The Salazar Brothers Reggaeton Refill

Reviewed by Daphne Kalfon

Introduction

Reggaeton Refill is a collection of sounds that are influences from Bomba, Reggae and hiphop all blended into one, hence the name Reggaeton. The collection of sounds can be used to create completely new pieces of music or can be used as additions to any other music to infuse it with a Latin-Jamaican flavor.

Getting Started

Reggaeton comes with 20 song starters (demos) to give a good idea of what can be done with it. I listened to them all and was impressed with the variety of music. Each time you choose a demo file to open and listen to, a “Details” window appears below it, providing information about the stylistic basis and influences in the song, who the song was written and produced by, its length, tempo and time signature.

Apart from the song starters, Reggaeton comes with 12 Combinator Patches, Drum Loops which consist of collections of loops at 88 bpm, 92 bpm and 95 bpm as well as a collection of Percussion Loops which use bongos, cajon, cascara, congas, guirro, shakers, shekere, snare, surdu, tamburin and timbales. In addition to that there are Malstrom Patches, Drum Kit, Percussion and Synth Midi Files, NN-XT Sampler Patches for Drums, FX, Percussion, Stabs, Synth, Vinyl FX, and Vocals, Redrum Drum Kits and Subtractor Patches.

Using the Software

I usually start a new project by laying down a beat first. So I decided to listen to a few of the drum loops from each of the three folders. As you click on each one, you can listen to the loop play through once to see what it sounds like, and it shows up as the one playing in the Dr.Rex loop player as well.

I ended up picking one from the 88 bpm folder called “Dance hall 1g”. From there I went on to preview the sounds in the percussion folder. Again, clicking on each sample has it play through once, to allow you to preview it while in the file browser. I decided it would be easier to have the drum loop I’ve already chosen, play in my project window while I listen and browse through the percussion loops, to really find a good fit. The other way to do it is to scroll through the percussion loops on the actual Dr. Rex loop player and use the preview button to listen while the other loop plays, and that works well too.

The only adjustment I had to make was to the tempo of the drum loop, which had loaded in at 88bpm, whereas the bongo loops I was previewing were all at 95 bpm. After listening to the ones in that collection, I chose one of the bongo loops that seemed to go well with my drum loop.

Then using the same method, I browsed through the Cajon loops and chose one that I really liked and that went well with the two loops I now had. And I did the same for an Sdrumloop loop, Shaker loop, snare loop, and finally a Timbale loop.

Now I have a really pleasing rhythm track to build on!

I first browsed the sounds for the NN-XT Sampler. There are lots of individual drum sounds there, such as snares, kicks and hihats and there is a great variety to choose from, as well as other assorted sounds and drum kits, so that you can build your own entirely customized drum track if you want to go that route, or simply to add onto your existing drum loop combination.

Also included in the NN-XT sampler patches are brass sounds, organ, FX such as sweeps, blasts, and air horns, various percussion, stabs both wet and dry, a folder of various synth sounds, Vinyl FX, and all kinds of male vocal samples. I was really impressed with the variety and quality of those vocal samples and I picked one for my arrangement.

Among the sounds for the SubTractor, I really didn’t hear anything that I felt made for a good fit with the rhythm track I had created.

From the Malstrom patch folder I chose a subby bass which I doubled with a bass sound from the Reason Factory sound bank, and I also chose an accordion sound the latter of which I added reverb to, using a preset from the RV7000.

As well there are 20 Redrum drum kits - once again the sounds here are all of great quality and using the Redrum machine, the combinations and beats you can create are literally endless. For my example however, I just stuck to the Dr Rex drum loops.

I really wanted a kind of lean melody line above everything else going on so I chose a xylophone sound from the Orkester Sound Bank to round out my music. From the Combinator patches, the sounds in the Sound Box folder really stood out for me and I used the Bachata Gtr 4 patch to add another melodic layer in the mix. I should mention that I couldn’t preview the Combinator patches in the other folders - not sure why. It could be a bug, or a shortcoming on my part.

At any rate, I created a fun, rhythmic little piece of music using Reggaeton, which you can listen to by clicking the link below:

Reggaeton Demo

Conclusion

I would say the highlights of this collection for me were the tremendous variety and high quality of all drum loops, drum kits, individual drum sounds, and all percussion sounds, as well as the vocal samples and some of the FX. Overall a fun and versatile addition to whatever one already has in their Reason arsenal.

Recommendation

Always try before you buy. As mentioned earlier in this review, there is a downloadable demo version of Reggaeton on the main website, and this will allow you to evaluate whether or not you would want to use Reggaeton in your own music creation projects.