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Propellerhead Reason - 1.0.1 Getting Started Guide

1. 82 About Self contained Songs The song is the main file format in Reason A song contains the device setup and all settings in the rack as well as everything you have recorded in the sequencer However this is not always sufficient Should you open your song on another computer or send itto another Reason user you would also have to bring all samples and REX files used by the devices in the song To make this easier Reason allows you to create self contained songs A self contained song contains not only the references to the used files but also the files themselves You can choose exactly which files should be in cluded in the self contained song with the following exception Files that are part of a ReFill cannot be included in a self contained song If your song contains samples or REX files from a ReFill other users must have the same ReFill to be able to play the song To specify which files should be included in the song proceed as follows 1 Pull down the File menu and select Song Self Contain Settings A dialog appears listing all samples and REX files used in the song Song Self Contain Settings This song references sounds in the Reason database Checking the sounds below will include that data in the song itself making the song self contained E Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhC4 way 99K Reason Factory Sound Sampler 1 amp a GtrhC5 way 72K R
2. 6 Welcome Thank you for purchasing Reason This program is our biggest effort to date We hope you will enjoy using it just as much as we enjoyed making it You see at Propellerhead Software we are very much our own users We make the products we want for ourselves We d like to think that this affects the final result in a positive way after all if we re going to spend hours making music with this program ourselves it d better be good Another strong driving force for us is the communication with all the people around the world that use our applications for expressing themselves One meeting point for all of us is the song archives and message boards on our web pages This is a unique forum where professionals and beginners meet on equal terms to exchange music and ideas Even more importantly it s a forum open to you Share your experiences by communicating with us and others and by uploading your songs for others to hear We think you will ap preciate the feedback from other Reason users all over the world just as much as we appreciate the feedback we get from you So see you on the Propellerhead web Yours truly The Propellerhead Software Team www propellerheads se REASON INSTALLATION About the manuals This is the Getting Started manual covering the basic features and proce dures in Reason lt also contains a tutorial section and a guided tour to help you get going with the program
3. Operation Manual by Synkron Ludvig Carlson Anders Nordmark and Roger Wiklander The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Propellerhead Software AB The software described herein is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to any other media expect as specifically allowed in the License Agreement No part of this publication may be copied reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded for any purpose without prior written permission by Propellerhead Software AB 2000 Propellerhead Software and its licensors All specifications subject to change without notice Reason is a trademark of Propellerhead Software All other commercial symbols are protected trademarks and trade names of their respective holders All rights reserved REAS Installation Welcome About the manuals What is in the Reason package Requirements About the Audio Hardware About MIDI Interfaces Installing the Software The Factory Sound Bank Setting Up About this Chapter Setting up the Audio Hardware Setting up MIDI Input Setting Sound and Patch Search Paths Quick Tutorial About this Chapter Playing a Song Creating a new song Guided Tour Common Operations and Concepts About this Chapter Conventions in the Manual Making Settings Tool Tips Context menus Undo Window Tech
4. Click the folder button in the Patch section on the device panel E PATCH SELECT az INTERPOL ATION Selecting a Subtractor patch brings up a new sound just like when se lecting programs or patches on a hardware synthesizer NN19 sampler patches contains information about which samples are used and their settings key mapping tuning etc plus the pa rameter settings on the device panel It is important to note that the sampler patch doesn t contain the actual samples only information about which sample files are used Redrum drum computer patches contain a complete drum kit that is information about which drum samples are used together with the parameter settings for each drum sound Again the actual samples are not included in the patch only file refer ences Also note that Redrum patches are separated from Redrum pat terns selecting a new patch will not affect the patterns in the device Patches do not include information about any routing done on the back of the device REASON WORKING WITH PATCHES CHANNEL 343 EXCLUSIVE Note On the panels of the Redrum and NN19 devices there are also other folder buttons used for loading samples Make sure you click on the button in the Patch section next to the patch name display gt Select the Browse Patches item on the Edit menu or device context menu Note that the Edit menu reflects which device is selected in other words you
5. Windows Under Windows no special installation procedure is required just install the MIDI interface and its drivers as described in the documentation that came with the hardware MIDI Connections Connect a MIDI cable from the MIDI Out on your MIDI keyboard or other MIDI controller to a MIDI In on your MIDI interface This is sufficient to be able to play and record notes and controllers in Reason from the MIDI key board If you have a MIDI interface with more than one input it is possible to make more advanced MIDI connections this is described in the electronic documentation REASON INSTALLATION 9 10 Installing the Software Now it s time to install the actual Reason software 1 Insert the Reason CD labeled Program Disc into your CD ROM drive 2 On the CD ROM locate the file called Install Reason and double click on it 3 Follow the instructions on screen 4 During the installation you will be asked whether you want to install the Reason Factory Sound Bank or not This is a large roughly 500 MegaByte file containing patches samples and loops gt If you choose to install the sound bank you will be asked to insert the Reason CD labeled Factory Sound Bank Again follow the instructions on screen gt If you choose not to install the sound bank you will need to have the Factory Sound Bank CD in the drive each time you run the program You can copy the factory sou
6. 249 EXCLUSIVE The Redrum is a sample based drum machine with ten drum sound chan nels You can load samples AIFF or Wave files individually for each chan nel or open patches which are complete drum kits a number of which are included in the Reason Factory Sound Bank Each sound channel has set tings for pitch level velocity response etc There is a built in pattern sequencer allowing you to create classic drum ma chine patterns complete with shuffle and flam options It is also possible to use Redrum as a sound module playing it live from an external MIDI control ler or from the main Reason sequencer You may for example have the pat tern sequencer play a basic drum pattern and add fills and extras in the main sequencer As with the Dr Rex loop player each drum sound has a specific note number C1 for drum sound 1 C 1 for drum sound 2 and so on REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 27 28 RV 7 Digital Reverb m AV 7 or DIGITAL REVERB gt A Ar ks gt m a A BIZE DECAT DAMP OAT WET This is a reverb effect with ten different reverb algorithms ranging from hall and room simulations to special effects You can fine tune the effect with the knobs on the device panel if you like The reverb is normally used as a send effect DDL Digital Delay Line ara L i BELAY 1 Orr DIGITAL DELAY LINE ME 1116 TEP ART e UNIT BTEP LENGTH X La me FEEDBACK PAN DAY WET This is a basic digital delay useful fo
7. A AAA AA 12 13 14 Si o Left Mono Mm 2 Audie Input o Right Audio Input o Left Right u Zz E T Sequencer Con tp Modulation Input Modulytion Output Gate Input Audio Ouput O O8 Pitch v Amp Env FS Main M Filter Env Here the back panel of each device in the rack is shown As you can see connections between devices are indicated by virtual patch cables Con nections between instrument devices and mixers use red cables connec tions to or from effect devices use green cables and CV connections Control Voltage used for controlling parameters or triggering sounds use yellow ca bles You can make connections by clicking and dragging from one socket to another on the back panels To turn the rack over again to show the front panels use the same com mand The Transport Panel Er ME moi SYNC 4 meur Bravi eve The panel at the bottom of each song document window is called the trans port panel It contains transport controls and settings that are global for the song such as tempo and time signature shuffle amount CPU load indicator etc The Sequencer The sequencer is located in the area below the rack This is where you record and edit notes controllers device parameter automation and pattern changes The left part of the sequencer area is the track list showing the names of the sequencer tracks The columns in the track list allow yo
8. Factory Sound Bank which was either installed on your hard drive or kept on the Factory Sound Bank CD depending on the choice you made during installation see page 10 You can also download ReFills from other Reason users on the Internet purchase them from sample manufacturers etc In Reason you can use the browser to list and access the embedded sounds and other components within the ReFills just as if the ReFills were folders on your hard disk Double clicking on the ReFill in the browser Patch Browser Sampler 1 Reason NN19 Sampler Patch smp Reason e A Name Sic Patch Browser Sampler 1 Reason NN19 Sampler Patch smp Reason Factory Sound Bank y A Name Sil Dr Rex Drum Loops N a E Music Loops NN19 Sampler Patches Other Samples Redrum Drum Kits Subtractor Patches Reason Factory Sound Bank 504 MB opens it for navigation just like a folder Furthermore if a song makes use of components from ReFills Reason will tell you which ReFills are required Reason File Formats The following table lists the file formats that you can browse and open using Reason s browser File type Song Published Song Subtractor Patch NN19 Sam pler Patch Redrum Patch REX files Samples Extension sn PS ZyYp smp drp rx2 rcy or EX wav or aif Description This is the main document format in Reason It contains your music
9. Factory Sound Bank a large file containing samples patches and loops for use with Reason You may choose to in stall this file on your hard disk so that the CD isn t required when you run the program more on this on page 10 gt This book gt The product authorization card This contains the authorization code required for the installation Keep this card in a safe place in case you need to re install Reason Requirements Below you will find the minimum requirements for running Reason Note that these are the minimum requirements You will benefit from a fast computer with a lot of RAM since this will allow you to use more devices at the same time MacOS e Power Macintosh with 604 604e G3 or G4 processor or better see the note below 166 MHz or faster e 64 Megabytes of RAM e CD ROM drive e MacOS 8 6 or later e 256 color monitor or better 800x600 or larger A MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard or similar e OMS 2 x or later included Reason takes advantage of the Altivec Velocity Engine instruc tions used in the Macintosh G4 processors which enhance perfor mance Windows Intel Pentium 2 or better 233 MHz or faster e 64 Megabytes of RAM e CD ROM drive e Windows 98 NT 4 0 or 2000 or later e 256 color monitor or better 800x600 or larger e A16 bit Windows compatible audio card preferably with an ASIO or DirectX driver Microsoft DirectX only if the card supports
10. Filter 1 Motch HF 12 BP 12 MALES E LP 24 3 tes GP Type Kbd That concludes the first tutorial Now let s move on to creating a Reason song from scratch Creating a new song 1 If you like close the current song by selecting Close from the File menu You can have several song documents open in Reason at the same time but each song uses some memory and computing power so it s good practice to close songs you don t need Pull down the File menu and select Open Navigate to the Reason program folder and open the Template Songs folder Select the file Empty Rack rns and click Open A song document window appears This consists of an almost empty rack and there are no tracks in the sequencer Normally when you create a new song you would select New from the File menu This command opens a default song with a few devices see page 85 In this tutorial we start with an empty rack in stead to let you add your own devices from scratch Pull down the Create menu and select Mixer 14 2 A mixer device is created in the rack The reason why you should start with a mixer device is that all sub sequent devices you add will then automatically be connected to a mixer channel Pull down the Create menu and select Subtractor Analog Synth and then Redrum Drum Computer You have now added two instrument devices to the rack If you look in the sequencer you will note that two tracks have autom
11. The more advanced features in Reason are described in the electronic doc umentation a file in Adobe Acrobat pdf format which is installed with the program In this document you will also find reference descriptions of the Reason devices and commands To read the electronic documentation you will need the Adobe Acro bat Reader application version 4 0 or later Since this has become something of a household utility application chances are you al ready have it installed on your computer If not run the Acrobat Reader installer included on the Reason program disc About Mac and Windows Reason runs under MacOS and Windows for operating system details see below All Reason packages contain program versions for both platforms Everything said in the manuals applies to both platforms unless explicitly stated All screenshots in the manuals are from the Windows version of Reason However the contents of all windows and dialogs are the same on both platforms What is in the Reason package When you purchase Reason the package contains the following items gt The Program Disc CD This contains the Reason installer OMS installer Mac only electronic documentation in Adobe Acrobat format and an installer for Adobe Acro bat Reader There may also be additional files such as promotional ma terial demo versions of other Propellerhead Software products etc gt The Factory Sound Bank CD This contains the Reason
12. Two Band Parametric EQ Matrix Pattern Sequencer ReBirth Input Machine Matrix Pattern Sequencer ReBirth Input Machine The Create menu on the main menu bar and on a context menu gt The new device is added directly below the currently selected de vice in the rack If no device is selected the new device is added at the bottom of the rack gt When you add a new device Reason attempts to route it in a logical way For an introduction to the auto routing features see page 45 3 A new track will automatically be created in the sequencer and routed to the new device The track will have the same name as the device MIDI input will also au tomatically be set to the new track allowing you to immediately play the created device via MIDI see page 48 By default this only applies to instrument devices not to mixers or effect devices If you hold down Option Mac or Alt Windows when you create the device the opposite is true i e mixers and ef fect devices get new tracks but instrument devices don t Selecting Devices Some operations e g cutting copying and deleting devices require that you select one or several devices in the rack This is done according to the fol lowing rules gt To select a single device click on it in the rack The selected device is displayed with a blue border taal DY SS e LE weed i en Bypas On Bypass n m N cat DAMP ORY WET Sa TRA
13. Using Pattern Devices the main sequencer in teracts with the built in sequencers in pattern devices in the following ways gt The sequencer and all devices use the tempo as set on the trans port panel 3 If you start playback for the main sequencer on the transport panel all pattern devices will automatically start as well That is provided the pattern sequencer isn t disabled for a device see page 64 gt Pattern changes will always happen at the start of a bar in the main sequencer regardless of the pattern lengths This only applies to pattern changes made live on the device panel Pattern changes played back from the sequencer will happen at their ex act position See the electronic documentation For details see page 64 Sequencer window handling Ei eee KED TRACK Bamra 8 888 hele la op fire z de fio In Name Out M 1 Sampler 1 FE I Fake E al E I Emm 1 AA LN A m 1 A El a SIK r u poper MIDISYNC FOCUS TEMPO OOPON O TOMATION PATTERN f GM eee gt CEE S ea The sequencer area below the rack The basic window techniques in Reason have been described on page 36 Here is a quick run through gt You can adjust the size of the sequencer area by dragging the di vider between the sequencer and the rack gt Clicking the maximize button in the upper right corner will make the sequencer area fill the whole document window g 100 4
14. Whenever this is the case the manual separates the commands with Mac and Windows indications REASON COMMON OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS Making Settings Since a large part of Reason is laid out like a real effect and synth rack al most all parameters are designed like their real world counterparts mixer faders synth knobs transport buttons etc How to make adjustments to these is described separately for each type of parameter below Knobs To turn a knob point at it click the mouse button and drag up or down as if the knob were a vertical slider Dragging upwards turns the knob to the right and vice versa gt If you press Shift and drag the knob will turn slower allowing for higher precision You can also adjust the knob precision with the Mouse Knob Range setting on the General page in the Preferences dialog opened from the Edit menu Page General hi Editing Normal 7 Mouse Knob Range gt To reset a knob to its default value usually zero center pan or sim ilar press Command Mac or Ctrl Win and click on it Sliders To move a slider click on the slider handle and drag up or down gt You can also click anywhere on the slider to instantly move the han dle to that position 3 If you press Shift and drag the slider will move slower allowing for higher precision Multi Mode Selectors Some parameters allow you to select o
15. and can not be removed REASON QUICK TUTORIAL L an l F F i F zi 1 Se de rE 13 a i I ae ME EEE a EE EE EE A This is a mixer with fourteen stereo channels four effect sends and a basic two band EQ section By connecting the different devices to different mixer channels and the stereo output of the mixer to the hardware interface you can listen to all your devices at the same time adjust levels and pan add ef fects and so on just like on a physical mixer Subtractor Analog Synth 9 6 TRACTOR SYNTH 1 The Subtractor is a polyphonic synthesizer laid out much like an advanced analog synth It features two oscillators two filters and a host of modulation functions allowing for everything from fat basses to swirling pads and screaming lead sounds NN19 Digital Sampler SELECT KEYZONE VIA MIDI SOLO SAMPLE osc PITCH DIGITAL SAMPLER DIGITAL SAMPLER ue BZ gt 2 m KEY a KEY 2 ES s s SAMPLE ocr START gt DA mata Y BTI HIGH QUALITY 3 PORTAMENTO POLYPHONY SPREAD MODE Low BW j INTERPOLATION BEMI NOTE ON CONTROLLER OSMAN ES a LEGATO ot Se cet Ser oft Me A y AA AA AA y N y u ENY AMT FINE MODE Fpreh LFO AMP SOURCE KBD TRACK MOD WHEEL LFO z FILTER om ENVELOPE AMP ENVELOPE had RANGE T Stee WORE Barren OEL W A Py 178617 ie er a ee FA ENS ca ee zs AL s r we ws Ww AN RAT amount
