IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | (music playing)
| | 00:04 | Hi! I'm J Chris Griffin and I would like to
welcome you to Up and Running with Reason 6.5.
| | 00:10 | In this course, I'll show you how to create
music quickly using song starters like Dr. Octo Rex.
| | 00:17 | I'll show you how to program custom tracks
easily using auto combinators sync to tempo.
| | 00:23 | We'll dive deep into a rack extensions
and I'll even show you where to download
| | 00:27 | free trial versions and point you to
some of my favorite rack extensions and
| | 00:31 | demonstrate how they might help in your music.
| | 00:34 | Next, I'll show you how to use the
included Line 6 devices to produce great
| | 00:38 | guitar and bass tracks, and I'll go
through each and every synthesizer, playing
| | 00:44 | patches and giving tips on how to
choose one synthesizer over another,
| | 00:47 | then show you how to program
synthesizer parts without a MIDI keyboard.
| | 00:53 | I'll offer production tips and advice on
how to set up very versatile effects chains.
| | 00:58 | Lastly, I'll go through editing MIDI and
audio for the final polish on a great production.
| | 01:04 | So if you're ready, it's time to
get up and running with Reason 6.5.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you're a Premium member of the
lynda.com online training library or if you're
| | 00:05 | watching this tutorial on a DVD-ROM,
you have access to the exercise files used
| | 00:09 | throughout this title.
| | 00:11 | Inside the Exercise Files folder
you'll see folders named for each of the
| | 00:15 | chapters for which exercise files are provided.
| | 00:18 | You'll notice that there are a few
chapters that don't have any exercise files.
| | 00:22 | The files themselves are Reason song
files and can be opened in Reason by
| | 00:27 | simply double-clicking.
| | 00:28 | Some of the videos in the course are
demonstrations only and for those videos,
| | 00:33 | even though I may be using a song file,
there may not be an exercise file for
| | 00:37 | that particular movie.
| | 00:38 | For some other videos, I've included a
song file from my finished state as well,
| | 00:42 | so you can see exactly what I've
done throughout that particular video.
| | 00:46 | If you are a Monthly member or an
Annual member of lynda.com, you don't have
| | 00:51 | access to the exercise files, but you
can follow along from scratch with your
| | 00:55 | own Reason song files and audio assets.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
1. Installing the SoftwareInstalling Reason and authorizing your ignition key| 00:00 | Reason 6.5 is the latest version
of Propellerhead's award-winning
| | 00:04 | workstation software.
| | 00:06 | It allows a user to compose, record,
and mix music with a unique workflow that
| | 00:11 | is convenient for producers
and writers of modern music.
| | 00:15 | Reason 6.5 adds the Rack extension
format, which opens up the Reason Rack to
| | 00:20 | third-party developers, allowing
users to access instruments and effects
| | 00:24 | created by other companies.
| | 00:26 | In other words, Reason now has a plug-
in format and this therefore is a very
| | 00:31 | significant upgrade.
| | 00:32 | If you already own Reason 6, this is
a free upgrade, so you will need to go
| | 00:37 | download the new application
installer from the Propellerhead site.
| | 00:40 | Go to Downloads, Reason updates,
Reason 6.5.1 update, and choose your operating system.
| | 00:49 | For Mac, you will download Reason
6.5.1 and for Windows it's the same thing.
| | 00:54 | The Factory Sound Bank and Orkester
Sound Banks are the exact same as in Reason
| | 00:59 | 6.0, as indicated on the website.
| | 01:01 | So if you already have these as part of
your Reason 6.0 purchase, you don't need
| | 01:05 | to download these again.
| | 01:07 | If you've just purchased a boxed copy
of Reason 6.5 from your dealer, you have
| | 01:12 | three DVDs and a red ignition
key as part of your package.
| | 01:15 | Just insert these into your
computer, follow the prompts and get the
| | 01:19 | software installed.
| | 01:20 | Make sure to register your software and
authorize your ignition key to run Reason 6.5.
| | 01:26 | You do this on the Propellerhead site
by creating a user account, registering
| | 01:30 | your software, going to that account,
scrolling down to the software where you
| | 01:35 | would like to apply the
license to your ignition key,
| | 01:38 | you click Manage license, and
follow the prompt from there.
