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What is Reason?

In its basic form, Reason is a MIDI studio in a box. Everything you need to make amazing music at your fingertips. You have an entire arsenal of synths, samplers, drum machines and effects, at your disposal and the great thing about Reason is that its self contained which makes it very CPU friendly.

You can have as many instruments and effects running as your computer can handle.The chaining possibilities are endless. The routing is so easy.One press of a button will turn your virtual studio rack around and all routing and patching is revealed.Reason is a great tool for churning out hot little ideas in your head and expanding them to full songs. From start to finish, Reason gives you all the tools to make a great sounding track or album. Because Reason is a self contained MIDI studio, its one drawback is that you can’t actually record audio into Reason’s sequencer or use any third party plug-ins. There are plenty of ways to work around this, but the best way is through a protocol called ReWire. With its ReWire capabilities, Reason is easily integrated into your favorite DAW, which gives you even more flexibility and power. With Rewire, you have the possibility to record live instruments, singers or just sample your favorite grooves to use with your Reason songs. You can also use ReWire to transfer your Reason tracks to your favorite DAW for further mixing with third party plug-ins and VST’s.

Getting to know Reason

   
Rack                                                      Sequencer

Reason is broken down into 2 sections. The Rack and the Sequencer. The Rack is where you create your devices, do all your patching & routing and tweak your sound to perfection. The Sequencer side is were you record your MIDI performances, edit automation & performance data and general editing duties. The first section we are going to take a look at is the Rack. When you start a fresh new project you will see only the Reason hardware interface. We’ll get into what its for later, right now you need to create a mixer in order to get sound from your devices to your soundcard. Right click (Ctrl+click for mac) in the open area beneath the interface. A “create device” menu should open. Select “Mixer 14:2”. A Mackie-esque mixer should be created and connected automatically. Another great feature in Reason is the auto patching/connecting. You have the option of having devices automatically patched to the mixer or you can manually patch them by holding SHIFT when creating the device. This will load the device, but not connect it.

Before we move onto the devices there are a few global attributes, shared between devices.

1. PATCH BROWSERS/Save Patch

The little folder and disk on every device is where you open your patch browser or save your preset patches. The folder is for the browser and the disk for saving. Anywhere you see these little folders and disks on devices, means you can load patches or samples for that particular device or save the amazing sound set that you just created. Each device has its own set of patches and the samplers can load individual samples as opposed to just patches, so you get the best of both worlds.

2. ReFills

ReFills are reasons soundbanks. Some are free and others available for purchase through download or mail order. Most of the commercial refills can be purchased at a music retail outlet. ReFills carry information pertaining to the patches within the refill. They will carry samples, envelope information, Rex files etc. They are basically your doorway to endless creation.

3. Folding Arrows

Every device has an arrow that will fold or unfold a device. The arrow can easily fold up to save space in the rack or unfold to give you more parameters to edit. Some devices have 2 arrows, which will give you access to a more in depth edit window. Holding Alt/option and clicking on the arrow of one device will fold all devices in the rack at once.

4. Bypass/On/Off Switches

Every effect device has a bypass/on/off switch, which will bypass the effect, turn the effect on or turn the effect off. Notice that if you switch the effect to “off” it will turn the device it is inserted in off.

The Transport

The transport is a pretty straightforward layout. Starting from the left working our way right we have the CPU meter which lets you know how much juice is being drawn from your CPU. Underneath that, is the audio out clip, which lights red when your output signal is too hot. At that point, you might want to consider pulling your master down a bit. The next section is the click. You have the option of having a pre-count, which will give you 1 bar of click before you start recording. The knob to the right is the clicks volume. Next you have your tempo and time signature, which can both be automated (more on automation later). After that we have the counter which is split into beats:bars:seconds and hours:mins:sec:ms. Clicking on the up/down arrows to the right of each counter will move the play-head in the sequencer to that location in time. The centre section is where the magic happens! It’s where you’ll find your basic controls for play, stop, record, rewind and fast-forward. The “New Overdub” and “New Alternative Take” functions, located to the right of the record button, are used during recording. They add a new note lane for recording, with or without muting the previous lane. Pressing Record now starts recording immediately. Pressing Stop several times will move the song position to the previous playback start position, and then to the start of the song. The last sections are the loop (left and right locators) and the Re-Groove mixer button. The loop on/off switch will turn loop mode on or off, which will keep the sequencer playing between the 2 markers. The Re-Groove mixer will be addressed in another module.