16. connected between two devices the connec tion between the two remaining devices is automatically preserved A typical example would be if you have an effect device connected as an insert effect between a synth and a mixer If you delete the effect the synth will be routed directly to the mixer gt When you move a device connections are not affected If you instead would like the program to re route the device according to its new location in the rack hold down Shift when you move it gt When you duplicate devices by dragging or use copy and paste the devices are not auto routed at all If you would like them to be automatically routed hold down Shift when you perform the operation RAS CIN MANAGING THE RACK 45 46 Manual Routing To connect devices manually you need to flip the rack around to see the back This is done by pressing Tab or selecting Toggle Rack Front Rear from the Options menu gJeer 42 FILTER 1 ENVELOPE CONTROLLED FILTER Freq CV Decay CV Res CV Env Gate P MATRI On the back of each device you will find connectors of two different types audio and CV Control Voltage used for controlling parameters see the electronic documentation Audio inputs and outputs are shown as large quarter inch jacks while CV input and output jacks are smaller For now we stick to audio connections Audio connectors Left Mane Audia Output Righi Audio Output Gate Du
17. de vice the following alert message will appear Reason Delete device The track you are about to delete plays the HN13 Sampler named Sampler 1 No other track is assigned to this device Would you like to delete the device as well Keep Cancel Select one of the following options Option Description Delete Delete both the track and the connected device Keep Delete the track but keep the device in the rack Cancel Do not delete the track or the device REASON 55 THE SEQUENCER BASICS 56 About the two Views While the left part of the sequencer area always contains the track list there are two different view modes for the right part Arrange View and Edit View You change between the two view by clicking the corresponding button in the top left corner of the sequencer area Arrange View Click this button to select the Arrange view Bun sauem JE In Name Out M i i Redrum Er Dr Ex lr Br l E db j ne A AAAA eee E9 Subtractor TE AI N In the Arrange View all tracks are shown with colored bars indicating re corded events Use this mode to get an overview of your arrangement and when you want to perform large scale editing such as rearranging whole sec tions of your song etc Edit View Click this button to select the Edit view Se M 1 am B 888 In Name MIC hae 10 Redrum Dr REK NN19 Sampler 9 Subtractor In the Edit View
18. emp MH19 Sampler Patches Size This is a regular navigation pop up menu listing all folders hierarchically above the current folder Select a folder from the pop up menu to go there or click the Up button to go the closest folder above the current one Desktop button ey Hase yc The desktop button in the Windows version left and the Macintosh version right Clicking this button takes you to the desktop of your computer In the main file display all available drives hard disks floppy drives CD drives and mapped network drives will be listed To open a drive or a folder double click on it in the file display Database folder buttons While you can get to the database by starting at the desktop and navigating your way down the database folder buttons offer a quicker way Clicking any of these buttons takes you directly to the corresponding database folder search path 1 4 respectively as specified in the Preferences Sound Loca tions folder From there you can open subfolders in the main file display or navigate to a higher folder using the navigation pop up The folder button for which you haven t specified a path are greyed out disabled Find All ReFills button Find All ReFills Size FO4 ME Clicking this button will make the program look for all available ReFills and list them in the main file display Patch Browser Sampler 1 Reason N19 Sampler Patch zmp Re
19. etc REASON THE BROWSER 71 72 The Browser The browser is a special file dialog that appears when you open songs or load patches samples or REX files from within a ReFill or from regular file folders Its appearance varies slightly depending on what type of file you are opening Patch Browser Sampler 1 OO x Reason NN19 Sampler Patch smp wr aa aaa ae Reason Factory Sound E AcGuitarOctUp smp 3K X Navigation toolbar A AcGuitarT remolo smp 3K File and BE DIRTYGTR smp 4K E D DirtyGtrD amp smp 4K u folder list E DitystMute smp 4K 1 Copyright 2000 Propellerhead Ba DirtyGtrPanPad smp 4K Software AB Sweden Ba DirtyGtiPanSwpHO smp 4K Ba DirtyGtrRepPad smp 4K By DirtyGtivelSlw smp 4K BE GTRODRIVE smp 4K a GtrODryDamp smp 4K 4K a GtrODrvMWheelS wp smp 4K a GtrODrvPad smp 4K R HEAVYGTR smp 3K HeavyGtrD amp smp 3K a HeavyGtrPad smp 3K Info area a HeavyGtrPort smp 3K a HeavyGtrT hindut smp 3K E NYLONGTR smp 3K a NylonGtrBass smp 3K A NylonGtrD amp smp 3K A NylonGtrMute smp 3K A NylonGtrOctUp smp 3K R NylonGtrPad smp 3K NylonGtrSwpHQ smp 3K AccGuitar GtrDirty Exa GtrHamer GtiHeavy Help NylonGuitar El The Sample Browser dialog REASON THE BROWSER Navigating Using the browser is much like using a regular file dialog but there are some additional features on the navigation toolbar Navigation pop up menu and Up button Patch Browser Sampler 1 Reason NN19 Sampler Patch
20. having to scroll a lot This is done by click ing the arrow to the left of the device Drerex a El POLYPHONY HIGH QUALITY LO EW INTERPOLATION MOD WHEEL To unfold the device click the arrow again gt In rack rows with devices of smaller width the fold unfold arrow is placed to the left of the leftmost device and affects all devices in the row 3 If you hold down Option Mac or Alt Windows and click the ar row of an unfolded device all devices in the rack will be folded Conversely Option Alt clicking the arrow of a folded device will unfold all devices gt For folded devices no parameters are shown and you cannot make routing adjustments on the backside of the rack However you can still rename move duplicate and delete folded de vices For devices that use patches you can also select patches in folded mode gt Playback is not affected by folding REASON MANAGING THE RACK 49 50 REASON MANAGING THE RACK 52 About the Sequencer The sequencer is your main composition tool in Reason This is where you record notes controllers device parameter automation and pattern changes In this chapter you will find descriptions of all basic procedures recording playing back and handling sequencer tracks For descriptions of editing quantizing using groups etc please refer to the electronic documentation The relati
21. indicated regardless of the file type For details about the info area see the electronic documentation The Preview function When browsing REX files or samples you can audition files before you choose to load one This is done in the following way gt Select the file in the file list and click the Preview Play button to the right The file is played back During playback the Play button is relabeled to Stop click this to stop playback Preview e Autoplay gt You can also activate the Autoplay checkbox and simply select the file you want to audition The selected file is automatically played back Again click the Stop but ton to stop playback Opening files When you have navigated to the desired folder on your hard disk or within a ReFill and located the desired file you open it by double clicking it in the file display or by selecting it and clicking the Open button The browser will only display files of the relevant type For example if you have selected the Browse Synth Patches function for a Subtractor synth device only synth patches will be listed REAS CIN THE BROWSER 73 74 Handling Missing Sounds Sampler patches and drum machine patches contain references to samples files on your hard disk The same is true for songs that contain samples in sampler or drum machine devices or REX files If any of these files have been moved renamed or removed when you try to open the p
22. is connected This is especially useful if the patch cables are hidden but it is also practical if you have a lot of ca bles or if the two devices are far from each other in the rack gt Position the pointer over a connector and wait a moment A tool tip appears showing the device and connector in the other end a za de tea ore 4 5 6 AISSI da Sampler 1 Left REASON MANAGING THE RACK 47 48 Routing MIDI to a Device There are several ways to send MIDI from an external MIDI controller to a Reason device as described in the electronic documentation However in this book we stick to the most common method to route MIDI via the se quencer With this method incoming MIDI e g from your MIDI keyboard is sent to one of the tracks in Reason s sequencer The sequencer will then pass it on to a device in the rack the device to which the track is routed This way you can select different devices for MIDI playback by directing the incoming MIDI to different tracks in the sequencer Proceed as follows 1 Make sure your MIDI controller is connected to the correct MIDI in put on your computer and sends on the correct MIDI channel This should be the MIDI port and channel you specified for the sequencer in the Preferences MIDI dialog as described on page 15 2 In the sequencer locate the track that is connected to the device you want to play If you are uncertain you can pull down the Out pop up menu for each
23. it A MIDI interface and a MIDI keyboard or similar REASON INSTALLATION 7 About the Audio Hardware The audio hardware is the computer equipment that converts the digital sig nals from Reason to analog audio signals for connection to an amplifier headphones or similar This equipment could be a standard stereo sound card the built in audio hardware on a Macintosh or some more advanced audio card with several inputs and outputs digital connectors etc Regard less of which you need to make sure the hardware and its drivers are prop erly installed MacOS If you are using the built in audio hardware of the Macintosh In this case you don t need to make any extra settings Just connect the au dio output to your listening equipment speakers mixer headphones or sim ilar and make sure your Mac plays audio properly e g by testing the alert sounds in the Sound control panel or the Monitors and Sound control panel depending on the MacOS version If you are using other audio hardware You may want to use other audio hardware with Reason e g an audio card with multiple outputs digital connections etc For this to be possible the audio hardware must be compatible with the ASIO standard That is it must have an ASIO driver a piece of software that allows Reason to communicate with the card 1 Make sure you have the latest drivers for the audio hardware Please check the manufacturer s website for t
24. it see the electronic doc umentation Normally however you shouldn t need to touch this parameter Setting up MIDI Input Reason has a very wide ranging MIDI support allowing you to make use of up to seven different MIDI inputs on a multi port MIDI interface or similar This makes it possible to use several different MIDI controllers and play and tweak each device in the rack independently or to play the devices in Rea son from an external sequencer etc See the electronic documentation However in this book we will stick with the standard way of playing Reason via MIDI by connecting a MIDI controller to a single MIDI input and routing this to different devices in the rack via Reason s sequencer With this method you will be able to play and control one device at a time Proceed as follows 1 Open the Preferences dialog from the Edit menu 2 Use the pop up menu at the top of the Preferences dialog to select the MIDI page Page MIDI Y m Sequencer Port Audio MIDI Sound Locations We Channel External Control Bus A No MIDI Input si Bus B No MIDI Input ss Bus C No MIDI Input ssi Bus D No MIDI Input m Miscellaneous Remote Control No MIDI Input H MIDI Clock No MIDIInpt tsi Disable MIDI Priority Boost Help 3 Pull down the Port pop up menu in the Sequencer section and se lect the MIDI input to which your MIDI controller is connected 4 Che
25. pitch and to edit the loop as if it were built up of individual sounds After loading a REX file into the Dr Rex Loop Player you can play it back in virtually any tempo make settings for individual slices extract MIDI playback data and process the loop with the built in filter LFO and envelopes You can also play the individual slices via MIDI or from the sequencer each slice has a specific note number C1 for the first slice C 1 for the next and so on A number of REX files are included in the Reason Factory Sound Bank Redrum Drum Computer gt gt E L PAN R L PAN A L PAN R L PAN R L PAN R L PAN R LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL LEVEL VEL rc Wr le we fe YY le YY lo wre fe le E o fe fe 2 LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH LENGTH y Q Y 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 i PitcH Pien PITCH PITCH PITCH PITCH BEND PITCH BEND PITCH PITCH PITCH Wi 4 af af 1 4 mc TONE 4 VEL TONE 4 VEL START 4 VEL START 4 VEL START 4 VEL RATE VEL RATE WEL START VEL START 4 VEL TONE 4 VEL SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT ENABLE PATTERN wat WI6 167 HARD PATTERN ia v 32 5 C MEDIUM u SECTION 14 1164 m 9880 u O iis sort on mj PATCH mia SELECT m HISH QuaLity INTERPOLATION 112 1 128 5 Ts Ye STEPS RESOLUTION SHUFFLE EDIT STEPS DYNAMIC FLAM f ee f r r rr a a f AlelcTo CHANNEL
26. so on Everything you record will be played back on the next loop lap For more info about the loop mode see page 60 Recording more on the same track Overdub Replace If you like you can continue recording over the same area on the same track This can be useful for adding elements to a loop for recording automation of multiple controls or for replacing a faulty part of an otherwise good take Whether the previous recording is kept or removed depends on the Overdub Replace setting gt LO Te gt In Overdub mode the new recording is added to whatever was on the Track before When you play back you will hear both recordings This is the mode to use when you want to add elements to an existing recording e g add controller data to recorded notes gt In Replace mode the new recording replaces any previously re corded notes Only the notes in the actual recording area are replaced It s probably best to use Overdub mode as your default mode to avoid removing material by mistake The Overdub Replace switch affects notes only not recorded con trollers See the electronic documentation for details Replacing a section of a previous recording If you have made a largely successful recording in which only a section needs to be redone you can use Replace mode for this 1 Select Replace mode 2 Start playback at a position before the faulty section 3 Atthe start of the section activate record
27. such as an instrument device and all its insert effects from one Reason Song to another The following rules apply gt Cut and Copy affects all selected devices and work according to the standard procedures That is Cut moves the devices to the clipboard removing them from the rack while Copy creates copies of the devices and puts these on the clipboard without affecting the rack gt When you Paste devices these are inserted into the rack below the currently selected device If no device is selected the pasted devices will appear at the bottom of the rack gt If you Copy and Paste several devices the connections between these are preserved 3 If you hold down Shift when you Paste a device Reason will at tempt to automatically route it The rules are the same as when moving or duplicating devices by drag ging See page 45 A Quick Note on Routing This section only describes the basics in routing For detailed de scriptions of routing procedures and possibilities see the elec tronic documentation Reason allows for extremely flexible routing of audio and control signals be tween the devices in the rack Basically routing can be done automatically or manually Automatic Routing Auto routing means that Reason makes all basic audio connections for a de vice in one go As mentioned on the previous pages auto routing is auto matically performed when you create a new device and when you move duplicat
28. the Copy and Paste Patch functions The result is exactly the same as if you had saved a patch on one device and opened this patch on another device this is just a quicker method Copying and Pasting settings is possible with all four instrument device types including the Dr Rex Loop Player even though this doesn t use patch files as such Proceed as follows 1 Select a patch and or make the desired settings on the first device 2 Select Copy Patch from the device context menu or the Edit menu 3 Select the other device of the same type in the same song or an other song 4 Select Paste Patch from the device context menu or the Edit menu The settings of the first device including Redrum and NN19 sample ref erences are applied to the second device Note that this operation simply copies the settings from one device to another Adjusting the settings on one of the devices will not af fect the other neither are the settings connected to any patch file on disk REASON WORKING WITH PATCHES Initializing Patches Sometimes it is useful to start with a clean slate when creating a synth sound a drum kit or a sampler patch This is done by selecting Initialize Patch from the device context menu or Edit menu This sets all parameters to standard values Initializing NN19 Dr Rex or Redrum devices will also remove all sample file references allowing you to start from scratch
29. the MacOS Windows gt If you are using audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver you should select this With an ASIO driver written specifically for the audio hardware Reason can communicate more or less directly with the audio hardware The benefits are lower latency see below and possibly better support for ad ditional hardware features such as multiple outputs gt If there is no specific ASIO driver you should select the Direct Sound driver for the audio hardware This makes Reason communicate with the hardware via Direct Sound a part of the Microsoft DirectX package For this to be possible you need to have DirectX installed on your computer and there must be a Direct Sound driver for the audio hardware Number of Channel 2 onra Banel Sample Rate 44100 Play In Background The Direct Sound driver for a Creative SoundBlaster PCI card selected gt If the audio hardware doesn t support Direct Sound i e there is no Direct Sound driver for the audio hardware select the MME driver for the audio hardware This makes use of Windows Multimedia Extensions the part of Windows that handles audio MIDI etc Using MME often results in larger latency values see below mo 13 14 About Latency At the bottom of the audio page in the Preferences dialog you will find an in dication of the current Output Latency Output Latency E OOO Latency Compensation 2048 sam
30. the con text menu will contain the following items e Cut Copy Paste and Delete Device items allowing you to rearrange and manage the devices in the rack e A Go To submenu listing all devices connected to the current de vice Selecting a device from the Go To submenu scrolls the rack to bring that device into view e A duplicate of the Create menu allowing you to create new devices e Ifthe device is pattern based there will be various pattern functions Cut Copy Paste Clear Shift Randomize etc These affect the cur rently selected pattern in the device e If the device uses Patches there will be functions for managing Patches Depending on the device there may also be various device specific functions available For example the drum machine device has functions for manipulating the pattern for the selected drum sound only etc Parameter Context Menus If you click on an automatable control a synth parameter knob a fader etc the context menu will contain the following items Functions for clearing and editing the recorded automation data for the control e Functions for associating computer keyboard commands and or MIDI messages to the parameter allowing you to remote control pa rameters from a MIDI device or the computer keyboard Empty Rack Context Menus If you click in an empty section of the rack the context menu will contain the following items A Paste Device item allowing you to pa