| | 01:42 | Once you've done this, you'll be
ready to move on and see what you've got
| | 01:45 | installed on your hard drive.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Investigating the Reason folder| 00:00 | For the purposes of this video, I'm
going to assume that you have already
| | 00:04 | installed Reason 6.5 from the install
discs or from the installers downloaded
| | 00:08 | from the Propellerhead's site.
| | 00:10 | I'm also going to assume that you
have a valid ignition key authorized to
| | 00:14 | run Reason 6.5 or are content to run in
demo mode as you follow along with this course.
| | 00:19 | Let's take a quick tour of
what's now on your hard drive.
| | 00:22 | If you'll go into your Applications
folder, you should see a Reason folder.
| | 00:27 | And if you'll open that up you
will see several things inside:
| | 00:29 | Demo songs, Documentation, two refills--
| | 00:33 | the Factory Soundbank and the
Orkester Refill--and the Reason application.
| | 00:37 | At this point it might be a good idea
to drag the Reason application into your
| | 00:41 | Dock for more easy access.
| | 00:43 | One other application that you'll
find installed in your drive is the
| | 00:47 | Authorizer application.
| | 00:49 | This takes care of your Rack
extensions and their licenses.
| | 00:53 | This computer has no Rack extensions
installed so therefore no licenses are available.
| | 00:58 | If you are missing any of the
things shown here, you may want to pause,
| | 01:02 | get both your installation and
authorization finalized, and resume watching from
| | 01:07 | here when you're ready to go.
| | 01:09 | One of the really cool things about
Propellerhead is they allow you to run the
| | 01:12 | program without an ignition key or
an authorization in an emergency.
| | 01:17 | If you start Reason without the
ignition key, it will give you a dialog asking
| | 01:22 | you what you want to do.
| | 01:24 | Would you like to run it in Demo mode,
run it with internet verification, or go
| | 01:28 | ahead and register and authorize?
| | 01:30 | Typically, you'll run with Internet
verification and you'll add in your
| | 01:33 | username and password.
| | 01:35 | It will then connect to the
Propellerhead servers and let you go about your
| | 01:38 | business if you are a properly registered user.
| | 01:41 | Now, there's also Demo mode.
| | 01:43 | If you haven't purchased Reason or
don't have a valid Internet connection, this
| | 01:47 | mode will allow you to create and save
songs but not reopen any of these files.
| | 01:54 | At this point, I'll go
ahead and open in Demo mode.
| | 01:56 | As you can see, it opens up
with a stock rack ready for work.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting preferences and settings for controllers and audio| 00:00 | I'm going to show you how to customize
some basic preferences, both in Reason
| | 00:05 | and on your computer, so that your work
experience is a bit more conducive to music making.
| | 00:10 | So I have stock session open, the
same stock session that Reason gives us
| | 00:14 | every time we open it, but I want a
more streamlined approach than I have with
| | 00:18 | this stock session set up. And I
also want to change some of the default
| | 00:22 | keyboard behaviors as
well, in system preferences.
| | 00:25 | Let's go to the Reason
menu and choose Preferences.
| | 00:28 | I want to change a few of these settings.
| | 00:31 | First, let's check Self-contain
samples when loading from disk.
| | 00:35 | Normally, Reason does not embed
external samples used in a song as part of the
| | 00:41 | saved Reason song file.
| | 00:42 | If you rename or move an included sample,
Reason may not be able to reference the
| | 00:47 | correct file and the song
will not play back properly.
| | 00:50 | For example, if you're using a kick
drum sound that is not part of the factory
| | 00:54 | sound bank and you want to make sure
Reason references the kick sample properly
| | 00:59 | every time the song is opened, even
on another computer, check this Box.
| | 01:03 | The next thing we'll do is go over to our
Audio tab and look at the latency, or Buffer Size.
| | 01:09 | We have 512 samples at stock.
| | 01:12 | We want to move that down a little further.
| | 01:15 | If you have a decently fast
computer, 128 samples is fine.
