REASON - Please Direct Reason questions here

[zircon]

A "woooosh" eh? That sounds to me like some sort of high passed white noise with the filter cutoff being automated..

[Uncle]

I am. Yay. Good thing my birthday is the 11th...makin my parents pay for it .

Yeah, forget the alcohol. Reason 3.0 is all you need for a 21st birthday!

Well Reason probably won't come for a few days after its release, so the booze will tide me over.

Who knows, maybe it will even give you some inspiration. I can only imagine what putting a drunken sgx in a music studio would churn out.. =P

Anyway, happy birthday sgx. You will certainly be the envy of all of us.

[debeerguy007]

Reason 2.5 has no tempo automation of it's own. It has to be automated by a program which features Rewire. That or scale it by hand in the sequencer, which is tedious.

Here's my case:

I have FL Studio, which is great for any optional mastering work and does well in the syncing area, as long as the tempo is constant. If I try to speed it up or slow it down in places, say over the course of 2 bars, then it gets out of whack. It's like Reason

can't keep up with fl studio's automations.

This clip is an example I made showing you what I mean. It has 2 iterations of the same cue.

http://www.geocities.com/debeerguy007/ed.mp3

The first iteration is with FL studio automating Reason's tempo and has both programs' metronomes playing in sync with the session. When I automate the tempo, they no longer stay in sync. It's almost like Reason is having a hard time transitioning to the new tempo, which produces a strange result.

The second iteration is without FL Studio automation whatsoever and is just me manually pushing the tempo's up/ down button inside Reason, which ironically is producing better results. The only problem with this method is that it's just too random a process, producing different results through each attempt.

So I guess my question is, Is there anything I can do about the the FL studio metronome sync problem?

If not, then which program with Rewire would be better capable of controlling Reason's tempo by automation with no metronome sync problems?

[sgx]

That's weird. That sounds like some kind of FL bug. Maybe you should go ask in that forum. I've had no problems like that while using SONAR3 as Rewire host.

I can only imagine what putting a drunken sgx in a music studio would churn out.. =P

Absolutely nothing. I definitely don't get creative while drunk. Maybe if I was a good keyboard player and was coming up with some crazy solo or something, but otherwise, I need a sharp mind.

[Argitoth]

I'm posting this because I'm so glad I found the answer to my question

How do I find out what knob/slider/button uses what controller number?

For example, the controller number for the pitch bend wheel is 144 while the modulation wheel is 001 (which is a standard for all reason devices).

So how do I find out what controller number corresponds to what? Like what is the controller number for the Attack amp envelope on the Subtractor or the Maelstrom?

BTW, a standard midi controller number is referred to as a Midi CC.

There is a PDF called "MIDI Implementation Charts.pdf" in the main reason folder.

[Klay]

Heh, hello people. I've been using Reason for a while now, but up until this point I've mainly just used it for the samples. Anyway, since the synths (and effects to a degree I suppose) seem to the be the main attraction I figure I'll try learning how to use them and maybe be able to do a new genre of music.

Anyway, I checked the Synthesis 101 or whatever its called topic, but when I go into Reason I have trouble applying the knowledge from there to the synths. Are there any synth-specific tutorials that will show what each individual knob does? Sorry for such a stupid question, but I know absolutely nothing about this.

[Argitoth]

Sorry for such a stupid question

I quote for emphasis.

: Go to HELP --> Contents --> Device Reference READ

: Expiriment

: http://www.propellerheads.se/home/discover/index.cfm?fuseaction=mainframe READ AGAIN

: Ask specific questions

: Don't say your questions are stupid or it will get quoted for emphasis

: Buy Reason 3.0

: Buy a good midi controller

[k u n g f u c h i c k e n]

Besides the mastering, there really isn't anything to go crazy over as far as I see.

[skulkrusha]

A "woooosh" eh? That sounds to me like some sort of high passed white noise with the filter cutoff being automated..

Well, that's part of it. Here's the bit the guy's talking about:

bt_godspeed-sample.mp3 (96kbps, 102k), geoshitties address so right-click and save target

sample provided for research purposes

I can't make out everything but I think the effect is mostly from having a phaser with a huuuuge amount of feedback.

[Argitoth]

are you talking about that first sound effect thing that has a large sweep?

Sounds like a flanger to me.

[skulkrusha]

Yep, that's the bit. It could really be either, but then I haven't been experimenting to see what gets a closer result.

[Hadyn]

I'm new to reason.

That said, is there any way to install refills onto the computer so I don't always have to have the disc in there? 'cause yeah... I only have one cd drive, and it's a bit of a pain not being able to use multiple soundbanks at once.

Cheers if you can help.

[Synth]

I'm new to reason.

That said, is there any way to install refills onto the computer so I don't always have to have the disc in there? 'cause yeah... I only have one cd drive, and it's a bit of a pain not being able to use multiple soundbanks at once.

Cheers if you can help.

Go to your cd drive through my computer and copy and paste the refill to your reason folder.

[Hadyn]

I'm new to reason.

That said, is there any way to install refills onto the computer so I don't always have to have the disc in there? 'cause yeah... I only have one cd drive, and it's a bit of a pain not being able to use multiple soundbanks at once.

Cheers if you can help.

Go to your cd drive through my computer and copy and paste the refill to your reason folder.

See, I tried that earlier, and it didn't work... but now it does.. Thanks ^^

[DaevasAsmodeus]

How do I import wave files that are really long into Reason? The NN-19 only plays the first few seconds of any wave I import. I'm trying to get a guitar sample thats like a minute long into Reason's sequencer some how. How can I do this?