31. the left locator When using the Loop mode see page 60 the left locator governs the start position of the loop Transport Controls Overview The transport panel is located at the bottom of each song document window This is where you activate playback recording fast forward rewind etc Here is a brief overview of the controls to help you find your way in the re cording and playback procedures on the following pages Play Fast Forward Record Loop on off see page 60 Stop Rewind CELOR M LOOP ON OFF GEE Ga A iB iB pa OVERDUE 1 ros JB REPLACE j A Left and Right Locator positions the boundaries of the loop see page 60 Overdub Replace switch see page 58 Song Position Transport Key Commands There are fixed computer keyboard combinations for the most important transport functions Function Key command Stop 0 on the numeric keypad or Return Play Enter on the numeric keypad Toggle Stop Play Space bar Go to previous bar Rewind 7 on the numeric keypad Go to next bar Fast Forward 8 on the numeric keypad on the numeric keypad or hold Command Mac or Ctrl Windows and press Return Record Go to Left Locator Loop Start 1 on the numeric keypad Go to Left Locator Loop End 2 on the numeric keypad Setting Up for Recording Before you can start recording you need to make some settings Tempo and Time Signature The tempo and time signature se
32. track and check to which device they are routed Mizer 1 AS m om Dist 1 Chorus Flanger 1 u Reverb 1 Sampler 1 f Delay 1 Sampler 1 Synth 1 16 a m nth 1 Sampler 2 E Sampler 2 DLREX 1 me DREK Redrum 1 Redrum 1 E y SAMPLER 3 SAMPLER 3 3 Click in the In column for the track A MIDI symbol is displayed to indicate that this track will transfer incom ing MIDI to its device L1 MEr 1 Redrum 1 4 SAMPLER 3 REASON MANAGING THE RACK 4 Play the MIDI controller You should now hear the sound of the device amp On the panel of some instrument devices you will find a Note On in dicator This blinks to indicate incoming MIDI notes Naming Devices Each device has a tape strip showing the name of the device When you create a new device it is automatically named according to the device type with an index number so that the first Subtractor synthesizer you create is called Synth 1 the next Synth 2 and so on If you like you can rename a device by clicking on its tape strip and typing a new name up to 16 charac ters For devices connected to a mixer the device names are automatically re flected on the vertical tape strips for the corresponding mixer channels next to the mixer channel faders Similarly tape strips below the Return knobs show the names of the effect devices connected to the corresponding Return inputs Note that the mixer chan
33. will be adjusted This would be the case if you got the self con tained song from another user for example Song Information Selecting the Song Information item on the File menu opens a dialog in which you can supply various information about the song Song Information Text in Window Title Song Splash ms More Information Add text about Song here I Show Splash on Song Open Author s Web Page www yoursite here Launch Browser Author s Email Address your email here Cancel Help For example if you plan to send the song to other Reason users this dialog allows you to add contact information comments about the song etc Fur thermore if you save a published version of the song in the Reason Song Ar chive on the Propellerhead web site see page 84 vital information can automatically be extracted by the web archive engine and displayed with the song file The dialog contains the following items Text in Window Title The text you add here will be displayed directly after the file name in the song window s title bar More Information This is where you add notes and comments about the song Song Splash Allows you to add a picture to the song If the Show splash on song open checkbox is ticked the picture will be displayed when the song is opened To add a splash picture click the folder button at the upper right corner and locate and open the picture file in the file di
34. you think about it it s logical Let s say you have a 16 step pattern with resolution setto 1 16 The length of each pattern step is then one sixteenth note and the whole pattern plays back over a whole 4 4 bar 16 sixteenth notes one whole bar Now if you change the resolution to 1 32 each step will be a 1 32 note half its original length There are still sixteen steps This means that the whole pattern plays back over half a bar 16 1 32 1 2 In other words the pat tern plays back at double speed Pattern Shuffle Shuffle is a rhythmic feature that gives the music a more or less pronounced swing feel lt works by delaying all sixteenth notes that fall in between the eighth notes iP Straight sixteenth note pattern OOO DI ana Sixteenth note pattern with shuffle In Reason you can activate or deactivate shuffle individually for each pattern in a pattern device However the amount of shuffle is set globally with the Pattern Shuffle control on the transport panel Eu TI SELELI J PATTERN PF SHUFFLE The Shuffle on off switch in the Redrum left and the Pattern Shuffle control on the transport panel right Clearing a Pattern To clear empty a pattern select it and use the Clear Pattern command on the Edit menu or device context menu Note that clearing a pattern doesn t affect the pattern length resolu tion or shuffle settings Using Cut Copy and Paste By using the Cut Copy and
35. you to create both subtle sweeping sounds and ex treme swirling special effects COMP 01 Compressor de n y J AUTO Ms This is a combined compressor and limiter It will affect the dynamics of the sound by boosting low levels and attenuating loud sounds Use it for keep ing levels even from individual devices or the whole mix for adding punch and power to drums etc PEQ2 Two Band Parametric EQ m PEQ 2 or TWO BAND PARAM 25 250 E00 Ik 2k 4k Bk 16k Hz While the mixer device has basic two band EQ on each channel sometimes you may need some more precise control over the tone color For this pur pose you can use the PEQ2 This device contains two independent para metric equalizers with controls for frequency gain and Q value The Matrix Pattern Sequencer um og l u vol al a 3 y The Matrix is a stand alone pattern sequencer somewhat similar to a vin tage analog sequencer A Matrix pattern can have between 1 and 32 steps and for each step you can specify which control voltage levels should be sent out from the three separate CV outputs on the back of the device If you like you could view this as having three separate pattern sequencers in one By connecting the Matrix to e g a synth device you can have the pattern se quencer play the device for a repeating synth pattern or control various pa rameters for rhythmic effects that you cannot obtain using the synth devi
36. 1 45 IN OM ATIC IN PATTERN SHUFFLE The sequencer maximize button When editing the contents of a sequencer track the right part of the sequencer area can be divided into different lanes Typically you would view the note information in one lane controller curve in another lane etc You can adjust the size of the lanes by drag ging the dividers between them HEHE in N EEE Here the key lane velocity lane and a controller lane are shown You can scroll and change magnification by using standard scroll bars and horizontal and vertical zoom controls Where applicable different areas in the sequencer have separate scroll bars and zoom controls x 100 y ei 1 7 1 USA AAA E als Pa E You can also adjust the horizontal magnification in the sequencer area by holding down Command Mac or Ctrl Windows and pressing or 7 on the standard part of the computer keyboard not on the numeric keypad Commanqd Ctrl zooms in while Command Ctri zooms out THE SEQUENCER BASICS 54 Managing Tracks Creating Tracks As described on page 42 tracks are automatically created when you create instrument devices in the rack Still you may need to create additional tracks e g for recording effect device automation see the electronic documenta tion gt To create a new sequencer track pull down the Create menu and select Sequencer Track or select Cr
37. About 52 Connecting to Devices 55 Creating 54 Deleting 55 Duplicating 55 Moving 55 Naming 54 Routing MIDI to 54 Selecting 54 Transport Panel 57 Tuning 40 U Undo 35 V Value Editing Numerical 33 W Web Site 83 Windows Multimedia Driver 8 Z Zooming 36 REASON INDEX 91
38. CTOR Gia gt To select several devices hold down Shift and click In other words Shift clicking a device selects it without de selecting any other selected devices RV 7 ore DIGITAL REVERB gt To de select all devices click in the empty space at the bottom of the rack gt To de select one of the selected devices hold down Shift and click on it Any other selected devices remain selected gt You can also use the up and down arrow keys on the computer key board to select the device directly above or below the currently se lected one When you use this method Reason will automatically scroll the rack so that the selected device is fully visible This is a quick way to step through the rack Narrow devices e g half width devices such as the ef fects are ordered left to right i e pressing the down arrow key will step through the devices from left to right before moving on the next device row gt If you hold down Shift when using the up or down arrow keys the currently selected device will remain selected This allows you to select a range of devices Adjusting a parameter in a device will automatically select it In other words you never have to select a device before making settings Deleting Devices To delete one or several devices select them and use one of the following methods gt Press Backspace or Delete gt Select Delete Device from the Edit menu or the devic
39. EASON USING PATTERN DEVICES 65 66 Programming a Pattern The actual programming procedure differs for the different devices see the electronic documentation for descriptions of the Redrum and Matrix respec tively However some basic principles are common for all pattern devices Steps Patterns consist of a number of discrete steps For each step you can enter a note a CV value or various properties depending on the device When you run the pattern each step will be played back in turn and will play a sound or send out the information programmed for this step If you have ever used a drum machine this will be obvious to you Pattern Length For each pattern you can specify a length i e how many steps it should contain The maximum pattern length is different for different devices The pattern length selector for the Redrum left and the Matrix right Pattern Resolution The pattern resolution determines the length note value of the steps When the pattern resolution is set to 1 16 each pattern step will be a sixteenth note when set to 1 8 each step will be an eighth note etc The Resolution control on the Matrix As with the pattern length value you can program different resolution settings for different patterns REASON USING PATTERN DEVICES If you change the resolution of an existing pattern the audible effect will be a change of pattern playback speed This may seem strange at first but if
40. Keo Su F FREQ PRES FDEC Y AMP LFO A NOTCH R AR m t HP 12 er v ITY 5 Zu mu osc 1 BP 12 An FILTER L PEO as la fates Ie fre ot eee A r eS A PAN e ii LP 24 siar sieve E Sii Fenv Foec Y amp A TTACK 8 START WAVEF DEST FREQ RES MODE A GO 5 amp 8 R AMOUNT LEVEL A D 5 R The NN19 allows you to load samples Wave or AIFF files and create multi sample patches by mapping samples across the keyboard Once you have loaded one or several samples you can modify the sound using synth type parameters such as a filter envelopes and an LFO Dr Rex Loop Player NOTE ON osc p rcH FILTER FILTER ENVELOPE Tr e o op m 0 to te SELECT SLICE 7 NOTCH VIA MIDI PREVIEW TO TRACK oct FINE ENV AMOUNT HP 12 i BP 12 P 12 POLYPHONY HIGH QUALITY LO BW P er INTERPOLATION 2 FREQ RES MY MODE AMOUNT A s A es cr cy te 0 0 EU e F FREQ F RES F DECAY RATE AMOUNT VELOCI T Y IEA osc PITC PAN LEVEL DECAY gt gt gt FLTER tO t j te j PAN FENV F DECAY AMP IN waver MB pest LEVEL aA D 8 E E 5 z The Dr Rex Loop Player plays REX files audio files created in ReCycle an other Propellerhead Software product ReCycle is a program designed espe cially for working with sampled loops By slicing a loop and making separate samples of each beat ReCycle makes it possible to change the tempo of loops without affecting the
41. NEL 253 on A EXCLUSIVE 15 Select a Redrum patch in the same way as you selected a Subtrac tor patch The patches are located in category folders within the folder Redrum Drum Kits in the Reason Factory Sound Bank When you have selected a patch you will note that a sample file name is dis played at the top of each drum sound channel in the drum machine There may also be different parameter settings for the different drum sounds all these settings are part of a Redrum patch Drum sound channels Me LEVEL VEL y iA P U 1 mT PITEH Tir 4 TE A The selected patch JEL TONE WEL STAAT WEL SELECT SELECT H ENABLE PATTERN FATTERN W i r r r zuga BB0 lil m BELEGT SELE HIGH GU ALITY INTERPOLATION E run 0000 CHANNEL 3459 n A BPC TD EXCLUSIVE 16 Try out the drum sounds by clicking the audition buttons at the top of each drum sound channel Now let s start building a pattern By default the empty patterns have six teen steps with each step corresponding to a sixteenth note so that the length of a pattern is one 4 4 bar To make things simple we ll keep this set ting for now 17 Click the Run button on the Redrum device panel The pattern will start playing as indicated by the running LED on the step buttons at the bottom of the device panel Nothing will be heard since you haven t added any drum beats yet REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 2 1 18 Clic
42. NN19 contain references to samples Just like patches samples can be independent files on the hard disk or elements within a ReFill However if sample files have been moved or renamed after a patch was saved the sample file references in the patch will not be accurate If this is the case when you select a patch the program will tell you so You can then choose to either manually locate the missing files to have the pro gram search for them in the database and ReFills or to proceed with missing sounds For details see page 74 Proceeding without locating or replacing the missing samples re sults in silent drum sounds and key zones for the Redrum and NN19 respectively Saving Patches Saving device settings in a song When you save a Reason song all settings for all devices are automatically included in the song file there is no need to save the patches separately It s important to realize that it s the actual settings that are saved in the Song not references to patches on disk The next time you open the song all devices will be set as they were when you saved regardless of whether you have removed or edited any patches on disk Saving device settings as patches on disk Even though the device settings are stored in the song you may want to save any settings you have made for a device as a separate patch file This allows you to use the patch in other songs and lets you try out other patches in your song w
43. Paste Pattern commands on the Edit menu or device context menu you can move or duplicate patterns between devices of the same type The following rules apply gt Copy Pattern makes a copy of the currently selected pattern and places the copy on the clipboard gt Cut Pattern moves the currently selected pattern to the clipboard This is the same as first performing Copy Pattern and then Clear Pattern gt Paste Pattern copies the pattern on the clipboard to the selected pattern location in the selected device This overwrites the selected pattern with the one on the clipboard Transferring patterns between Reason songs If you want to copy patterns between different Reason songs you use copy and paste 1 Open both songs 2 Select the pattern you want to copy 3 Select Copy Pattern from the Edit menu or the device context menu You can also hold Command Mac or Ctrl Windows and press C to copy 4 Make the other song active This is done by clicking in the song window or by selecting the song from the Windows menu 5 Select the bank and pattern location to which you want to copy the pattern Note that any pattern already stored in that location will be overwritten 6 Select Paste Pattern from the Edit menu or the device context menu You can also hold Command Mac or Ctrl Windows and press V to copy Pattern Functions When a pattern device is selected you will find some specific pattern fu
44. RO RENE Osa Redrum 1 COM E ERRAN ANE Ey 4 REASON COMMON OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS The border between two panes are called dividers You can adjust the height of the panes by clicking on their divider and dragging up or down Enlarging the upper pane will shrink the lower and vice versa oe AAA CELE Eee ee ie SUSO EI I I ER SS DE I AA FR AR A Sl messe Scrolling and Zooming Whenever there is information outside the screen scrollbars will appear For example if there are more devices in the rack than can be shown at one time you will be able to scroll the rack up or down by using the vertical scroll bar to the right of the rack Some areas also allow you to zoom in or out using magnification controls Ei ther click the or magnification icon to zoom in or out respectively or click and drag the magnification slider gt Where applicable different panes can be scrolled and zoomed indi vidually In the sequencer there are separate view controls for the Key edit lane and the Controller lane 38 About this chapter This chapter contains some useful information about how audio is handled by Reason Some of it may seem a bit technical but we recommend that you read it to get the most out of Reason How Reason communicates with your audio hardware Reason generates and plays back digital audio a
45. Shift Mac or Ctrl Windows to select several files gt To select all files in the list click the Select All button When the dialog first appears all files in the list are selected Auto Search If you click the Auto Search button Reason will search for the selected files in all database folders If the program finds a file with the matching name and file type the new path is stored in the song patch and the file is shown as Replaced in the Status column gt Since the file search looks at the file names files that have been re named will not be found This also means that if your database contains several files with the same name the wrong sounds may be found Replace Clicking the Replace button opens the browser dialog allowing you to man ually locate each missing file This allows you to use files outside the data base or files that have been renamed The browser dialog will appear once for each selected file in the list Download RerFill If a missing sound is part of a ReFill as indicated in the Part of ReFill Pack age column and there is a valid URL Internet address for this ReFill you can download the ReFill directly from this dialog provided you have a work ing Internet connection 1 Select the sound s that use the ReFill You should only select several sounds if they use the same ReFill 2 Click the Download ReFill button This launches your Internet browser and takes you to the URL a