| | 01:20 | They also have available 64 samples of
Buffer Size, and what that will do is it
| | 01:25 | taxes your computer a little more, but it
decreases the delay time between input and output.
| | 01:31 | 128 samples is fine for
most composition and music work.
| | 01:36 | The next thing we want to do is
change our input monitoring behavior.
| | 01:40 | Clicking on Manual allows you to
control how a record-enabled track responds.
| | 01:45 | If left to Automatic, you may encounter
some nasty feedback when creating a new
| | 01:49 | track, especially if you are
working on a laptop system.
| | 01:53 | The next thing we will do is go over to
Control Surfaces, where we'll ask Reason
| | 01:57 | to detect our attached MIDI keyboard
or our control surfaces with knobs.
| | 02:02 | So we just hit Auto-detect Services.
| | 02:05 | It will go through the installed
profiles that it has and if the keyboard is
| | 02:09 | relatively new, it will
find it. And there we go.
| | 02:12 | We have an Axiom Pro 61 attached,
and it's ready to go within Reason.
| | 02:17 | Now, if you don't have a modern
keyboard or if you have a MIDI interface with
| | 02:21 | an external keyboard attached, you may want
to hit Add and just create a generic profile.
| | 02:27 | So we'll hit Other, MIDI Control
Keyboard is fine, and we'll name it Keyboard.
| | 02:34 | Use the MIDI Input available to
you; in our case it's Axiom Pro 61.
| | 02:39 | Yours may be different.
| | 02:40 | Click the in and out
available to you and you will be done.
| | 02:43 | Click OK and there you have it.
| | 02:46 | Now in our case we don't really
need this keyboard so I'll hit Delete.
| | 02:50 | It will ask, would you
like to delete the surface?
| | 02:53 | Yes, you would, and off we go.
| | 02:56 | So that's all we have to
do in Reason preferences.
| | 02:59 | Now, Reason 6.5 uses the function keys of your
computer to toggle windows in and out of view.
| | 03:05 | Most Windows machines have the
function keys already available, but many Mac
| | 03:10 | computers have the function keys
controlling other features like screen
| | 03:13 | brightness and volume.
| | 03:14 | To streamline Reason operation then,
I recommend changing this behavior in the
| | 03:19 | Mac's System Preferences panel.
| | 03:21 | Let's open that up now.
| | 03:22 | We'll go to Keyboard and we'll check Use
all F1, F2 keys as standard function keys.
| | 03:31 | This will allow Reason to grab the
function keys without a special modifier.
| | 03:36 | Next, we want to go over the
Keyboard Shortcuts, Universal Access, Turn
| | 03:41 | VoiceOver on or off.
| | 03:43 | You'll see this uses the Command+F5
function, and Reason uses this is to show or
| | 03:48 | hide the Mixer View.
| | 03:49 | That's all we'll have to do
with the System Preferences.
| | 03:52 | Now, one last thing in the Reason
Preferences that I've found very helpful is to
| | 03:57 | create a template just the way I want it.
| | 04:00 | Go back to General.
| | 04:02 | I have already created a new template and placed
it in the root Reason folder. So I'll find that.
| | 04:08 | It's called New Template.
| | 04:11 | Now every time Reason opens,
it will open just the way I want it.
| | 04:16 | So once you configure Reason the way
you want it, you can to go Save As, save
| | 04:23 | the template as maybe "Opening song" or
whatever is meaningful to you, and save it
| | 04:28 | where you would like to have it.
| | 04:30 | In this case I have it
within the root Reason folder.
| | 04:32 | Then go to Preferences, search for that
file, Opening song, and there you are.
| | 04:41 | Now that we've got Reason configured and
installed properly, we're ready to make some music.
| | 04:46 | In the next chapter, I'll show you how
to get started making music right away.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Making Music Right AwayMaking music with Dr. Octo Rex| 00:00 | With Reason installed and
configured the way I want,
| | 00:03 | now I'm ready to quickly create some music.
| | 00:06 | I'll make a new song by typing
Command+N or Ctrl+N, and you can do this as well
| | 00:11 | if you're following along, or you can
also select New from the Reason file menu.
