Reason Production

ubw newbie Joined: Jan 05, 2008 Posts: 3

Hi, this is a great forum!
Id like to ask some of you that know your way around reason, any pointers guides, tips or tricks for using reason?
I listen to alot of techno, trance, and trying to get in good quality INOVATIVE production, not just recyclin old beats and tunes.
Even fuse some styles, since im an educated classical musician.

Any other help will be apriciated

moderator Joined: Jun 30, 2007 Posts: 433

i've tryed the version III but it's not the latest and i didn't liked it, for trance and techno the better soft is fruity loops, or if your are planning making really proffessional music cubase is the better soft, audio logic is not bad too.Or try sequel as an alternative of cubase sx.Sequel is the latest dj soft by steinberg but i didn't tryed it yet.Cubase SX shows a lot of potential but it's hard to manage (and long).
Fruity loops offer to make fastly and well produced music especially in trance and techno and have infinite possiblities the only limit will fastly be the one of your pc power.
If you use synthesizers and midi modules then u will choose a soft like cubase.
If you make psytrance like me a fruity loops is the best.
If you make chipset music madtracker is the best (but the oldschool geek only...beware)
IF you make rock/hip hop/world reason is good
Idea

Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 4:42 pm

one thing PPB did point out is that Reason also works as a plug-in. i use Reason 4, but don't make dance music. there are a lot of people out there that would totally disagree with PPB's comments regarding making dance music with Reason, though, but i can't. you will have to decide for yourself. what you might want to do in order to increase the latitude you have with reason, is to rewire it into a DAW like Cubase. this way, you can use the sequencer in Cubase (or any other DAW that allows you to rewire...i use Sonar). in most DAWs, you can use up to 64 tracks for reason. once you've rewired (inserted) Reason into your DAW, you can control specific instruments within Reason by selecting the channel of the instrument you wish to control. jthis way you can edit you tracks in the same sequencer as your audio tracks. if you have ReCycle, you can convert your audio samples into rex2 format which can then be used in Dr. Rex, or you can also use them in any application that supports rex2 files. the reason you might want to use Reason as a plug-in is that the sequencer in Reason is just not as versatile as that of Cubase, Sonar, Protools...you name it. that's the nice thing about Reason. you can use as little or as much of it as you like. this way, your creativity isn't bound to ONE program...it's just one tool out of many. if you don't already own a DAW like Cubase or Sonar (just as examples, i don't advocate a specific one), you should get one. it will make your experience with Reason all that more enjoyable. this way, you can get the most not only out of Reason, but also perhaps out of some programs that are good for dance tracks like the ones PPB mentioned. you can also get Refills for Reason that are geared towards different styles of music. i have most of them, but use few. you can check out my solo artist page, i can't play the keyboard all that well, so the compositions are not spectacular, but both were made strictly in Reason. i like more organic sounds, but the Sonic Reality refills are mostly geared towards dance. experiment with filters and settings on your synths. that will be the way you'll achieve some of the sounds you're looking for. you have a ton of control when it comes to shaping your sound. sometimes it's almost ridiculous.

lastly, i suggest you pick up the Reason 4 tutorial. you can probably find it on Ebay for $10-15 for a copy. i did.

i'm by no means a Reason guru and am just figuring it all out myself, but feel free to PM me if you've got something gnawing away at you, also, again, keep in mind that i don't really make dance music.

Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 8:23 pm

ive heard good things about fruity loops but have never had the pleasure!! reason 4s great from what i can gather so far though.... i would have thought any would be good for creating various styles...

i cant help you out im afraid mate, ive only had reason for less than a month myself... but good luck with it...

check out my solo page too if you wanna hear some 'reason / sonar' songs!!

once again good luck dude Cool

ubw newbie Joined: Jan 05, 2008 Posts: 3

Thank you for your answers Smile

im too getting into reason/logic on mac.
the main thing that bugs me, is how problematic to find the "right" sounds and fx for my instruments...
ie in redrum, theres almost no good "out of the box" bassdrum sound, and im not sure what fx to use, also im having trouble making those beat combinations...all this really lowers my "morale" Neutral

when it comes to harmonic progressions, i can come up with sth in a sec, but those beats...damn Mad

so ill try to "copy" by ear some of the popular tracks, to get the feel and sence of it...to find "reason and logic" Laughing

also, i downloaded some free samples, all in wav formats, and when i try to open them, and assign in redrum, they are not visible, any idea why?