46. The user cannot save any changes to the song e Copy Cut and Paste is disabled In a word published songs are locked They are meant for playback only no elements can be added removed or extracted Furthermore a published song contains information about which ReFills are required if any To create a published song pull down the File menu and select Publish Song Specify a name and location for the published song in the file dialog that appears and click Save gt Note that you don t have to make self contained settings all files except ReFill components are automatically included About the Reason Song Archive On the Propellerhead web site www propellerheads se you will find the Reason Song Archive This allows you to share your music with other Rea son users by uploading your songs REASON SONG FILE HANDLING Opening a Song 1 Pull down the File menu and select Open The Reason song browser window appears 2 Use the browser to navigate to the desired folder on disk or within a ReFill See page 72 3 When you have located the song file select it and click Open or double click on the file The song appears in its own document window If the Missing Sounds dialog appears If the song includes samples or REX files and these have been moved or re named since the song was saved the program will inform you that it cannot find all files You can then choose to either manually locate the missing fi
47. acks by pressing Shift and click ing This allows you to e g move or delete several tracks in one go However you can only edit the contents of one track at a time the top selected track will be edited see the electronic documentation Don t confuse selecting a track with routing MIDI to a track see be low Routing MIDI to a Track The normal way of routing MIDI to a device in the rack is to go via the se quencer When MIDI is routed to a track in the sequencer the notes and con troller data are automatically echoed to the corresponding device the device to which the track is connected see below gt To route incoming MIDI to a track click in the In column to the left of the track name A MIDI connector symbol appears indicating that the track will receive MIDI provided that you have selected a MIDI Input port for the se quencer in the Preferences MIDI dialog as described on page 15 8 32 0 mea B In Name Sampler 1 Dr REX 1 4 Sampler 2 Redrum 1 You cannot route MIDI to several tracks at the same time clicking in the In column for another track will move the MIDI connector symbol Disconnecting MIDI In You can turn off incoming MIDI altogether by clicking on the MIDI connector symbol so that it disappears Connecting a Track to a Device To the right of the track name you will find the Out column During playback and when you play Reason via MIDI this setting
48. al MIDI controller typically a MIDI keyboard gt When installing the MIDI interface and its drivers follow the instruc tions in its documentation carefully gt While a MIDI interface with a single input is sufficient you will benefit from having two or more individual inputs This is especially true if you want to manipulate Reason parameters with external MIDI control devices or use the program in conjunction with an external stand alone sequencer groove machine or similar Macintosh Reason makes use of OMS Open Music System acommon protocol for MIDI communication on the Macintosh This means that your MIDI interface must support OMS and you need to have OMS installed on your computer If OMS isn t already installed you need to do this before using Reason This may also be necessary if you have an older version of OMS installed please check the MIDI interface documentation for any special restrictions regarding OMS versions Proceed as follows 1 Insert the Reason program disc into your CD ROM drive 2 Locate and double click the file Install OMS on the program disc 3 Follow the instructions on screen 4 Use the OMS Setup application to set up your MIDI interface This is necessary to inform the system about the existence connections and settings of the MIDI interface Usually how to do this is described in the MIDI interface documentation if not check the OMS documentation for the general procedure
49. alog that appears Splash pictures must be JPEG files Windows extension jpg with a size of 256 x 256 pixels To remove the splash picture from the song click the cross button Author s Web Page Allows you to specify your web site The user can go directly to your site by clicking the Browser button to the right provided he has a working Internet connection Author s Email This is where you specify your email address if you want other Reason us ers to send you their comments etc REASON SONG FILE HANDLING 83 84 Saving a Song To save a song proceed as follows 1 Set up the self contained settings as desired see the previous page 2 Pull down the File menu and select Save or press Command Ctrl S If this is the first time you save the song a regular file dialog will appear 3 Specify a name and location for the song and click Save Once you have saved a song selecting Save will simply save it under the same name and in the same location without showing a dialog If you want to save a song under another name or in another location select Save As from the File menu to open the save dialog Publishing a Song If you want to make your songs available to the public e g for downloading on the Internet there is a special file format for this A Reason published song Windows file extension rps is much like a self contained song but has the following restrictions e
50. and the setup of the rack along with references to any used samples and loops or it can contain the actual samples and loops if you have made the song self con tained A published song is a self contained song in tended for playback only It cannot be changed and its components cannot be extracted This is a patch for the Subtractor synth device containing all panel settings You store your synth sounds by saving Subtractor patches This is a patch for the NN19 Sampler device containing references to and settings for all used samples along with panel settings This is a patch for the Redrum drum machine device It contains information about which drum samples are used along with all drum sound settings In effect a Redrum patch is a stored drum kit REX files are created in another Propellerheads application the ReCycle loop editor They con tain audio loops chopped into slices with one slice for each significant beat in the loop By loading a REX file into the Dr Rex Loop Player device you can play back the loop in virtually any tempo without affecting the pitch manipu late individual beats in the loop extract timing info etc The NN19 Sampler and the Redrum drum ma chine play back samples in Wave or AIFF for mat with support for a large number of resolutions and sample rates You can use files of different formats in the same device one drum sound can be an 8 bit sample the next a 16 bit sample
51. are not purely numerical e g reverb algorithms and synth oscillator waveforms The position values on the transport panel can also be edited by double clicking and typing a new position 33 REASON COMMON OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS Tool Tips If you position the pointer over a parameter on a device panel and wait a mo ment a tool tip will appear This displays the name of the parameter and its current value This helps you fine tune settings set several parameters to the same value etc Filter 7 Context menus Context menus are tailored to contain the relevant menu items only allow ing you to work quicker and more efficiently with Reason gt To bring up a context menu click with the right mouse button Win dows or press Ctrl and click Mac If you are using a Macintosh with a two button mouse you may want to set this up so that clicking the right mouse button generates a Ctrl click This way you can right click to bring up context menus Drirex LOOP PLAYER Cut Device Copy Device Paste Device a Delete Device POLYPHONY H IN Core loop ta Wreck Browse ReCycleAE Files Goa To Create The Dr REX context menu The contents of the context menu depends on where you click Basically the following different context menu types are available REASON COMMON OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS Device Context Menus If you click somewhere on a device in the rack but not on a control
52. atch or song Reason will alert you that files are missing Some sounds could not be found IF you have moved them to other database folders you can tr Search amp Proceed If you want to continue without the samples click Proceed For more details click Open Dialog Search amp Proceed Proceed Open Dialog Cancel Click one of the four buttons Option Description Search 8 Reason will search for the missing files in all database fold Proceed ers e Ifall files are found the song or patch will be opened with out further ado If one or more files cannot be found the Missing Sounds dialog will appear see below Note that the file search will look at the file names only files that have been renamed will not be found The song or patch will be opened with sounds missing This means that sampler patches drum machine patches and or loop players will not play back correctly On the device panels missing samples are indicated with an asterisk before the file names Proceed The Intruder sample is missing Open Dialog Opens the Missing Sounds dialog see below Cancel Cancels the operation i e no song or patch will be opened REASON THE BROWSER The Missing Sounds dialog Some sounds couldn t be found probably because files have been moved or renamed on your hard disk Use the buttons below the file list to search for missing files locate them manually or download the requi
53. atically been added one for the synthesizer and one for the drum machine sam we In Name 6 Redrum 1 EN REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 19 Now you could try playing the Subtractor synth live provided you have a MIDI keyboard or similar hooked up 7 In the sequencer click in the In column for the synthesizer track to the left of the name so that a MIDI connector symbol is shown This symbol indicates that incoming MIDI is routed to the track And since the track is connected to the Subtractor device any notes you play on your MIDI keyboard will be sent to the synth Synth 1 1 Er MIDI routed to the Subtractor track Try playing your MIDI keyboard What you hear now is the default Init sound of the Subtractor which may not be so inspiring You could start tweaking the parameters to cre ate a sound of your own or you could select one of the included synth patches and tweak this to your liking Click the folder button on the Subtractor panel This opens the Patch Browser dialog Patch Browser Synth 1 a R AC OR Reason SubTractor Patch zyp a eason Material POLYPHONIC BYMTHEBIZERA easi eDrum Samples and Kits F iles L Samples he ubtractor Falches la Reason Factory Sound Bank Ei 20 REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 10 Click the Find All ReFills button at the top of the dialog Find All ReFills A ReFill is a kind of component package for Reason which can contain patches
54. cable and dragging it to another connector Using pop up menus 1 Click or right click on a connector A pop up menu appears listing all devices in the rack 2 Move the pointer to the desired device the device to which you want to create a connection A submenu appears listing all suitable input output connections For ex ample if you clicked on an audio output on a device the hierarchical sub menus will list all audio inputs in all other devices Mieconmert Hardware Interface 1 Miner 1 Girth Sampler DRES Regn Metin Reeth Reverb 1 Delay 1 Dist 1 Filter 1 3 f a device is greyed out on the pop up menu there are no connec tions of the suitable kind 3 Select the desired connector from the submenu The connection is created Disconnecting Devices Again there are two ways to disconnect devices gt Click on one end of the cable drag it away from the jack and drop it anywhere away from a jack or gt Click on one of the connectors and select Disconnect from the context menu that appears Mixer 1 Dist 1 gt Phaser 1 gt v Synth 1 Hiding and Showing Cables You can choose whether you want the patch cables to be visible or not by activating or deactivating the Show Cables item on the Options menu When the cables are hidden connectors in use are indicated by a colored dot Checking Connections You can check to which device a jack
55. ce alone ReBirth Input Machine Re Wire MIX 303 808 909 REASON IS A REWIRE MASTER 1 2 MIX BD 5D TOM PER HH CY MIX BD SD TOM PER HH CY f ACTIVE This device allows you to use Reason in conjunction with Propellerheads classic ReBirth application The audio from ReBirth will be streamed via the ReWire protocol into Reason By routing the different outputs on the ReBirth Input Machine to different mixer channels you can mix the sound of ReBirth with the sound of Reason add effects to separate ReBirth sounds etc R QUI EASON CK TUTORIAL 29 30 REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 32 About this Chapter This chapter describes some general methods and techniques employed throughout Reason It also contains some terminology useful for better un derstanding the program and the manual To make your work with Reason as effective and rewarding as possible we recommend that you read this chapter Conventions in the Manual This manual describes both the Macintosh version and the Windows version of Reason Wherever the versions differ this is clearly stated in the text About Key Commands In the manual computer key commands are indicated by brackets For ex ample press Shift C would mean hold down the Shift key and press the C key However some modifier keys are different on Mac and PC com puters respectively
56. cho CHANNEL EZ CHANNEL EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNEL EF CHANNELS EF CHANNELS EE CHANNEL 10 3 CHANNEL 1 EF CHANNEL 12 EE CHANNEL 13 EE CHANNEL 14 EE CHANNEL 15 EZ CHANNEL 16 EE AUDIO CARD 33 34 35 36 37 38 38 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 489 50 51 5253 54 55 56 57 58 5 AUDIO OUT Ss JFG g g 7 8 s OT n AFI BE 014015516 17918919 20021922 23 24 25126 27 EL EL ENEE rr as REWIRE SE hardware interface This device handles Reason s communication with your hardware The upper half of the hardware interface contains settings for MIDI input al lowing you to select a separate MIDI channel for each device when control ling Reason from an external multi channel MIDI source For standard MIDI control of one device at a time in Reason you don t need to use the hardware interface since the MIDI signals are routed through the sequencer as described in the tutorials earlier in this chapter The lower half of the hardware interface contains audio output indicators with level meters This is where you connect different devices to different outputs on your audio hardware Reason supports up to 64 separate audio outputs However if you are only using audio hardware with standard stereo outputs the connections to the audio hardware are automatically taken care of when you create a mixer device at the top of the rack The Reason Hardware Interface is riveted into the rack
57. cify the search path s for the database on the Sound Loca tions page in the Preferences dialog on the Edit menu as described on page 16 You can specify up to four different search paths However it is normally enough to specify a single path since all underlying folders are automat ically included in the database Use the additional paths if you use more than one hard drive CD ROM drives etc see also the note about finding ReFills on page 73 __ Mallet and Ethnic Redrum Orum Kits A Subtractor Patches Rea son Factory Sound Bank rl Sounds An example of the database If the folder Reason Sounds is specified as search path all its subfolders are automatically included in the database It is possible to select the root of a hard disk as search path thus making the database contain all files on your hard disk However this will make search times much longer since Reason will have to look at a lot of unnecessary files Generally to keep things as snappy as possible you should avoid having files unrelated to Rea son in your search paths REASON THE BROWSER About ReFills A ReFill is a kind of component package for Reason which can contain patches samples REX files and demo songs If you like you could compare ReFills to ROM cards for a synthesizer On your computer ReFills appear as large files with the extension rfl All sounds included with Reason are embedded in a huge ReFill called Rea son
58. ck 57 Clipping 40 Computer Requirements 7 Context Menus 34 Copy Device 44 Copy Patch 80 Copy Pattern 67 Create Sequencer Track for 54 Cut Device 44 Cut Patch 80 Cut Pattern 67 REASON INDEX D Database About 70 Setting Paths 16 Default Song 85 Devices Connecting MIDI to 55 Creating 42 Cut Copy and Paste 44 Deleting 43 Deleting with Track 55 Duplicating 44 Folding 49 Moving in the Rack 43 Naming 48 Routing 45 Selecting 43 Direct Sound Driver 8 13 Dividers 36 Download ReFill 75 E E Marker 86 Enable Pattern Section 64 Export as Audio File 86 F Factory Sound Bank 10 70 File Formats 71 Find All ReFills 73 Folding Devices 49 H Hardware Interface 38 In Column 54 Initialize Patch 80 K Key Commands Syntax in Manual 32 Transport 57 Zooming 53 Knobs 32 L L Marker 60 Latency 14 Left Locator 60 Levels 40 Loop Mode 60 M Column 61 Magnification 36 Master Tune 40 Metronome Click 57 MIDI Connecting 9 Routing to Tracks 54 Setting up inputs 15 MIDI Connector symbol 54 Missing Sounds 74 MME Driver 8 13 Mouse Knob Range 32 Multiple Undo 35 Mute 61 N Naming Devices 48 Sequencer Tracks 54 Numerical Value Editing 33 O OMS 9 Open Song 84 Out column 55 Overdub Replace switch 58 P P marker 59 Panes 36 Paste Device 44 Paste Patch 80 Paste Pattern 67 Patch Cables 46 Patch Search Paths 16 Patches About 78 Cut Copy and Paste 80 Initializing 80 Missing So
59. ck on which MIDI channel your MIDI controller sends and set the Channel pop up menu to this value The sequencer will only accept MIDI data on one channel at a time This makes it possible to play via the sequencer and use MIDI Remote Con trol at the same time even if you have a MIDI interface with a single input only see the electronic documentation 5 For now make sure the other pop up menus are set to No MIDI In put Now the Reason sequencer will receive MIDI data on the specified input port and MIDI channel You may want to leave the Preferences dialog open for the following settings REASON SETTING UP 15 16 Setting Sound and Patch Search Paths Reason songs and patches can contain references to other files on your hard disk such as samples To keep track of all files Reason makes use of a database If you keep your Reason files within the database Reason can update file paths automatically search for missing files etc This database consists of up to four different folders on disk and all their subfolders You specify which folders to use as database in the following way 1 Inthe Preferences dialog use the pop up menu at the top to select the Sound Locations page Page Sound Locations E Sound and Patch Search Paths Reason sounds lt None gt lt None gt XxX XX go ce lt None gt 2 Click the 1 folder button below the heading Sou
60. determines to which device each track will send MIDI data 3 To connect a track to a device in the rack pull down the pop up menu in the Out column and select one of the devices Di t ama ior In Name 0 Sampler 1 ie Sampler 2 Synth 1 Dr HER I v Redrum 1 Sampler 2 i DrREX 1 Matrix 1 e Matrix 1 Synth 1 Delay 1 The symbol in the Out column indicates to which device type each track is connected Moving Tracks To move a track to another position in the list click on the track name and drag it up or down To move several tracks at once select them click on one of them and drag The order of the tracks in the sequencer is independent of the de vice order in the rack Duplicating Tracks To make copies of tracks complete with all recorded data use any of the fol lowing methods gt Hold down Option Mac or Ctrl Windows and drag the track to a new position in the track list gt Bring up the context menu for the track and select Duplicate Track To bring up the context menu Ctrl click Mac or right click Windows on the track in the track list Note that a duplicated track will be routed to the same device as the original You may want to mute one of the tracks or connect it to an other device to avoid double notes etc Deleting Tracks To delete one or several tracks select them and press Backspace 3 If the track to be deleted and this track only is connected to a