| | 00:16 | It opens up just the way I configured it in
my template session from earlier in the course.
| | 00:21 | Now, there is no easier way to get
started making music than with Dr. Octo Rex.
| | 00:26 | This instrument uses a file format
that takes audio and chops it up into it's
| | 00:31 | constituent beats and
phrases called a Rex file.
| | 00:34 | The software that creates and edits
the Rex file is called Recycle, also
| | 00:38 | from Propellerhead. Dr. Octo Rex is a playback-only
device, and there are hundreds of Rex files to choose
| | 00:45 | from inside the Reason Factory
Sound Bank. So I chose the Dr.
| | 00:49 | Octo Rex by going to the
Create menu > Instruments > Dr.
| | 00:53 | Octo Rex Loop Player, or by right-
clicking, or if you're on a one-button mouse
| | 00:58 | in a Mac, by Control+clicking and
selecting Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player.
| | 01:03 | When I instantiate a Dr. Octo Rex player,
the default patch automatically loads.
| | 01:10 | This default loop is exactly
| | 01:12 | what I want at the moment, and when I
press Play in Reason the loop begins
| | 01:16 | playing along in tempo and at
the right place in the song.
| | 01:20 | By the way, the spacebar is the best
way to start and stop playback in Reason.
| | 01:25 | Pressing the spacebar initiates, stops,
and then resumes playback of a song.
| | 01:32 | Now, the key command to return to the
start of a song is Shift+Return pressed twice.
| | 01:38 | I'll use this key command quite often
in the course to return to the start of
| | 01:41 | a song for playback.
| | 01:43 | Now, if you hit Shift+Return just once,
it'll take you back to where you last
| | 01:47 | left off on playback. Buttons in Dr.
| | 01:51 | Octo Rex contained preloaded
alternate versions of the loop.
| | 01:55 | There are eight loop
placeholders, hence the name Dr. Octo Rex.
| | 02:00 | Trigger next loop determines what
happens when you press the buttons.
| | 02:05 | Does it move to the alternate loop
on the next bar or the next beat or on
| | 02:09 | the next 16th note?
| | 02:11 | For our purposes, we'll
just leave it on the bar.
| | 02:13 | So every time we hit a new button it
will wait to the next bar before it moves
| | 02:17 | to the alternate loop. Dr. Octo Rex has many great
features, which will not cover here, but you can
| | 02:24 | uncover and expose all kinds of
different controls, and we'll get into these
| | 02:28 | later in the course.
| | 02:30 | Since this video is all about
making music right away, let me quickly
| | 02:34 | explain some of the sequencer and transport
features I need to use to get music recorded.
| | 02:39 | Moving over to the Sequencer window,
loop indicators determine where a loop start
| | 02:44 | point and a loop end point occur.
| | 02:47 | These are set to bars 1 and 9,
respectively, and this is where I want them.
| | 02:51 | And I'll turn the Loop button on so
when the playback head reaches bar 9 it
| | 02:55 | will loop back to bar 1.
| | 02:57 | Zooming is either accomplished with the
mouse set to the zoom handles or simply
| | 03:02 | with the G and H keys.
| | 03:06 | The built-in click or metronome is
enabled with the click button, and the click
| | 03:11 | level is set to taste.
| | 03:14 | The Pre indicates the pre-count off bars
and we can set those in Options > Number
| | 03:20 | of Pre-count Bars, so we can
set One, Two, Three, or Four.
| | 03:23 | We'll leave it to One for our purposes here.
| | 03:26 | Let's record a drum loop progression
utilizing drum loops 1, 2, 3, and 4.
| | 03:31 | Now Reason can automate and record
nearly every parameter in the program, and I
| | 03:36 | want to let it know to record the
loop select buttons in real time.
| | 03:40 | Since I'm recording just one
instrument, I want to consolidate my screens.
| | 03:44 | So I'll press F6 and F7 together to bring
the Sequencer window and the rack together.
| | 03:51 | So now we can see both in the same screen.
| | 03:54 | Now, I want to let Reason know that I
intend to automate some of these buttons,
| | 03:58 | so I'll Option+Click one of the buttons.