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 7:59 pm

the free samples are not meant to be in . wav file format for you to open in 'Dr Rex' etc... heres a link i hope will help...

take a look around...

have fun man... thats the most important thing... Laughing

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:07 pm

in Reason, you can't load individual samples into NN-XT or NN-19. you would need to save it in the proper format. not sure how that's done. just know how to make rex loops. there might be a way to do it, but i doubt in.

good drum sounds...hmm. i haven't had much a problem myself. i also have multiple expansion packs for drums. you can always shape them yourself, though. for some different types of drums, you could try Thor or Maelstrom. bad thing is that you only get one drum per synth at a time. i'm not sure how to map things out in combinators that you create using multiple synths as drums, routing them through a 6 channel mixer and through the combinator. should be possible. most things are.

you can get a hold of drum kits 2 for a pretty good price on ebay. that may help you. as far as FX goes, you may want to create your own combinator patch with the following: mixer, 2 reverb, whatever other effect you think might be cool, and redrum. as you enter redrum into the combinator, hold down the shift key. this will keep redrum from sending a single stereo out to only one channel on the mixer. instead, by holding down shift as you drop redrum into the combinator, you'll have an easy time routing each redrum channel to an individual channel in the mixer, giving you much more control over each sound you choose in redrum. once all is loaded into the combinator and you've routed all 10 redrum channels to 10 channels on the mixer, save that patch and name it something easy. now when you want to throw in redrum (and do so in a way where you have complete control) you can just load a combinator and load the patch.

don't bother with free samples with reason, unless you're talking about free refills. there are lots of free refills, too. some of which have different kits. also, there are lots of good bass drums in reason, you just have to spend a lot of time looking for the right one sometimes. that said, sometimes it's better to just throw something decent in for the time being and keep pushing forward. you can take time to spend going through the hundreds of other kicks later. also, you might have to load 2 redrum devices (or two of the combinator trick i suggested) - it saves sooo much time in the long run and is something you'll end up using a lot. you'll do this because you want snares and hi hats maybe from one kit under one folder, but then want a kick that's in another group of folders which you can't access because the kit you loaded came from the hip-hop folder, and the other is located in the pop folder. mess with this long enough and you'll know exactly what i'm saying. but trust me, with multiple hundreds of kick sounds, there's got to be a few for you. you should also really look into the tutorial i was telling you about. i've been using reason for only a little under 2 months. i had used Reason adapted for a few years, but it's completely different, not to mention it was 2.5. th tutorial will answer a lot of questions that people here can't and you'll really start to figure things out. especially if you watch while having reason open. then come back to it now and again. good luck! Smile

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 9:20 pm

man, you just 'tech'd' the hell outta me in the 1st half of that post.... but yea, your right (2nd half) i was just offering up a 'quick fix' kinda solution.... of course the best thing ever is to get a real drummer in... Laughing

Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:06 pm

no man, the link was probably a great idea. this stuff gets confusing because you have to think of it like a giant virtual studio. all the routing you have to do to different channels and all that. plus, a lot of it is really confusing when you first start. i'm still having all kinds of technical difficulties.

Gaurdian...instead of trying to feed your samples into reason, why not just use them as loops in logic? not sure how you want to put it all together or what you want to get out of loading the samples in reason, but when i have audio, i often just use Sonar to manipulate it and create and audio loop. if i want to then use it in Reason, i use Recycle to convert the loop into a rex file.

you can probably buy someone's version of Recycle 2.0 of under $100 on ebay and then get the upgrade to 2.1 for free. i paid $74, shipping included. way better than spending $200-215. make sure to inquire about license transfer to your propellerhead account if you decide to do this. if you're working with loops a lot and want to plug them into Reason, you'll want to get Recycle. this will allow you to compress them and do some other interesting stuff. when you then load the new rex file into Dr. Rex, you'll be able to use Reason's mastering suite to make sure it blends well with the rest. good luck.

ubw newbie Joined: Jan 05, 2008 Posts: 3

the link is GREAT!
ill load it up asap!
regarding, why i want loading those samples in reason?
simply because, most of my creativity comes from fingers Neutral

i have my keyboard connected to mac and play all the sounds, thats the best way i get an idea or anything
(maybe this kind of approach is whats hindering me when it comes to "beat producing" Razz

)
i know the key is to spend as much time as possible tweaking in the program, but i consider it more like a hoby than a real..."job" kind of thing, altho some ppl encourage me to give it a proffesional "edge"

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