61. e bottom of the song window DRNA POS E JB dl ME i hole ros Playback starts and you should hear the song being played back provided that you have connected your audio equipment properly 4 While listening closely for pops and clicks try lowering the latency in the Preferences dialog or the ASIO Control Panel 5 When you get pops and clicks raise the latency value a bit 6 Stop playback by clicking the stop button on the transport panel Now you have adjusted the latency so that this song plays back OK on your computer However you may create more demanding songs that require you to raise the latency further The connection between demanding songs CPU usage and la tency is especially noticeable if you are using Direct Sound or MME drivers on the PC If you are using a specific ASIO driver for the au dio hardware it may be possible to get very low latency values down to a few ms regardless of the CPU usage See the electronic documentation for details about this and general information about how to optimize performance About Latency Compensation In the lower right corner of the Preferences Audio dialog you will find a set ting called Latency Compensation This value is used internally in Reason to compensate for the latency when synchronizing Reason to another MIDI se quencer or similar Usually Latency Compensation is set to the same value as the Output Latency but it is possible to increase
62. e context menu You can also automatically delete devices when you delete sequencer tracks If there is a single sequencer track routed to a device and you delete this track you will be asked whether you want to delete the device as well see page 55 If you delete a device connected between two other devices the connection between these is automatically preserved The Hardware Interface device at the top of the rack cannot be re moved Reordering Devices You can rearrange the devices in the rack by moving them in the following way 1 If you want to move more than one device at the same time select the devices 2 Click in the handle area of one of the devices For full width devices this is the area to the left and right of the panel be tween the rack fittings for smaller devices you can click anywhere out side the actual parameters 3 With the mouse button pressed drag the device s up or down in the rack A thick red vertical line indicates where the device s will be positioned Note that the red line can be to the left of a device indicating that the moved device will be inserted before the other device or to the right of a device indicating that the moved device will be inserted after the other device REASON MANAGING THE RACK 43 44 In this example a D 11 distortion device is moved In this case the red line indicates that the distortion device will be inserted to the left of the phase
63. e or paste devices with Shift pressed Creating Mixers gt The first created mixer device will be routed to the Stereo inputs on the Hardware Device If you create more mixers they will be connected in series using the mix ers Chaining connections see the electronic documentation Routing a device to the Mixer gt When you create an instrument device synth sampler drum ma chine or loop player it is automatically routed to the first available mixer channel This makes it immediately available for use Routing a Send Effect to the Mixer gt When you have a mixer selected and create an effect device it will be connected as a send effect to the first free Aux Send Return Examples of effects that lend themselves well for use as send effects are reverb delay and chorus Routing an Effect Directly to a Device Insert gt When you have an instrument device selected and create an effect that effect will be connected as an insert effect That is the signal from the device will pass through that effect and to the mixer Examples of effects that work well as inserts are distortion compression and phaser Auto routing Devices after they have been Created Here follows some additional rules about auto routing devices that are al ready in the rack gt To reroute a device already in the rack you can select it and use Disconnect Device and Auto route Device both on the Edit menu gt If you delete a device
64. eason Factory Sound Sampler 1 re laa GtrhD 2 wav 72K Reason Factory Sound E Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhDH3 way 62K Reason Factory Sound i Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhD 4 way 88K Reason Factory Sound Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhF 1 waw 45K Reason Factory Sound i Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhF 2 way 77K Reason Factory Sound Sampler 1 amp laa GtrhF 3 wav 88K Reason Factory Sound i Sampler 1 amp a GthF 4 wav 93K Reason Factory Sound Sampler 2 Iv ly GuitarP LAB aif 221K ER OD REX1 L a 090 EAO105 1x2 269K Reason Factory Sound IN Redrum 1 TI Vocoder LAB aif 717K EM Sampler 3 Mi BassSli eLAB aif 89K Check All Uncheck All Cancel Help 2 Tick the checkbox in the Sound column for the files you want in cluded in the song REASON SONG FILE HANDLING gt You can use the Check All button to activate all checkboxes in one go Similarly the Uncheck All button deactivates all checkboxes gt Files that are part of a ReFill are indicated by a lock symbol instead of a checkbox since they cannot be included in the song file The rightmost column indicates to which ReFill each such file belongs 3 When you have selected the desired sounds click OK The dialog is closed The next time you save the specified sounds will be included in the song file Note that a self contained song file will be considerably larger than the original song file However samples included i
65. eate Sequencer Track from the context menu in the sequencer The new track will appear below the currently selected track in the track list Initially it will not be connected to any device see below gt You can also create a new sequencer track specifically for a device by using the Create Sequencer Track for Device item on the de vice s context menu This works the same as when creating a new device i e the new track is connected to the device and has the same name Naming Tracks You can rename a track by double clicking on its name in the track list and typing in a new name Note gt Ifthe track and this track only is connected to a device and the de vice has the same name as the track the device will be renamed too Typically after creating a new device you can rename its sequencer track automatically changing the name of the device Selecting Tracks To be able to manipulate a track or edit its contents you need to select it You select a track by clicking on its name in the track list ala o via a E Dr REX 1 Matrix 1 Synth 1 Redrum 1 Selected tracks are highlighted in the list REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS Selecting a track will automatically scroll the rack to bring the corresponding device into view gt You can also select the next or previous track in the list by using the up and down arrow keys on the computer keyboard gt Itis possible to select several tr
66. ection between Reason and the audio hardware This is done by selecting a driver a software com ponent that acts like a glue between the program and the audio hardware Proceed as follows 1 Inthe Preferences dialog use the pop up menu at the top to select the Audio page Page audio SS Sound Locations m Audio Card Driver m Master Tune Dx AWwEB4 Direct Sound Driver 220 y Number of Channels 2 antral Panel Sample Rate 44100 X Tl Play in Background m Output Latency _ __ Latency Compensation 2816 samples 63 ms latency 3 63 ms E Help 2 Pull down the Audio Card Driver pop up menu and select one of the options Which option to select depends on the platform and the audio hardware Macintosh gt If you are using audio hardware for which there is a specific ASIO driver you should select this With an ASIO driver written specifically for the audio hardware Reason can communicate more or less directly with the audio hardware The benefits are lower latency see below and possibly better support for ad ditional hardware features such as multiple outputs gt If you are using the built in audio hardware on the Mac or possibly additional audio hardware that uses the Apple Sound Manager se lect Sound Manager Default Output This makes Reason communicate with the audio hardware using Apple Sound Manager the sound driver protocol that comes with
67. els etc hit the red Clipping can only occur in the Hardware Interface The technical reason for this is that internally Reason uses high resolution floating point processing which ensures high audio quality and virtually limit less headroom In the Audio Hardware device the floating point audio is con verted to the resolution used by the audio hardware and that s where clipping may occur If you are using multiple outputs If you are using audio hardware with more than two outputs you may have different devices connected to different outputs in the Hardware Interface If the Audio Out Clipping indicator lights up you should play back the section again while checking the Hardware Interface Each output socket has a level meter if the red meter segment lights up the output is clipping Lower the output level of the device connected to the clipping output until no clipping occurs AUDIO OUT 23RA ap acosa REWIRE El casts Ir reason d i BE Clipping on the stereo outputs If you are using ReWire If you are streaming audio to another application using the ReWire protocol clipping can not happen in Reason This is because the conversion from floating point audio happens in the other audio application See the elec tronic documentation for more information about ReWire REASON AUDIO BASICS Master Tune By default Reason plays back a middle A at 440 Hz which is the standard tun
68. fils FR ht Reason Factory Sound Bank El Transistor Jazz Refill 58 MB gl Ultimate Country Refill JME The ReFills are listed together even though they may be in different folders on your hard disk If you double click on a ReFill in the list you can navigate within the ReFill and select songs or sounds for opening just as ifthey were separate files on disk When you click the Find All ReFills button Reason will look for Re Fills in the root folder s of the database in the Reason program folder and on any CD in the CD ROM drive regardless of whether the CD ROM drive is specified as a database search path or not Re scan button lel ES a E 1 504 MB Click this button to have Reason re scan the currently shown folder and up date the file display Use this if you have changed the contents in a folder aaa a while the browser was open if you have added a new disk or CD ROM etc Getting Info The area to the right of the file display is the info area This will show informa tion about the item that is currently selected in the file display Exactly which information is shown depends on the file type For example the info area for samples or REX files contains information about the file format and length of the selected file while the song info area displays comments from the author Song Information see page 83 etc If the selected file is part of a ReFill this will be
69. he latency Usually this is done by changing the number and or size of the audio buffers the fewer and smaller the audio buffers the lower the latency Please consult the docu mentation of your audio hardware and its ASIO drivers for details gt If you are running Reason on a Mac using the Sound Manager De fault Output driver you cannot change the latency REASON SETTING UP OK so why not just set the latency to the lowest possible value The prob lem is that selecting too low a latency is likely to result in playback problems clicks pops dropouts etc There are several technical reasons for this the main one being that with smaller buffers lower latency the average strain on the CPU will be higher This also means that the more CPU inten sive your Reason song i e the more devices you use the higher the mini mum latency required for avoiding playback difficulties For this reason you should adjust the latency while playing back a test song If you are using audio hardware with an ASIO driver and thus need to adjust the buffers in the ASIO Device Control Panel you should make a note of the original settings before changing anything 1 Pull down the File menu and select Open The Reason Song Browser dialog appears 2 Navigate to the Reason program folder and open one of the songs in the Demo Songs folder The song appears in anew Reason document window 3 Click the play button on the transport panel at th
70. he latest versions 2 Install the audio hardware and its low level drivers as described in its documentation 3 Connect the stereo outputs of your audio hardware to your listening equipment speakers mixer headphones or similar For info about how to use multiple outputs i e more than a stereo out put see the electronic documentation For now we stick to standard stereo connections 4 If possible test that audio plays back OK with the audio hardware With some audio hardware a test application is supplied for this purpose 5 Locate the ASIO driver for the hardware After installing Reason you will need to copy this into Reason s ASIO driver folder see page 10 Some Macintosh audio hardware comes with a Sound Manager driver i e without an ASIO driver However we recommend using ASIO compatible audio hardware only REASON INSTALLATION Windows gt If possible you should use ASIO compatible audio hardware i e audio hardware for which there is an ASIO driver ASIO drivers generally provide better performance and lower latency see page 14 3 If there is no ASIO driver available you should make sure your au dio card supports DirectX DirectX is a Microsoft protocol for handling audio and other multimedia aspects gt As a last resort you could use audio cards that don t support ASIO or DirectX provided that they are Windows compatible In this case Reason will communicate with the audio hard
71. hich determine the quality of the sound Generally higher sample rate and resolution result in better audio quality but also larger audio files and higher demands on computer performance and audio hardware This table shows some com mon sample rate resolution combinations Sample rate Resolution Comment 22 05 kHz 8 bit Typically used in situations where small file size is more important than audio quality such as games some multimedia applica tions sound files on the Internet etc 44 1 kHz 16 bit This is the format used on audio CDs often called CD Quality audio 44 1 kHz 24 bit These are formats used in professional stu 96 kHz dios and high end recording equipment To cater for all different situations Reason supports multiple sample rates and resolutions This applies to the following areas Playing back During playback the audio resolution is determined by the audio hardware That is if you have a 24 bit audio card Reason will create audio in 24 bit res olution The playback sample rate can be specified in the Preferences Audio dialog accessed from the Edit menu Page Audio r 3 Master ote on al _ 440 Hz 0 cent r Audio Card Driver fasio Directs Full Duplex Driver Control Panel Number of Channels 2 Sample Rate a AAA ro ee dee Note that the available options on this pop up menu depend on which sam ple rates are supported by the a
72. ided Tour On the following pages you will find a brief guided tour through the pro gram This helps you get familiar with the different devices and their uses The Rack 2 The Rack CUS LE LC Lo SB AudioPCI 128 MIDI In Synth 1 In CHANNEL CHANNEL2 CHANNELS CHANNEL 4 DO ETE Bora Bar BI CHANNELS CHANNELIO CHANNEL 1 EGE CHANNEL 12 CHANNEL 13 BE CHANNEL 14 CHANNEL 15 Ea x Kst EHE Do io mn f12f13J1af s ed KLI EL ED ed EST EST Ec Ed Ed ea EL 12930 Ene CHANNEL 16 1 13 AUDIO CARD 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 assoi Gl GG Go 57 58 59 60 61 62 ea 64 TREBLE TREBLE 103 Y Ore BY ee aI Boks i ae om MASTER I R L tr i i Bypass V E PH 90 7 DIGITAL REVERB 113 PHASER 5 AMEE E Br Henn O Wavetorm Oct Sami Phase UD Mode Kbd Track This is the virtual rack the heart of Reason At the top of the rack you will al ways find the Hardware Interface which allows Reason to communicate with the audio hardware and MIDI interfaces Below this you can add as many different devices you want or as many as your computer can handle Read more about the different devices below REASON QUICK TUTORIAL The Back If you press Tab or select Toggle Rack Front Rear on the Options menu the rack will be turned to show you the back The Rack 1 a 8 s 10 12 13 14 15 16 v 18 1 20 29 30 31 32 OO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OOOO OCOC NA LAN ARANA
73. ing 4 Re record the section 5 Atthe end of the faulty section deactivate recording or stop Playback and Positioning If you are using ReWire transport functions can be handled by ei ther application See the electronic documentation Play and Stop gt To play back from the current song position click the play button or press Enter on the numeric keypad 3 To stop playback click the stop button or press 0 on the numeric keypad If you click the stop button when the song is already stopped the song posi tion is moved according to the following rules Ifthe song position is to the right of the left locator it is moved to the left locator Ifthe song position is at the left locator or to the left of it it is moved to the start of the song If the song position is at the start of the song nothing happens This means you can always click twice on the stop button in stop mode to re turn to the beginning of the song Positioning The song position is indicated by the vertical line with the P marker in the ruler There are several ways to move the song position gt Use the rewind and fast forward controls on the transport panel This moves the song position in steps of one bar from its current posi tion That is if you just click once on the rewind fast forward button the song position will be moved exactly one bar back or forward To move the song position several bars click and h
74. ing in most instruments However if you are playing Reason together with other instruments you may want to adjust the tuning 1 Pull down the Edit menu and select Preferences 2 Use the pop up menu at the top of the Preferences dialog to select the Audio page 3 Adjust the global tuning with the Master Tune control If you like you can adjust this during playback Note that this affects the tuning of all sound sources in Reason including the drum machine and loop player 42 About this Chapter As you have seen by now the central part of Reason is the rack This is where you create and configure your devices and make parameter settings This chapter describes all the procedures for managing the rack that is pro cedures and techniques common to all devices Device parameter specifics are described in the electronic documentation Navigating in the Rack If the rack contains more than a few devices the whole rack will probably not fit on the screen To scroll the rack up or down use one of the following methods gt Use the scrollbar to the right of the rack to scroll continuously up or down gt Use the Page Up Page Down buttons on the computer keyboard to move the view one full screen up or down gt Use the Home or End buttons on the computer keyboard to scroll the top or bottom of the rack gt Pull down a device context men
75. ing the pan setting stereo position of a channel by click ing the pan knob above the fader and dragging up or down Dragging up will turn the knob clockwise dragging down will turn it counter clockwise You may also want to add some effects to the music In this song there are two effect devices connected a delay and a chorus flanger These are con nected as send effects from the mixer allowing you to specify how much of each mixer channel signal should be sent to each effect 13 Raise the Aux send level knobs at the top of a mixer channel Send 1 is connected to the delay while send 2 goes to the chorus flanger ln re The Aux sends Finally let s try tweaking some controls on an actual instrument device to change the sound In this example we will use the Subtractor synthesizer de vice but all devices have parameters that can be adjusted on the device panels in the same way Unless you have a very large screen the Subtractor device isn t visible right now You could use the scrollbar to scroll the rack down but here s a quicker way 14 In the sequencer area above the transport panel click on the name Subtractor in the track list to the left The rack is automatically scrolled to bring the Subtractor device into view 15 Try adjusting some parameters while the song is playing You may for example want to tweak the Filter 1 Freq slider to change the brightness of the synth bass sound
