote in the review that you will bring up some more combinator-patches in future, somewhere this year."

February 2006 - Analogue Monsters v2 in MusicTech Magazine