The reMIX 14:2

The reMIX 14:2 is the simplest virtual mixer you will ever use. Simply put, it has 14 input channels with 2 output channels. There are 4 aux sends on each channel with 4 returns located above the master section, plus a simple 2 band EQ on every channel. You can have as many mixers chained together to support as many devices as your computer can handle. When you run out of inputs on one mixer, create another mixer, which will be automatically chained to the other. Simplicity is the name of the game.

The microMIX

There is one other mixer in the form of a microMIX. It is a small, 6 channel affair which can be used as a sub- mixer or just extra inputs. Each channel has 1 Aux send, no EQ and 1 Aux return above the master. Yet, another simple reason concept.

Around the back

The above picture is what the rear of the rack looks like. By pressing the “TAB” key on your keyboard, the rack is easily spun around to show you all the routing and patching going on behind the scenes. By pressing the “L” key the cables are easily hidden, so you can see where all the devices are routed. All devices have CV (control voltage) and Gate inputs which can be linked to other devices in Reason’s rack or within the device itself to achieve wild and insane sounds and effects. This is where the magic really happens! Before we reach routing bliss there are a couple of things to take into consideration, so you don’t get too confused:

• Audio connectors are shown as large quarter inch jacks 
• Instrument devices, which generate audio, have either mono or stereoleft/right audio output connectors.

You do not have to use both outputs for devices with stereo outputs. Use the leftoutput to get a mono signal from a stereo device.

• CV/Gate connectors are shown as smaller “mini” jacks. 
• CV is typically used for modulation purposes.

For example you could modulate one parameter with the value produced by another parameter.

• Gate outputs/inputs are typically used to trigger events, such as note on/off values, envelopes etc.

Gate signals produce on/off values, plus a “value” which could be likened to (and used as) velocity.

• Audio cables are different shades of red 
• CV connections are different shades of yellow 
• Connections to and from Effects devices are shades of green

Audio Preferences

  
fig. 1                                                      fig.2

Before we move onto making music in reason, you need to get sound out of reason. So, we will have a look at the Audio Preferences window, which can be found in the edit menu (or in the Reason menu on Mac OSX) under Preferences. The first window is the General window (fig. 1) that covers all of your basic properties within reason. You can change the default song here from the one that reason opens with to a template of your own or to an empty rack. There is also a “Miscellaneous” section at the bottom that gives you 2 options. One is for High Sample Resolution, which should be ticked and the other is for loading default sounds into new devices. This one should not be ticked, unless you want a default patch/sample to play every time you create new devices.

In the drop down box at the top (fig. 2) you’ll find more options. Next up is Audio (fig. 3). In the Audio section you will setup your soundcard to output the sound from reason to your speakers/headphones. Under “audio card” you will assign the applicable soundcard device in your setup. Next in the audio section is the sample rate and buffer size. Sample rate is the quality of the audio being outputted from reason. For good quality audio, keep this at either 44.1 or 48 khz. Buffer size deals with latency. Keep this as low as possible. When you start to hear clicking or crackling in the audio, you have it too low. 512 is a good place to leave it at.

  
fig. 3                                                      fig. 4

The last tab we will take a look at is the “Control Surfaces & Keyboards”. Here is where you will set up your MIDI keyboards and controllers. Press “Auto-detect Surfaces” to do a search of which drivers are available to your system and then click the “Add” button at the button. A screen should open with different manufacturers names and brands. Find your surface/keyboard and assign it. Simple!