76. ins 64 output sockets each with an indicator and a level meter Each one of these indicators represents a con nection to an output on your audio hardware or a ReWire channel to another application if you are using ReWire see the electronic documentation REASON AUDIO BASICS However the number of outputs available depends on the number of outputs on your audio hardware For example if you are using a standard sound card with stereo outputs or the built in audio hardware on the Mac only the first two outputs will be available In the Hardware Interface device the green indicators are lit for all currently available outputs a fn GF praia fis 16 417 AUDIO ARO er 11 PEPE Es Es Es Es Es ma In this case a standard stereo audio card is used and only the first two outputs marked Stereo on the device panel are available 10 1112913914915 916 178189135 20 REMIRE AUDIO CARD Nada hardware inte Here an audio card with eight outputs is used To send the sound of a device in the rack to a specific output you route the device output to the corresponding socket on the Hardware Interface This is done by using the virtual patch cables on the back of the rack as de scribed on page 45 In most cases you will want to connect a mixer device to the Stereo outputs outputs 1 and 2 About Sample Rates and Resolutions Sample rate and resolution are properties of digital audio w
77. ithout risking to lose your sound 1 Click the floppy disk button on the device panel E TRACTOR 5 2 In the file dialog that appears specify a location and name for the patch file and click Save gt Under Windows the different types of patch files have different file extensions These are zyp Subtractor patch files smp NN19 patch files and drp Redrum patch files Under Windows file extensions are automatically added by Reason when you save Under MacOS you can choose to automatically add ex tensions by activating the Add Extension to File Name checkbox in the save dialog this is not required but may be a good idea if you want the saved files to be usable under Windows REASON WORKING WITH PATCHES 80 gt If you have selected a patch modified it and want to save it with the modifications you could either save a separate modified version of the patch with anew name or simply overwrite the old patch file on disk As usual you will be asked whether you really want to replace the exist ing patch file Note that you cannot save into a ReFill This means that if you have opened a patch from within a ReFill modified it and want to save it you need to save it as a separate file Preferably you should also re name the modified patch file to avoid confusion Copying and Pasting Patches between Devices A quick way to transfer settings between devices of the same type is to use
78. k the Select button for one of the drum sounds In Redrum you add drum beats for one sound at the time 19 Click on the first step button marked 1 The button lights up indicating a drum beat un Sie 4 VEL Sir hard me Ehre Ag RATE VEL SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT SELECT 49 64 ENABLE PATTEAN PATTERN 33 4 2 wa Y 132 Eee secrion EN ggg M 106 mn 12 AM2B In 5 B Te STEPS RESOLUTION SHUFFLE EDIT STEPS D coon ABBBBEBBBEI You will now hear the sound of the selected drum on the first beat of each bar k AAT 4 SELE 20 Add more drum beats by clicking other step buttons Clicking a lit step button will remove the beat HARD Cc MEDIUM SOFT DYNAMIC 21 Select another drum sound by clicking its Select button and pro ceed in the same way until you have a drum pattern you want to use 22 To stop the playback click the Run button again 2 2 QUICK TUTORIAL Now try recording some synth notes in the sequencer 23 Click in the In column for the synthesizer track in the sequencer so that the MIDI connector symbol appears 24 Click the record button in the transport panel The button lights up indicating record standby mode The Play button ELA The Fast Forward button ros i a Rays The Stop button The Rewind button The Record button 25 Click the play button Recording is activated and the drum machine pattern automatically starts playing 26 P
79. lay your MIDI keyboard while listening to the drum pattern 27 When you re done click the stop button 28 Click stop again to move the song position to the beginning of the song You can also click and hold the rewind button 29 Click play to listen to your recording Finally let s record some automation of a synthesizer parameter In this ex ample we automate the cutoff frequency of the filter Filter 1 Freq but you can automate any parameter you like 30 Rewind the song to the beginning again 31 Make sure the Overdub Replace switch just below the record but ton is in the Overdub position This allows you to record more on the same track without removing the previous recording DEBE jee Bl el Be i The Overdub Replace switch 32 Click the record button and then the play button Recording starts You will hear the recorded synth notes being played back 33 Click and drag the Filter 1 Freq slider on the Subtractor panel The changes you make will be heard immediately 34 Click stop twice to end recording and go back to the beginning of the song If you look at the Subtractor panel you will note that there is a green frame around the filter slider now This indicates that the parameter is au tomated 35 Play back the song again You will see the filter slider moving exactly as you moved it during re cording This concludes the second tutorial REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 23 24 Gu
80. les to have the program search for them in the database and ReFills or to pro ceed with missing sounds For details see page 74 Closing a Song To close the current song select Close from the File menu or click the close box of the song document window If you have unsaved changes you are asked whether you want to save the song Creating a New Song To create a new song select New from the File menu This makes a new song document window appear gt By default the new song will contain one instrument device of each kind along with a mixer and two send effects If you want to start with another selection of devices or an empty rack you can customize your default song as described below Creating a Default Song If you often start off with the same set of devices patches patterns and set tings you may want to create your own custom default song 1 If you like copy the original default song named Default Song rns from the Reason program folder to another location For example you may want to keep this if you like the default patterns programmed for the Redrum device Select New from the File menu to create a new song document win dow Add remove devices and make settings as desired Typically you may want the default song to contain your choice of de vices and possibly some patterns You could also make some special routing between devices or even add some sequencer data Save the song in the Reason
81. mputer This method is suitable if you are short on hard disk space if you are run ning Reason temporarily on another computer etc Even if you didn t install the factory sound bank when you installed Reason you can do this at a later stage if you like simply copy the file Factory Sound Bank rfl from the Reason Factory Sound Bank CD to the Reason program folder Ab t th 7 Ch t Should you need to change your settings at a later stage you can open the Ou IS ap er Preferences dialog from the Edit menu This chapter describes the settings you need to make before you can start using Reason These are necessary in order to get any sounds from the pro gram and to be able to play and control Reason via MIDI Snag Heo SOL WEvICE About the Preferences Copy Device The first time you launch Reason you haven t yet made any Preference set tings For this reason the Preferences dialog will automatically appear after the authorization form and registration described in the previous chapter AUTOS Gute WENIGE ee IISCOMECIDEST Reason Preferences h This chapter describes the most important settings in the Prefer ences For information about other Preferences settings see the electronic documentation The Preferences dialog REASON SETTING UP Setting up the Audio Hardware The first thing you need to do is to establish a conn
82. must select the device for the corresponding Browse Patches item to appear on the Edit menu In both cases the Browser dialog appears allowing you to locate and select the patch on the hard disk or within a ReFill See page 72 for details about the Browser gt Once you have selected a patch you can step between all the patches in the same folder by using the arrow buttons on the device panel u E PATCH SELECT HIGH GU ALITY a INTERPOL ATION a CHANNEL 343 EXCLUSIVE gt If you click on the patch name display on the device panel a pop up menu will appear listing all patches in the current folder This allows you to quickly select another patch in the same folder with out having to step through each one in turn Es TRACTOR POLYPHONIC SYNTHESIZER 0 pen browser Bowed Steel zyp Clockwork 1 zyp Clockwork 2 zyp Eye of Needle zyp Meteorite zyp Microwaves zyp Space Buas zyp Thunder zyp When you select a patch the device s parameters will be set according to the values stored in the patch and the name of the patch will be shown in the patch name display As with any change you make this operation can be un done see page 35 Any parameter adjustments you make on the device panel after se lecting a patch will not affect the actual patch file for this you need to save the patch see below If referenced samples are missing As described above patches for the Redrum and
83. n a self contained song are automati cally compressed by approximately 50 meaning that the self con tained song will still be a lot smaller than the original song and the sample files combined Un self containing a Song If you have opened a song that is more or less self contained i e contains one or several sounds embedded in the song file you may want to extract these sounds and make the song refer to them on disk as usual This is done in the following way 1 Select Song Self Contain Settings from the File menu The dialog appears 2 Locate the sounds you want to extract from the song file and deac tivate their checkboxes or click Uncheck All 3 Click OK to close the dialog Now the program will check for each extracted sound file whether it is available in your database at its original stored location or not 3 Ifthe program finds the sound file at the location stored in the song it is simply removed from the song file and the original file refer ence path is used This would be the case if you made the song self contained yourself and un self contain it on your own computer provided that you haven t re moved the original sound files from disk since you made the song self contained 3 If the program doesn t find the sound file a file dialog appears al lowing you to select a folder and name for the sound file The extracted file will be saved in the specified folder and the path in the song
84. n of notes and controllers e Using groups Importing and exporting MIDI files REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS 61 62 REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS 64 About this chapter As of this writing Reason includes two pattern based devices the Redrum drum computer and the Matrix Pattern Sequencer additional pattern devices may be added in upcoming versions While these two devices are very dif ferent in most ways they handle patterns following the same basic rules as described in this chapter For details about the respective devices see the electronic docu mentation What are Pattern Devices A pattern device contains a built in pattern sequencer Unlike the main se quencer in Reason a pattern sequencer repeatedly plays back a pattern of a specified length The typical example in the real world as well as in Rea son is a drum machine which plays drum patterns usually one or two bars in length Having the same pattern repeat throughout a whole song may be fine in some cases but most often you want some variations The solution is to cre ate several different patterns and program pattern changes automatic switching from one pattern to another at the desired positions in the song How Pattern Devices integrate with the main Sequencer The built in pattern sequencer in a pattern device interacts with the main Reason sequencer in the follo
85. nc tions on the Edit menu and on the device context menu Below the three basic types of pattern functions are listed However the exact names and functionalities depend on the device type refer to the electronic documenta tion for details Shift The Shift functions move the notes in a pattern one step to the left or right or transposes them one semitone up or down depending on the device This function can be used for interesting rhythmic or melodic effects or as a way to rectify patterns for which the first step isn t on the proper downbeat Randomize The Randomize functions create random patterns These can often be great starting points and help you get new ideas Alter The Alter functions modify existing patterns Note that there must be some thing in the pattern for the function to work on using an Alter function on an empty pattern will not do anything REAS CIN USING PATTERN DEVICES 67 68 REASON USING PATTERN DEVICES 70 Background About the Database Reason songs and patches can contain references to other files on your hard disk namely samples wave or aiff files or loop files created in ReCycle REX files see below To keep track of all files Reason makes use of a da tabase If you keep your Reason files within the database Reason can up date file paths automatically search for missing files etc gt You spe
86. nd and Patch Search Paths A file dialog appears 3 Navigate to the desired folder and select it You can select a folder on any drive including mapped network drives under Windows 4 Click OK The folder is added as the first search path in the database 5 If you like specify search path 2 to 4 in the same way It is normally enough to specify a single path since all underlying folders are automatically included in the database Use the additional paths if you use more than one hard drive CD ROM drives etc When you add sound files or save Reason files you should place them within the database under one of the specified search path folders Read more about the database and the browser in the chapter The Browser REASON SETTING UP 18 About this Chapter This chapter is a quick introduction to the basics in Reason laid out as step by step tutorials At the end of the chapter you will also find a guided tour describing the different areas and devices in the program Before you proceed with the tutorials you should have connected your equipment and made settings for audio and MIDI as described in the previous chapters Playing a Song 1 If you haven t launched Reason yet do so 2 Pull down the File menu and select Open The Song Browser dialog appears Navigate to the Reason program folder 4 Open the Demo Songs folde
87. nd bank file to your hard disk later if you wish see page 10 Now the Reason files have been installed in a folder on your hard disk Un der Windows all Reason related items have also been added to the Start menu and possibly you will have a Reason shortcut on the Desktop 5 Check for any ReadMe files in the Reason folder or on the Start menu and open and read these ReadMe files may contain important last minute information that didn t make it into this manual 6 If you are using a Macintosh with audio hardware for which there is an ASIO driver copy the ASIO driver into the folder ASIO Drivers within the Reason program folder This makes the ASIO driver available to Reason 7 Ifyou chose notto install the factory sound bank on your hard disk insert the Factory Sound Bank CD in your CD ROM drive 8 Launch the program by double clicking the Reason icon or by se lecting the Reason item from the Start menu 9 Fill in the authorization form that appears Your authorization code can be found on the product authorization card included in the package REASON INSTALLATION At this point a dialog appears asking you whether you want to register your copy of the program at the Propellerhead web site Registering gives you im mediate access to various benefits such as free extra sounds for Reason You must have a working Internet connection to be able to register on line gt If you click the Register Now bu
88. ne is shown on the Edit menu About Multiple Undos The concept of multiple undos may require an explanation You can undo up to 10 actions or in other words Reason has an Undo History with up to ten steps Let s say you have performed the following actions 1 Created a mixer 2 Created a synth device 3 Adjusted the Amp Envelope Attack time on the synth 4 Changed the panning for the synth device in the mixer 5 Adjusted the playback tempo in the transport panel After these five actions the Undo History will look as follows UNDO 5 Adjust tempo 4 Change pan 2 Create Synth Device 3 Adjust Attack 1 Create Mixer Device If you now select Undo your latest action the tempo change will be undone and moved to a Redo list UNDO 4 Change pan 3 Adjust Attack REDO 2 Create Synth Device 1 Create Mixer Device Selecting Undo again undoes the next action in the list the panning adjust ment 5 Adjust tempo UNDO 3 Adjust Attack 2 Create Synth Device 1 Create Mixer Device 5 Adjust tempo If you now select Redo the last undone action will be redone In this case your panning adjustment will be performed again and added to the Undo History again UNDO REDO orange pen C enn 2 crate Sm Devoe MCCAIN crete so Devos aaa At this point you still have the option to Redo the tempo change But if you instead would perform another action e g change the level of the syn
89. ne of several modes There are two different graphical representations of this in Reason This type of multi mode selector consists of a button with the different modes listed above You can either click the button to step through the modes or click directly on one of the modes to select it The currently selected mode is indicated by a lit LED This type of multi mode selector is a switch with more than two settings To change mode click and drag the switch or click directly at the desired switch position just as when adjusting a slider Buttons Many modes and functions are controlled by clicking buttons Most of the buttons in Reason have a built in LED indicating whether the button is pressed or not Numerical Values In Reason numerical values are displayed in alphanumeric readouts with spin controls up down arrow buttons on the side There are two ways to change numerical values gt ae eI By using the up and down buttons on the spin controls To adjust a value in single steps click on its up or down arrow button To scroll a value continuously click on an arrow button and keep the mouse button pressed i E poLvrelkuv By clicking in the actual alphanumeric display and dragging up or down with the mouse button pressed This allows you to make coarse adjustments very quickly m AY 7 rr DIGITAL REVERB h 7 This type of control is also used for some parameters that