| | 04:00 | It'll draw kind of a gate or a line
around all the buttons and a new Pattern
| | 04:04 | Select lane will be
enabled inside the sequencer.
| | 04:08 | This lets Reason know that I'm about
to do something with these buttons.
| | 04:12 | So, we've got a pre-count of one bar
and I'm going to select loop 1, put it in
| | 04:16 | record, and you can see that even as I
hit the next button, it waits to the bar.
| | 04:28 | (drums playing)
| | 04:35 | Great! So here's the automation
for the buttons I just pressed.
| | 04:40 | And if we play back, Shift+Return twice,
you can see the buttons here following
| | 04:46 | along, what I just recorded, and you
can hear the loop change accordingly.
| | 04:52 | (drums playing)
| | 04:59 | We've automated some
buttons, made a basic drum loop.
| | 05:02 | The next video on the course builds on
this loop with additional audio loops
| | 05:06 | and instruments.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating additional Dr. Octo Rex tracks and instrument tracks| 00:00 | Now that we have a basic drum
groove, I want to add another Dr.
| | 00:04 | Octo Rex and load in another loop.
| | 00:07 | Now, remember, right-clicking in this
blank area brings up the subcontext menu.
| | 00:11 | We choose Instrument > Dr.Octo Rex Loop Player. And instead of
the default patch that comes in, I want to
| | 00:18 | use our Browse Patch
button to choose a new patch.
| | 00:22 | And so this brings up the
Factory Sound Bank already in the Dr. Octo Rex patch list.
| | 00:28 | So we're going to choose Acoustic
Guitar, Open Strums, the key of A. Now,
| | 00:35 | that brings up eight loops alternate
versions of this acoustic guitar and
| | 00:40 | they'll track right along.
| | 00:41 | If I press Play, they play right
along with their drum loop in tempo.
| | 00:48 | Even though the title indicates that it's
90 bpm, and of course we are up at 120;
| | 00:54 | however, the loop plays back just fine and
that's part of the beauty of the Dr. Octo Rex player.
| | 00:59 | It will play back at any tempo
that you have set for your song.
| | 01:03 | We can automate and record the
alternate loop playback on this track as well, by
| | 01:08 | Option+Clicking on the loop
select buttons, and off we go.
| | 01:11 | So again I have a pre-count of one bar,
| | 01:14 | I'm going to hit record after I go
back to the start of the song with
| | 01:18 | Shift+Return hit twice, put it in record,
and you can see the Pattern Select lane.
| | 01:30 | Even if I hit it ahead of the bar,
it's still going to lock right to the bar.
| | 01:34 | (music playing)
| | 01:39 | And great, that's recorded now, and we'll play it back.
(music playing)
| | 01:48 | And so on. Lastly, I want to add a bass to this
track, but I already know there aren't
| | 01:54 | really any compatible Dr. Octo Rex loops
made for bass, particularly in the style.
| | 02:00 | I can play a bass sound using another
Reason instrument played from my MIDI
| | 02:04 | keyboard that I configured earlier in my course.
| | 02:07 | For this, I'll select a new instrument
by again right-clicking in the blank area
| | 02:12 | here, choosing Instruments, and instead of Dr.
| | 02:14 | Octo Rex Loop Player, I'm going
to choose NN-XT Advanced Sampler.
| | 02:19 | Now, it loads up with a grand
piano as the default patch.
| | 02:22 | Of course, I want to bass patch.
| | 02:24 | So we'll again use our Browse Patch
button, go to the Factory Sound Bank, and
| | 02:28 | again it automatically comes up with
the correct patch list available for you.
| | 02:33 | I'm going to choose a Bass patch,
FingerBass 1.0, and it will load in, and I'll
| | 02:39 | be ready to play on the MIDI keyboard.
| | 02:45 | Now, as I select this instrument,
in the sequencer here it's already
| | 02:49 | record-enabled, already
selected for me, ready for me to play.
| | 02:52 | This is one of the beautiful things about
Reason: when it's selected its ready to go.
| | 02:57 | So I'll hit Shift+Return to go
back to the start of the song.
