Having recently purchased Logic 8 and Reason 4 as part of my 2009 studio project I was intrigued to learn about some of the Reason Refills that are available, particularly Reason Drum Kits 2.0. Before I go any further I’ll let Reason’s marketing department tell you a little bit about them in the following Quicktime video.

Interesting stuff, don’t you think? But there is a problem. Remember the guy in the video, the one in the Mutant Maniac shirt? He couldn’t play the drums and was, presumably, pretty clueless about any of the musical or technical aspects of drumming.

Whilst the samples in the Reason Drum Kits 2.0 Refill are very professionally recorded, using Reason’s ingenious Hypersampling technology, they are still just samples. They only provide sound, they don’t, can’t and never will be able to provide creativity and musicality.

From a remixing perspective Refills like this are wonderful. Projects like Panthalassa, a Miles Davis remix experiment, thrive and depend on this sort of software. But, as in the aforementioned example, the creativity of real, flesh and blood, musicians must have created the original source material if the result is to retain any musical and creative integrity.

Can this software replace a live drummer. No. Can it augment a studio and become the backbone of a high quality remix project. Yes.

Am I going to purchase Reason Drum Kits 2.0? Maybe.