90. nel tape strips show the name of the device directly connected to the mixer This means that if you have an instrument device routed through an insert effect the mixer channel tape strip will show the name of the insert effect device as this is the device directly connected to the mixer channel In this case you may want to rename the insert effect de vice to indicate the connected instrument 06 Gi We iG gt wy a Eee wy Y Fi A SAN u Ne de COMP 01 SY SCOM Ip 2 1 4 1 i ni 36 24 12 OS amp a 11 h fo THRESH F GA 96 TRACTOR The relation between device names and track names When you create an instrument device it automatically gets a track in the se quencer with the same default name Renaming a device will also rename the corresponding sequencer track and vice versa if the following condi tions are met The device and its track has the same name There is only one track connected to the device Often having the same name for the device and the track is the most practi cal arrangement since it makes it easier to keep track of which track plays what Should you want to rename the track or device independently you need to disconnect the track from the device rename and connect it again How to connect a track to a device is described on page 55 Folding and Unfolding If you don t need to make settings for a device you can fold it to make the rack more manageable and avoid
91. niques 2 N TABLE OF CONTENTS Audio Basics About this chapter How Reason communicates with your audio hardware About Sample Rates and Resolutions About Audio Levels Master Tune Managing the Rack About this Chapter Navigating in the Rack Creating Devices Selecting Devices Deleting Devices Reordering Devices Duplicating Devices Cut Copy and Paste A Quick Note on Routing Naming Devices Folding and Unfolding The Sequencer Basics About the Sequencer Sequencer window handling Managing Tracks About the two Views About the Ruler Song Position and Locators Transport Controls Overview Setting Up for Recording Recording Playback and Positioning Mute and Solo What else can do in the sequencer Using Pattern Devices About this chapter What are Pattern Devices Selecting Patterns Programming a Pattern Clearing a Pattern Using Cut Copy and Paste Pattern Functions The Browser Background The Browser Handling Missing Sounds Working with Patches What are Patches Selecting a Patch Saving Patches Copying and Pasting Patches between Devices Initializing Patches Song File Handling About Self contained Songs Song Information Saving a Song Publishing a Song Opening a Song Closing a Song Creating aNew Song Creating a Default Song Exporting as an Audio File Index ON REA TABLE OF CONT ENTS 3 A REASON TABLE OF CONTENTS
92. old the mouse button gt Use the transport key commands on the numeric keypad See the table on page 57 gt Click and drag the P marker in the ruler or click directly in the ruler at the desired song position The resulting song position takes the Snap value into account as de scribed below 3 Adjust the song position numerically in the value display below the transport buttons The song position is shown as three digits bars beats and sixteenth notes OVERDUE REPLACE REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS 59 60 About Snap to Grid Ale wi am The Snap on off button The Snap value pop up The Snap to Grid function from now on called Snap restricts movement to specific positions This is especially useful when you are editing in the se quencer moving material creating events etc but it will also affect the re sult of moving the song position in the ruler To set up and activate Snap proceed as follows 1 Pull down the Snap pop up menu and select a value If you select Bar you will only be able to move the song position to the beginning of bars The other options restrict movement to the corre sponding note values 2 Activate Snap by clicking the button next to the pop up menu ha Ha T 5 E In this example Snap is activated and set to quarter notes This means you can move the song position to exact quarter note positions only REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS Using
93. on Sampler 1 To move the song position drag the P marker or click directly in the ruler 3 Click the record button or press on the numeric keypad The record button lights up to indicate Record Standby mode Da E y F Ove I DUB REPLACE 4 Click the play button or press Enter on the numeric keypad Recording starts 5 When you are done click the stop button or press 0 on the nu meric keypad 3 Sampler 1 Recorded notes are indicated as red bars in the Arrange window At this point you may want to move the song position to the beginning of the recording by rewinding or by moving the song position marker in the ruler and click the play button to listen to what you recorded You can undo the re cording if you like gt Itis also possible to activate recording during playback punch in by starting playback and then clicking the record button Similarly you can deactivate recording without stopping playback punch out REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS Recording more tracks Once you have recorded something you can continue recording on other tracks while hearing the first recording play back Just remember to route MIDI to the desired recording track gt You can change the MIDI routing during recording if you like This is especially useful when recording in loop mode record the first track then click in the In column for the next track you want to record and
94. on between the Sequencer and the Rack In the sequencer data is recorded and played back on tracks much like tracks on a multi track tape recorder BS mA yka B 888 k 2 p Aa bp fins ia seme Out M 1 yt y E I E I I E r ES E ir Pep The tracks Aut 1 gt are listed in Aut 2 the track list Plucked Dist Guitar Em Slide i El Bass Phase Da Bass Seq 3 ser WITT WT WATT THT TTT SS E j 11 ULE A AA A A A A AA Recorded events on different tracks A track can be connected to an instrument device in the rack so that data on the track is sentto the device on playback Each track can only be connected to one device at a time but it is possible to have several tracks that all play the same device Tea a Sampler 1 san 5 oh ch cee a S The selected track is ii Sampler 2 connected to the Aut 2 ber Sampler 3 device Plucked Dist Guitar u gt ynthz Phaser 1 Slide Matrix 1 7 Phase DaBass Efm Seq 3 sr The icons in this column indicate to which device type each track is connected It is possible to have tracks that are not connected to any device Notes on a disconnected track will not be heard on playback since there is no device to play them Similarly it is possible to have instrument devices without se quencer tracks REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS The Main Sequencer vs Pattern Sequencers As described in the chapter
95. ples 46 ms latency 46 me This is the delay between when audio is sent from the program and when you actually hear it The latency in an audio system depends on the audio hardware its drivers and their settings If the latency is large you will notice that the sound is delayed when you play a device from a MIDI keyboard You may also notice that reactions are de layed when adjusting controls on the device panels for example if you lower the volume of a device you will not hear this immediately but after the la tency time Therefore you want to get as low a latency value as possible Adjusting the latency When you select a driver its latency value is automatically reported and dis played in the lower left corner of the Preferences Audio dialog Depending on the audio hardware and the driver you may be able to adjust this value Output Latency Latency Compensation 4 40 me gt If you are running Reason under Windows using a Direct Sound or MME driver you can adjust the latency value by using the slider or the up down arrow buttons The highest and lowest possible values depend on the driver 1792 samples 40 me latency gt If you are using an ASIO driver specifically written for the audio hardware you can in most cases make settings for the hardware by clicking the Control Panel button This opens the hardware s ASIO Device Control Panel which may or may not contain parameters for adjusting t
96. program folder under the name De fault Song rns but without the quotes The next time you launch the program or select New from the File menu the new song document will contain the devices and settings you made REASON SONG FILE HANDLING 85 86 Exporting as an Audio File When you have created a complete song you may want to mix it down to make it playable for other people who don t use Reason Of course you could connect the audio outputs of your audio hardware to atape recorder or similar and simply record the song But if you are planning to burn an audio CD or create mp3 files it s much more convenient to mix down to an audio file using the Export functions You can either export the whole song from the start to the E marker or only the loop the area between the left and right locator in the sequencer Proceed as follows 1 Make sure only the main stereo outputs are used That is no devices should be connected to individual outputs output socket 3 and higher in the Hardware Interface device The export func tion will only include audio routed to the stereo outputs 2 Make sure the Loop End markers are at the correct positions If you want to export the loop you need to set the left and right locators to encompass the desired area If you instead want to export the whole song make sure the End E marker is at the desired end position El EE yl The E marker informs the program of where
97. r EA pan ECF 42 FILTER 1 i ENVELOPE CONTROLLED FILTER gg gp 12 TI AMOU MOUN OLDBACK n PH 90 BE comP o1 F tt AUTO MAKE UP GAIN COM 2 1 te fi os COMPRESSOR 1 AKE UP GAIN COMPRESSOR i Ho n m PHASER 14 DNTROUER FILTER er 12 OL 12 9950 g ECF 42 FILTER 1 113 ENVELOPE AMOUN en PH 90 1 PHASER 14 vor ECF 42 FILTER 1 i s PH 90 ENVELOPE CONTRO FILTER PHASER B E CONTROLLED FILTER ap E laS Pre PEI WIDTH EEN FOLDBACK DISTORTION m ap A a TaS Y 4 Release the mouse button The device s are moved to the new position and the other devices in the rack are adjusted to fill up the gaps gt If you hold down Shift when you move a device Reason will at tempt to automatically re route it See page 45 for more info on auto routing Moving devices in the rack does not affect the order of the se quencer tracks and vice versa REASON MANAGING THE RACK Duplicating Devices To make a copy of a device in the rack hold down Option Mac or Ctrl Windows and drag it to a new position 3 If you hold down Shift when you duplicate the device Reason will attempt to automatically route it just as when you move devices See page 45 Cut Copy and Paste Selected devices can be moved or duplicated using the Cut Copy and Paste Device functions on the Edit menu or device context menu For example this allows you to copy one or several devices
98. r and select the song Tutorial Song rns 5 Click Open The document window for the song is displayed on screen This consists of a virtual rack with devices this song contains four instrument devices and two effects a sequencer section and a transport panel 6 Click the play button on the transport panel at the bottom of the window Playback starts If everything is properly connected you should now hear Reason play The stop button The play button l OVERDUE REPL ACE 7 Click the stop button to stop playback when you ve heard enough Now try out some real time mixing 8 Click the stop button again This moves the song position to the start of the song allowing you to play the song from the beginning again REASO QUICK TUTORIAL 9 Near the top of the rack is a mixer device make sure this is visible You may need to scroll the view using the vertical scrollbar to the right in the rack The scrollbar The Mixer If you look at the mixer you will see that each mixer channel has a tape strip next to the volume fader lf a device is connected to a mixer channel the tape strip is labeled with the device name In this song there are only four instrument devices so only the four first mixer channels are labeled 10 Click the play button to start playback 11 While the song is playing click and drag the faders to adjust the level of each instrument device 12 Try chang
99. r echoes slapback doubling etc The delay time can be set in steps based on and synchronized to the current song tempo or in milliseconds for free running delays The maximum delay time is 2 0 seconds D 11 Foldback Distortion de mo 6 ROLE The D 11 is a simple but highly effective distortion device that can convert mellow synth sounds to screaming leads and basses add grit and dirt to drum patterns or loops etc ECF 42 Envelope Controlled Filter az ECF 42 fr en a This is a synth style resonant filter with three different filter modes You can either use it as a static filter and vary the filter frequency on the device panel or via Control Voltage from another device or use the built in enve lope to create rhythmic filter effects of various kinds The envelope can for example be triggered by a drum machine or the Matrix pattern sequencer REASON QUICK TUTORIAL CF 101 Chorus Flanger irass OF 1071 EHORUSFFLAHNG Orr CHORUS FLANGER p p LF ams BD 1 en AT a ays e ha ha h Sia la DELAY FEEDBACK RATE Moo AMOUNT BEND MODE The CF 101 does double duty as chorus for making textures rich and swirly and flanger for creating sweeping metallic effects You can use it as a send effect or as an insert effect connected between an instrument device and a mixer PH 90 Phaser En The PH 90 is a stereo phaser effect It has six parameters available on the device panel allowing
100. red ReFills from the Intemet Select All_ Device Sound Part of ReFill Package Status E Redu Big Snare wav El Replace Auto Search cora to This dialog appears if you clicked the Open Dialog button in the previous di alog or if you clicked the Search amp Proceed button but the program couldn t find all missing sounds The main display in the dialog lists all missing files The four columns show the following properties Column Description Device Shows the name of the device in which the missing sound is used along with a device type icon Sound Shows the name of the missing file Part of If the missing file is part of a ReFill this column shows the name ReFill of the ReFill If there is an URL Internet address associated package with the ReFill you can download the necessary ReFill s from this dialog as described below Status When the dialog appears all files will have the status Missing Files that are found by the auto search function or manually re placed will be indicated as Replaced Selecting The Replace and Auto Search functions see below are performed on the files that are selected in the list This allows you to replace some files manu ally necessary if the files have been renamed or are outside the database have the program find other files automatically and skip the rest of the files gt To select a file click on it in the list You can use
101. sounds demo songs etc Clicking the Find All ReFills button tells the browser to display all available ReFills 11 In the browser file display double click on Reason Factory Sound Bank This is one huge ReFill containing all patches and samples that are in cluded with Reason when you purchase it 12 Double click the folder Subtractor Patches This contains a number of folders with different sound categories 13 Open one of the folders select a patch and click Open The settings in the patch are applied and the patch name is shown in the display gt Once you have selected a patch this way you can step between the patches in the same folder by clicking the up and down arrow but tons next to the patch display SYNTH 1 It s possible to play the drum machine device via MIDI in the same way but let s try creating a pattern with the built in pattern sequencer instead 14 Click the folder button in the lower left corner of the Redrum device panel This opens the patch browser for the drum machine allowing you to se lect a Redrum patch a drum kit Note that there are folder buttons for each drum sound channel too these let you add drum samples one by one and create your own drum kits Load Sample buttons PITH TOME 4 VEL TORE 4 WEL STAAT 4 WEL The Select Patch button E ENABLE E PATTERN PATTERN PATEH SECTION 1 88 gg u sul INTERPOL ATION From x F fm ir Fi CHAN
102. ssoci ated with the ReFill 3 A dialog appears asking you to download the ReFill and place it in one of the database folders Do so 4 Click OK Reason automatically scans the downloaded ReFill and locates the files Proceeding At any point you can click the OK button to close the dialog and open the song or patch Note gt For the files you have found status Replaced the new paths will be stored in the song or patch However you need to save the song or patch for the changes to become permanent gt If any file is still missing when you click OK there will be sounds missing in the song patch Sometimes you may want to proceed with sounds missing and then re move or replace the sounds from the device panels in the rack instead On the device panels missing samples are indicated with an asterisk before the file names Clicking Cancel will abort the operation i e the song or patch will not be opened Tresmowsen 479 16 Tresen 78 What are Patches A Reason patch contains settings for a specific device As explained in the chapter The Browser patches can either be separate files on your hard disk or files embedded in a ReFill Three device types use patches gt Subtractor synth patches contain all settings on the device panel Selecting a Patch To select a patch for a device use one of the following methods
103. ste any copied or cut de vices into the rack e A duplicate of the Create menu allowing you to create new devices Sequencer Context Menus If you click in the sequencer the context menu will contain items related to editing Tracks Groups and Events The available items will differ depending on in which area or lane you click Track list Key Edit lane etc and depend ing on whether you click on an event or not For example the sequencer context menus contain functions for inserting or removing bars adding tracks and grouping changing or deleting events See the electronic docu mentation for details Undo Virtually all actions in Reason can be undone This includes creation dele tion and reordering of devices in the Rack parameter value adjustments ed iting in the sequencer and tempo time signature adjustments You can undo up to 10 actions gt To undo the latest action select Undo from the Edit menu or press Command Ctrl Z The action to be undone is indicated next to the Undo command on the Edit menu For example if your latest action was to delete some de vice s from the Rack the Edit menu will say Undo Delete Devices Edit Create Options Windows Undo Delete Devices Ctrl 2 Heda mer Cut Device Canu Devine gt To redo the last undone action undo the undo operation select Redo from the Edit menu or press Command Ctri Y Similarly the action to be redo
104. stream of numerical val ues in the form of ones and zeroes For you to be able to hear anything this must be converted to analog audio and sent to some kind of listening equip ment a set of speakers headphones etc This conversion is most often handled by the audio card installed in your computer on the Macintosh you can use the built in audio hardware if you don t have additional audio hard ware installed To deliver the digital audio to the audio hardware Reason uses the driver you have selected in the Preferences dialog See page 13 In the rack on screen this connection is represented by the Reason Hardware Interface _ BUS SELECT se cHo CHANNEL EZ CHANNEL EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNEL 4 EZ CHANNELS EZ CHANNELE EZ CHANNEL EG CHANNELS EZ RL 3 EEE Hoon od EEE fir re 19 2002122023024 25 26 2728 eee i O REWIRE SERIE mmm MoO CIOICICIC CHANNEL 10 EE CHANNEL 1 EF CHANNEL 12 EE CHANNEL 13 1 CHANNEL 14 EE CHANNEL 15 Eo CHANNEL 16 Eo AUBICIEAR oo E ERTETTETTEIZEITELT 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 43550551 5527537 54755756 5755855 EEEEEEEE EEEE The Hardware Interface is always located at the top of the rack If you are using ReWire Reason will instead feed the digital audio to the ReWire master application typically an audio sequencer pro gram which in turn handles the communication with the audio hardware This is described in the electronic documentation The Reason Hardware Interface conta