The Sequencer

The sequencer in Reason is like every other sequencer out there. Nothing special here folks. It is the same as all other sequencers. It is where you record, arrange and edit your performances. However, what makes Reasons sequencer stand out from others, is the easily accessible parameters. For instance, all the edit functions are mapped to the QWERTY keys on your keyboard. The piano roll editor is accessed with the press of a button (SHIFT+TAB) and all the device lanes can be folded with the click of an arrow (SHIFT+Alt and click to fold/unfold all). Let’s have a look at some of the basic functions.

Tool Bar

   Q   W   E    R    T   Y

These are your basic editing tools. By pressing any of the QWERTY keys will activate a specific function. Have a play with the buttons and familiarize yourself with these as they will make your workflow faster.

Grid Value

This drop down box will let you adjust the value of your sequencer grid. The range can be set from 1 bar to 1/64 note. The magnet icon is your “snap to” function, which will snap your recorded data to the grid, which comes in handy when editing. Pressing “S” on the keyboard will turn this function on or off.

Left & Right Locators

The locators are where your loop points are governed. Meaning, wherever the left locator is placed is where the playhead will revert to after it plays past the right locator. In loop mode. Left is the start of the loop, right is the end of the loop.

Tool Window

 

 

 

 

 

The tool window is a handy little window that gives you a plethora of options dealing with your track. From adding devices to altering notes and values, this window has a lot of creative value and should not be overlooked. Have a glance through the different pages and see what’s available to help manipulate your tunes.

 

 

Track Lanes

Track lanes are where your recorded data is entered for a specific device in your rack. When you create an instrument in the rack, a track lane is automatically created. When the record button is engaged, all performance data will be entered here in the form of “clips”. Clips are what Reason uses to organize your data

into little blocks. Whether is be actual notes or automation data, it will all be stored in a clip. There are 2 sections to a track lane. The top, being for notes and the bottom for automation. There is an icon representing each device in the left corner. Beside that is mute/solo functions and to the right of that is the automation record arm. Please be aware that the track selected will be highlighted in grey, letting you know that this is the track/device in use. In order for a device to play in the rack, it must be highlighted in the sequencer. Same goes for recording. Track lanes can be folded the same way devices can be in the rack by simply clicking the arrow to the left of the device icon.

Edit/Arrange Modes

This icon represents the Edit/Arrange windows. It is located beside the tool bar at the top left of the sequencer. You can either click it with the mouse or use the shortcut (SHIFT+TAB) to access either window. The Arrange window is where the clips are stored and the edit window (fig. 5) is where you can edit your note values, velocity settings, pitch range, modulation automation etc.

fig.5

LAB 1

Getting to know Reason

1. Open a Demo song from the Reason Folder in the browser. “File/Open/Locations/Reason Folder/Demo songs”.

2. Turn the rack around (TAB) and take a look at what’s going on and where things are routed.

3. Can’t see everything through the clutter of cables? Press “L” on your keyboard. All of the dangling cables should disappear, making it easier to see.

4. Flip the rack back to the front view (TAB) and go to the sequencer. Detach the sequencer by clicking the top right button just outside the rack. Unfold different track lanes and have a look at how the song is arranged. Solo each track and listen to the sounds. Pay attention to how the automation and MIDI clips are handled. Explore!

fig. 5

5. Open a new project with the demo still open. Create a 14:2 mixer.

6. Pick a device that you like in the demo song. What you are going to do is create the same patch in your new project.

7. Create the device in your new project and mimic the settings for the patch. Pay close attention to what is going on in the patch. For example; what is the filter section doing to the sound? How does the amp envelope affect the timbre of the sound?

8. After you have copied the exact settings, change a parameter that totally augments the sound, making it your own.

9. Save your patch.