[Xaleph]

I've been able to get several minute long samples into nn 19 and into the redrummer.

Make sure that your c3 note is long enough to play it for a minute. The wav only plays for as long as the note is. If it's a whole note, the wave will only play for the duration of a whole note.

Just make sure your c3 note is a minute long =)

[Zeality]

I am very seriously going to begin learning how to mix in the near future, as if these old CD's I'm buying fails, it will be the only way to revive this song that I've had in my head for 1997. I have it note for note, perfect pitch and timbre, but I cannot find it.

Anyway, my question is this: Is Reason 3 better than FL5? So far, I've heard that Reason is like, "hard to learn, but gives you more mastery/better results when you get good."

[Arcana]

The funny thing is that you asked in the Reason thread which is better. What do you think we'd say? If you had posted in the FLStudio thread, what do you think you would have received as a response?

The answer, of course, and any respectable remixer will tell you this, is that there is no "better program".

Go try both. You can download them for free. Come back here if you have specific questions about how to use Reason, and we'll gladly try and answer them for you.

P.S. An NN-XT lets you load samples. Make one, load something from Orkester, and select the track labelled "NN-XT". Hit the three horizontal bars on the top-left corner of the sequencer window to get to the window where you can draw notes. Drag to draw. That should be enough to get you making noise.

[Nicole Adams]

So far, I've heard that Reason is like, "hard to learn, but gives you more mastery/better results when you get good."

I switched from FL Studio to Reason over six months ago and I didn't think it was hard to learn Reason's interface. It's just...different than Fl Studio's. Personally, I like Reason's interface more cause it's like your dealing with actual hardware.

[Zeality]

OH OK!1

[Malcos]

I know this might sound kinda silly, but is Reason 3 worth it? I don't really need the mastering tools and whatnot, the only reason I would upgrade to it wou'd be the new sounds. Are they banging?

[Arcana]

There are some new built-in effect presets, like Rotary Speakers, widening of the stereo field, and other neat things that you could have done manually yourself, but would have been a pain to recreate all the time. They're all combi patches, but I don't know what exactly you're looking for in terms of effects.

The workflow is marginally improved, so you can browse patches now while you listen to your song.

There are new mastering tools - Compressor, Equalizer, Stereo-Widener, and Maximizer/Limiter.... a bit better than the existing Reason EQing solution.

If you're looking only for new patches you might want to skip for the moment. I upgraded and I'm happy with it, but it was semi-costly and the program uses more CPU. It's not exactly a cheap upgrade for what you get, if you ask me.

[sgx]

I kinda feel the same. Its a bit pricey, but I definitely like it. Worth it for me. Also, remember, if you have 3.0, the 3.5 revision should be free when that's finally out.

The mastering stuff is pretty good and should be a huge reason for people who use Reason standalone to check out the upgrade. It really can make your stuff sound a lot sweeter.

Its real nice to have a good compressor in there finally. The old one was so crappy. The combi machine is really cool too. Upgraded midi control+combi is great. I was mapping knobs from two synths, and an effects machine to knobs on my keyboard with the combi and playing it all at the same time. Very nice actually. I never really bothered to get my keyboard knobs manipulating paremeters back in 2.5.

The combi also opens up new CV possibilities: since you can route CV curves into the combi which can be set to control any parameter on any machine inside of it.

There are a lot of cool combi presets too. Even if you don't like to use preset patches for things (I usually try to do everything myself), you can learn cool techniques from looking at these.

Man, and being able to preview stuff in the browser (even combi patches) is sooo awesome. The browser really makes things a lot easier and quicker. Seems like something they should have done a while back, but I didn't realize how important this feature would be to me until I started playing with 3.0. If I had to go back to using 2.5's browser now, I'd prolly get all pissy .

I'm not sure if 3.0 takes more resources compared to 2.5. Maybe the mastering stuff sucks up a bunch of cpu or something. I can tell you that it ran like shit on my parents' 1.8ghz iMac G5 (which should be a decently capable machine). Though I've been reading the props' forums and it seems that there's some bug that makes cpu usage EXTREMELY bad but affects only a small percentage of ocmputers (both win and mac). Props have stated that they are working on a bug fix update. Maybe wait until that happens to get it or something.

Overall, I like the upgrade. It doesn't rox my sox, but I am pleased with it. I'd definitely like a new synth to play with or maybe a subtractor 2.0 (as it is, it sounds a bit thin to me..software synthesizing has gotten better since the subtractor came out way back when and its never been updated). Most of what 3.0 offers is workflow enhancements, and not much that will change the way things sound (other than the mastering).

edit: also, for the new sample content, there isn't a whole crapload more (just like 250 mb or something?), and its all mixed in with the older stuff. I haven't really gotten into checking it all out and i'm not always positive what's old and what's new, so I really can't say how awesome it is or not.

[Arcana]

It does take more resources than 2.5. Look up the Reason + CPU thread somewhere down on this board.

That said, my PowerMac runs Reason just fine. No slowdowns or anything like that. Doesn't touch the second CPU at all.

I should augment what sgx said about the new MIDI interface, which they call Remote. NICE addition and if you ask me, that's probably what took up so much time doing Reason 3.0. But the ability to hook up an arbitrary number of control surfaces and assign the knobs to anything and everything you want without having to change stuff around is awesome. They geared this feature toward live performance, but it certainly has use at home too.

[Malcos]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'll upgrade later on this year, seeing as there's nothing in 3 that I absolutely must have right now.