Philip Robinson Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Hey, everybody. I've been using GarageBand for upwards of ten years but I recently got Reason Essentials and would just like a little help or advice. I've messed around with it a bunch (especially the drum machine!) but I'm still lost on the finer points, and none of the tutorials I've watched online have been that helpful. If anyone knows a good set to watch, I'd love to know. The big thing that is thwarting me right now is I can't figure out how to dynamically change tempo, volume, or panning. If someone could impart that bit of knowledge to me, I'd really appreciate it. The other thing I wanted to ask about is instruments. I prefer to do orchestral things and the included orchestral instruments are unsurprisingly awful. But I don't know if I need instrument libraries or sound fonts or patches or what. I'm willing to pay for nice stuff, so let me know what's the best. (Depending on how expensive things are, it might be good to know about some free options as a stopgap measure. I just don't know.) I'm looking forward to getting to know Reason better and eventually submitting some stuff here on OCR. Thanks for any help you guys can give. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabeel Ansari Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 As far as orchestral instruments, you can not use external plug-ins in Reason. You have to use what it gives you or look for things called a "ReFill" which is basically additional instruments to use inside of Reason's sampler, or "Rack Extensions", which are additional instruments you can put in the giant rack. The only decent orchestral ReFill is Miroslav, but even then it's "eh". There are no orchestral rack extensions. You picked the one DAW in the world that tries its hardest not to let you make the decisions on what sounds and effects you like to use. It's part of Propellerhead's "closed box" philosophy, which says that Reason is all you need to make music and there should be no need for externals (the philosophy falls flat because a lot of included stuff for sample-based music is abysmal, and you're stuck making cool electronic music but not much else). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 You don't have the right DAW for orchestral stuff and you have the limited version on top of that so I don't think you have the orchestra librairy that comes with the full Reason. Reason is cool for beats and electronic music, I use it, but after years of struggling for stuff like orchestral things, I''m telling you CHANGE NOW hahah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theshaggyfreak Posted December 31, 2014 Share Posted December 31, 2014 The Orkester sound bank isn't terrible but it's very hard to work with if you want a good sound (lots and lots of control data lanes). I've heard several people write some very nice things with it but you have to limit yourself somewhat. Miroslav is decent but it's also quite old. There are a few other small libraries out there but you're not going to find anything that will bring you up to the level of, for instance, VSL. As much as I'm HUGE fan of Reason, I use Logic with VSL for all my orchestral stuff. I used to use Reaper but really wanted a DAW with integrated notation tools. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Final Kingdom Posted January 1, 2015 Share Posted January 1, 2015 Hey, everybody. I've been using GarageBand for upwards of ten years but I recently got Reason Essentials and would just like a little help or advice. I've messed around with it a bunch (especially the drum machine!) but I'm still lost on the finer points, and none of the tutorials I've watched online have been that helpful. If anyone knows a good set to watch, I'd love to know. The big thing that is thwarting me right now is I can't figure out how to dynamically change tempo, volume, or panning. If someone could impart that bit of knowledge to me, I'd really appreciate it. When it comes to changing tempo, volume and things of that nature, simply start recording and turn the knob (or for tempo, hit the up/down arrow). During the recording, a track will appear for the mixer. You can further edit the track when you're done recording. Hope that helps! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Robinson Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 As far as orchestral instruments, you can not use external plug-ins in Reason. You have to use what it gives you or look for things called a "ReFill" which is basically additional instruments to use inside of Reason's sampler, or "Rack Extensions", which are additional instruments you can put in the giant rack.The only decent orchestral ReFill is Miroslav, but even then it's "eh". There are no orchestral rack extensions. You picked the one DAW in the world that tries its hardest not to let you make the decisions on what sounds and effects you like to use. It's part of Propellerhead's "closed box" philosophy, which says that Reason is all you need to make music and there should be no need for externals (the philosophy falls flat because a lot of included stuff for sample-based music is abysmal, and you're stuck making cool electronic music but not much else). Well poop Was not aware of Reason's closed box nature. Hmm. I'll check out Miroslav at least. Thanks for the info. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Robinson Posted January 2, 2015 Author Share Posted January 2, 2015 When it comes to changing tempo, volume and things of that nature, simply start recording and turn the knob (or for tempo, hit the up/down arrow). During the recording, a track will appear for the mixer. You can further edit the track when you're done recording. Hope that helps! I'll give that a try. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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