105. t Gate In Piteh CW In CV connectors When the back is shown you can still navigate in the rack by scroll ing by using the computer keyboard etc see page 42 REASON MANAGING THE RACK There are two ways to route audio from one device to another by connecting virtual patch cables between inputs and outputs and by selecting connec tions from a pop up menu Using Cables For the cables to be visible the option Show Cables must be acti vated on the Options menu See below 1 Click on the desired input or output jack on one of the devices and drag the pointer away from the jack with the mouse button pressed A loose cable appears h Audio Output E gt L R 2 Drag the cable to the jack on the other device When you move the cable end over a jack of the correct type audio CV input output it will be highlighted to show that a connection is possible Release the mouse button The cable is connected If both input and output are in stereo and you connect the left channels a cable for the right channel is automatically added These cables are green indicating effect device connections jeer a2 FILTER ENVELOPE CONTROLLED PMAR Freq CV Decay CV This cable is yellow indicating a CV connection These cables are red indicating connections between instruments and mixer devices gt You can change an existing connection in the same way by clicking on one end of the
106. t The notes and events on the muted track will not be heard on playback In Name Out M Sampler 1 A red cross indicates a muted track To unmute the track click in the M column again Several tracks can be muted at the same time gt You can also solo a track by holding down Option Mac Alt Windows and clicking in the M column This mutes all other unsoloed tracks Synth 1 Here the track Redrum 1 is soloed indicated by a red frame To turn off the solo function for the track Option Alt click in the M col umn again Several tracks can be soloed at the same time Muting a track will not affect the notes played from a pattern se quencer in a pattern device For example if you mute a track that is connected to a Redrum drum machine device the drum pattern played by the device will still be heard However any notes you have recorded on the track using the Redrum as a sound module will be muted as will any recorded pattern changes What else can I do in the sequencer This chapter has only touched briefly on the capabilities of the sequencer In the electronic documentation you will find detailed descriptions of the follow ing sequencer functions and procedures Recording pattern changes and control automation e Rearranging recorded material in the Arrange View Editing recorded notes controllers and pattern changes e Quantizing and using grooves e Manual creatio
107. th de vice in the mixer this would become the action at the top of the Undo His tory and the Redo list would be cleared UNDO REDO 5 Change level 4 Change pan 3 Adjust Attack REDO 4 Change pan empty 2 Create Synth Device 1 Create Mixer Device Now you can no longer redo the undone tempo change REASON 3 5 COMMON OPERATIONS AND CONCEPTS Window Techniques Using more than one Reason Song window You can have several Reason Songs open at the same time Each will ap pear in a separate Reason window complete with rack sequencer and transport bar areas Each window can be moved minimized and resized us ing standard Mac Windows procedures On the Windows menu you will find some items for arranging the open win dows These are described in the electronic documentation Windows Help Stay on top Fed Web tame ta cliente Cascade Tile vertically ATeange ears e Document 1 utkast Views Panes and Dividers On screen Reason is divided into different areas or panes The most obvi ous example is the rack and the sequencer area but you will also find that the right part of the sequencer area can be divided into several horizontal panes for editing different aspects of your recordings SJE GATE CEE BBB khs sii pa fins z de fos N Te 1 1 Fo Sampler 1 EE E E A Saas Ses eee ees 8 2am BESS mt Synth 1 densa TT TT TT i DsREX1 HEM AREC ERD CUTER RRR ROR TEA
108. the Loop In loop mode the sequencer will repeat a section over and over again dur ing playback or recording You specify the section to be looped by setting the left and right locator gt Set the left locator the start of the loop by dragging the L marker in the ruler Or you can hold down Option Mac or Ctrl Windows and click in the ruler gt Set the right locator the end of the loop by dragging the R marker in the ruler Or you can hold down Command Mac or Alt Windows and click in the ruler Note that Snap applies when moving the locators in the ruler just as with the song position Both locator positions can also be adjusted numerically on the transport panel gt To activate the loop click the Loop On Off button so that it lights up or use the corresponding key command On a Mac this is under Windows it s both on the numeric keypad When you play back in loop mode and the song position reaches the right lo cator it will immediately jump back to the left locator This way the area be tween the locators will be repeated continuously Mute and Solo To mute a track means to silence it so that no data is sent from the track dur ing playback This can be very useful when you are trying out different ver sions of an arrangement for bringing elements in and out of the mix during playback etc gt To mute silence a track click in the M column in the track lis
109. the song ends 3 Check that the song or loop plays back properly It s especially important that no clipping occurs during playback see page 40 REASON SONG FILE HANDLING Pull down the file menu and select Export Song as Audio File or Ex port Loop as Audio File A file dialog appears Specify a name location and file type AIFF or Wave for the audio file and click Save This opens a Settings dialog Export Audio Settings Sample Rate 441 00 y Bit Depth 116 lu Cancel Help Use the pop up menus to select a sample rate and bit depth resolu tion for the audio file 16 or 24 bit audio is supported at a number of different sample rates The exported file will always be a stereo audio file Click OK The program creates the audio file Depending on the length of the song loop this may take a while during which a progress dialog is shown If you are using ReWire you may want to use the Export function in the ReWire master application instead This allows you to include audio from both applications in the exported audio file A Alter 67 ASIO Driver 8 13 ASIO Drivers folder 10 Audio Card Driver 13 Audio File Formats 39 Audio Hardware 8 38 Audio Levels 40 Audio Out 38 Audio Out Clipping 40 Automatic Routing 45 Back panel 46 Bit Depth 86 Browser 72 Buttons 33 C Cables 46 Clear Pattern 67 Cli
110. ttings are located on the transport panel 3 You can specify any tempo between 1 and 999 999 bpm beats per minute The tempo field to the right allows you to fine tune the tempo in steps of 1 1000 bpm TEMPO N BEL SIGNATURE The tempo setto Tg F ros 110 094 bpm ul A Bl You can also adjust the tempo in bpm steps by using the and keys on the numeric keypad gt You set the time signature by specifying a numerator left value field and a denominator right value field The numerator is the number of beats per bar and the denominator gov erns the length of a beat 3 4 time selected Er O o D EE E IB ros Click When you record it is often necessary to have some sort of rhythmic guide to help you keep time The easiest way is to use the built in metronome click TEMPO je SIGNATURE When this is activated you will hear a click on each beat with an accent on the downbeat of each bar The click is played back during recording and playback You can adjust the volume of the click by using the Level knob y Sometim might be easier to use a drum machine pattern as a tie id REASON 57 THE SEQUENCER BASICS 38 Recording To record MIDI from an external MIDI instrument proceed as follows 1 Make sure MIDI is routed to the desired track See page 54 2 Move the song position to where you want the recording to start Recording always starts at the song positi
111. tton your Internet browser will launch and take you to the registration page on the Propellerhead web site Follow the instructions on the web page After finishing the registration click the Continue button in the installation dialog 3 If you don t want to register at this point click the Later button You can register at any time by selecting Product Registration from the Contact menu Mac or Help menu Windows in Reason or by going to www propellerhead se register This completes the installation Since this is the first time you run Reason the Preferences dialog appears Before you can use the program you need to make some settings This is described in the next chapter The Factory Sound Bank The Reason factory sound bank consists of one large file This file contains a large number of patches samples and loops serving as your main supply of sounds much like the sound ROM in a synthesizer The program checks for the existence and integrity of this file when you perform actions such as opening closing and saving This means that you have two choices gt Install the factory sound bank on your hard disk when you install Reason This requires approximately 500 MB hard disk space This is the recom mended option since you will most likely be using the factory sound bank a lot and access is quicker from the hard disk than from the CD ROM drive gt Run Reason with the Factory Sound Bank CD in the CD ROM drive of the co
112. u and select another device from the Go To submenu The rack scrolls to the device you select Note that you can enlarge the rack area by clicking its lower edge the divider between the rack and the sequencer area and dragging downwards This will shrink the sequencer area and make more of the rack visible You can also make the rack fill the window by clicking the maximize button in the top right corner The rack maximize button REASON MANAGING THE RACK Creating Devices To create a new device select the desired item on the Create menu This menu is available both on the main menu bar and on the context menus see page 34 for an introduction to context menus Create Options Windows Help Cut Device Sequencer Track Copy Device Haste Device Mixer 14 2 Delete Device SubTractor Analog Synth es gt NN19 Digital Sampler Dr REX Loop Player Redrum Drum Computer RY 7 Digital Reverb DDL Digital Delay Line D 11 Foldback Distortion Create Sequencer Track for Mixer 1 Sequencer Track Mixer 14 2 SubTractor Analog Synth NN19 Digital Sampler Dr REX Loop Player Redrum Drum Computer R Digital Reverb DDL Digital Delay Line D 11 Foldback Distortion ECF 42 Envelope Controlled Filter CF 101 Chorus Flanger PH 30 Phaser COMP 01 Compressor PEQ2 Two Band Parametric EQ ECF 42 Envelope Controlled Filter CF 101 Chorus Flanger PH 90 Phaser COMP 01 Compressor PEQ2
113. u to connect tracks to devices route MIDI and mute or solo tracks Organ EP Pads Fonky Strat Drums Bass 2 Bass popp n Miser Auto B3 The track list The right part of the sequencer area has two main modes the arrange view and the edit view When the arrange view is selected you will see the tracks lined up vertically with the recorded events indicated as colored bars red for notes yellow for pattern changes and blue for controllers A ruler at the top of the view shows the meter positions e el a ea ibs z ar aenal oa b ebe e b TTT EP Pads Fonky Strat BEBERERE Ge alt i TS I EI a aal a OTT DA A A A A A A A A A Ran a AA A A A A A A a A De Fa Fe I Tie LL O E LL IE 7 111 Drums Bass popp n TH TE TTT TTT TT Te RETTET TT TT TET E Te TER IE A ay THE TAY MEN Mixer Auto B3 Ne The sequencer with the arrange view selected When the edit view is selected the right part of the sequencer area will con tain one or several lanes showing the recorded data in detail There are spe cific lanes for editing notes pattern changes controller data etc pene een See Sess eos Sees A re PEPEELEEEEEEEEEELELELE EEL EEL The edit view with the drum lane velocity lane pattern lane and two controller lanes visible REASON QUICK TUTORIAL 25 26 The Devices The following devices are available in Reason Reason Hardware Interface BUSSELECT A e
114. udio hardware Most standard sound cards support 44 1 kHz and various lower sample rates in which case you should select 44 1 kHz for best audio quality Exporting audio Reason can export audio i e mix down the song or a section of the song as an audio file see page 86 for details When you do this you will be asked to specify a resolution 16 or 24 bit and sample rate 11 96 kHz for the file Importing audio When loading samples into the sampler or drum machine device or ReCycle files into the loop player Reason supports files of a large number of sample rates and resolutions You can use files of different formats in the same de vice one drum sound can be an 8 bit sample the next a 16 bit sample etc Reason plays back all samples in 16 bit resolution regardless of their original resolution AUDIOBASCS 39 40 About Audio Levels When playing back in Reason you should keep an eye on the Audio Out Clipping indicator on the transport panel If this lights up the audio level is too high resulting in clipping digital distortion AUDIO OUT CLIPPING The indicator will stay lit for a short moment to make it easier to spot gt To remedy this lower the master level on the mixer or other device that is connected to the Hardware Interface until Audio Out Clip ping doesn t light up on playback Note that it doesn t matter if the level meters on the individual de vices effects mixer chann
115. uencer totally converting the device to a pure sound module This is done by deactivating the Enable Pattern Section switch FA ENABLE fener SECTION a Read more about controlling devices from the main sequencer on the elec tronic documentation Selecting Patterns Each pattern device has 32 pattern memories divided into four banks A B C D The Bank and Pattern buttons for the Matrix pattern sequencer gt To select a pattern in the current bank click on the desired Pattern button 1 8 If you like you can assign computer key commands and or MIDI mes sages to pattern selection See the electronic documentation gt To select a pattern in another bank first click the desired Bank but ton A B C D and then click the Pattern button Nothing happens until you click the Pattern button The pattern change takes effect on the next downbeat according to the time signature set in the transport panel The Pattern Mute Switch ENABLE fl PATTERN PATTERN SECTION Bon ggio aJe fef The Pattern Mute switch in the Redrum and the Matrix Next to the Bank and Pattern buttons you will find an additional switch which is normally activated If you click this to turn it off the pattern playback will be muted starting at the next downbeat exactly as if you had selected an empty silent pattern For example this can be used for bringing different pattern devices in and out of the mix during playback R
116. unds 79 Saving 79 Selecting 78 Pattern Shuffle 66 Patterns Alter 67 Clearing 67 Cut Copy and Paste 67 Muting 65 Programming 66 Randomize 67 Running 64 Selecting 65 Shift 67 Play 59 Preferences dialog 12 Preview Browser 73 Publish Song 84 Punch In Out 58 REASON INDEX 89 90 R R Marker 60 Rack Navigating 42 Turning around 46 Randomize 67 Reason Factory Sound Bank see Factory Sound Bank Reason Song Archive 84 Recording 58 Redo 35 Rerills About 70 Downloading from Browser 75 Listing in Browser 73 Replace vs Overdub 58 Requirements 7 Resolution Audio 39 86 Resolution Pattern 66 REX files 71 Right Locator 60 Routing Automatic 45 Manual 46 rps files 84 Run button 64 S Sample Rate About 39 In Exported Audio 86 Samples Extracting from Self contained Songs 82 File Formats 71 Missing 74 Save Song 84 Scrolling 36 42 Self Contained Songs 82 REASON INDEX Sequencer About 52 Viewing 53 vs Pattern Sequencers 64 Shift 67 Shuffle 66 Signature 57 Sliders 33 Snap 60 Solo 61 Song Archive 84 Song Information 83 Song Position 59 Songs Creating Default 85 End position 86 Exporting as Audio Files 86 Opening 84 Published 84 Saving 84 Self Contained 82 Splash Picture 83 Sound Bank see Factory Sound Bank Sound Manager Default Output 13 Sound Search Paths 16 Splash Picture 83 Steps Pattern 66 Stop 59 T Template Songs 85 Tempo 57 Time Signature 57 Toggle Rack Front Rear 46 Tracks
117. ware via MME Windows Multi Media Extensions However most often this results in large latency values see page 14 making real time playback of instru ment devices difficult or even impossible Regardless of which type of audio hardware or drivers you are using you should follow these basic steps 1 Make sure you have the latest drivers for the audio hardware Please check the manufacturer s website for the latest versions 2 Install the audio hardware and its drivers as described in its docu mentation 3 Connect the stereo outputs of your audio hardware to your listening equipment speakers mixer headphones or similar For information about how to use multiple outputs i e more than a ste reo output see the electronic documentation For now we stick to stan dard stereo connections 4 If possible test that audio plays back properly with the audio hard ware In the case of audio hardware with ASIO drivers you will need some test application for this often included with the audio hardware If you are using DirectX or MME drivers you can use Windows Media Player appli cation for this About MIDI Interfaces While it is possible to use Reason without an external MIDI controller by playing patterns and loops only or drawing notes and automation in the se quencer this would not allow you to use the program to its full potential From now on we assume that you are using a MIDI interface and some kind of extern
118. wing ways gt The tempo set on the transport panel is used for all playback gt If you start playback for the main sequencer on the transport panel all pattern devices will automatically start as well provided their pattern sequencers haven t been disabled see below REASON USING PATTERN DEVICES gt You can also run a pattern device separately without starting the main sequencer or other pattern devices by clicking the Run button on the device panel This starts the built in pattern sequencer in the device To stop playback click the Run button again or click the Stop button on the Transport panel E ENABLE PATTERN BEGTION 5 3 The Run button on the Redrum drum computer 3 If you are running a pattern device separately and start playback of the main sequencer the pattern device will automatically restart in sync with the sequencer gt Pattern changes can be controlled by pattern change events in the main sequencer In other words you can record or create pattern changes in the main se quencer and have them occur at the correct position on playback gt If the pattern device has a built in sound source such as Redrum this can also be played by the main sequencer or via MIDI You can combine the built in pattern playback with playback from the main sequencer or via MIDI For example this allows you to add varia tions or fills to a basic pattern It is also possible to disable the pattern seq
119. you get a close up look at the recorded events on a single track at a time When the Edit View is selected the right part of the se quencer area can be divided into several horizontal lanes showing different types of events notes REX slices drum sounds controllers etc This is the view mode of choice for fine editing of your recording for when you want to draw notes controllers and other events manually For details about editing see the electronic documentation REASON THE SEQUENCER BASICS About the Ruler Song Position and Locators Regardless of which view mode is selected you will find a horizontal ruler at the top of the sequencer display This indicates the meter positions that is the positions in bars and beats gt The numbering and detail of the ruler depends on the horizontal magnification At a medium zoom setting odd bars will be shown with a bar number and even bars will be indicated by a mark a If you have zoomed in fully each bar will be numbered and every 1 32 note position will be indicated by a mark In the ruler you will also find four different position markers each with a sep arate flag This is the End marker This informs Reason about where your song ends see the note below This is the song position indicating at which position playback happens This is the right locator When using the Loop mode this governs the end position of the loop This is

Propellerhead Reason - 1.0.1 Getting Started Guide

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