| | 03:01 | Again, I still have my one bar pre-count.
| | 03:02 | I'm going to put it in Record and off we go.
| | 03:05 | (music playing)
| | 03:24 | Good. And we have it in loop mode, so it just
came right back to the start of the chart.
| | 03:28 | (music playing)
| | 03:46 | Great! Now that I'm happy with my bass and
guitar parts, it's time to put a basic mix
| | 03:51 | together, which we'll talk about next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finishing your first beat| 00:00 | Now that I'm finished creating the
beat, I want to do a quick mix using the
| | 00:04 | built-in mixer in Reason 6.5.
| | 00:07 | This is an accurate model of a
well-known British console, and I have to say, it
| | 00:11 | sounds very close to the real thing.
| | 00:13 | Channel EQ and Compression come as
close as I heard software accomplish.
| | 00:18 | We'll show the mixer window by hitting
F5, and I want to adjust levels and do
| | 00:24 | some basic EQ moves.
| | 00:25 | Nothing fancy at this point.
| | 00:27 | We just want a basic mix of this beat.
| | 00:29 | So as you can see, the mixer has a fader,
some send controls, an Insert section,
| | 00:39 | EQ, compression and gate, and an initial gain.
| | 00:45 | So we'll be using all of these things
together to kind of create an interesting mix.
| | 00:51 | So as I listen as I play through the
track, I'm going to be altering dynamics,
| | 00:56 | some EQ, some different things to kind
of make this mix really pop. Here we go.
| | 01:00 | (music playing)
| | 01:05 | Now I want to focus on the drum loop,
so I'll turn off everything or pull the
| | 01:10 | faders down and have the drum loop by itself.
(music playing)
| | 01:17 | So the next thing I want to do, the
click is kind of getting in my way so we'll
| | 01:20 | just pull that off here in real time.
| | 01:22 | I don't really even need to stop
the track to make that go away.
| | 01:25 | I'll just hit click and off it goes.
(music playing)
| | 01:29 | So let's turn the compressor on.
| | 01:31 | I'll alter my Threshold and Ratio,
really make it just stomp, and I might want to
| | 01:38 | give it a little extra gain.
(music playing)
| | 01:44 | That begins to make that loop really just stomp.
(music playing)
| | 01:53 | Bring up the acoustic guitar and
I might want to do some EQ moves.
| | 01:59 | A little the high-frequency
content here, maybe a little high mid.
| | 02:09 | Now let's add the bass.
| | 02:13 | And a couple more of EQ
moves and I think we're done.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:25 | Great! Now I've got my basic
channels the way I want them.
| | 02:28 | Now let's move over to
our main master compressor.
| | 02:32 | Now of course this compressor does
model the SSL compressor, and with that
| | 02:38 | real live compressor you have to use it
very gently or else it'll be very heavy-handed.
| | 02:43 | Let me turn it on and I'll have
basically an auto release time, and let's play
| | 02:49 | the track and see what we've come up with.
(music playing)
| | 02:53 | So I want to move my threshold to
where it just basically kisses it and makes
| | 02:58 | that needle move just a little bit.
Click our attack, a little make-up gain.
| | 03:06 | We'll hear the difference.
| | 03:08 | Here it is out, and in. So that's our mix.
| | 03:16 | Now we're ready to move on to the next
stage, and that could be delivery at this point--
| | 03:20 | we could finish this track up,
bounce it out, and be done--or we could add
| | 03:24 | some audio tracks like vocals or
another kind of instrument that only could
| | 03:28 | be recorded through audio, and that
will be covered in the later parts of this course.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating audio tracks for vocals or instruments| 00:00 | Throughout this chapter I've shown you
how to quickly get a beat going, how to
| | 00:04 | automate some basic tasks,
and how to get a quick mix.
| | 00:07 | In this section of the course, I want
to record a vocal and show you how it can
| | 00:11 | be manipulated and processed in Reason.
| | 00:14 | So I have a track from our previous
video loaded up, and you can open the same
| | 00:17 | exercise file if you're following along
or use your own song file if you've
| | 00:21 | been working with one.
| | 00:23 | Now, admittedly, this track is
a little pedestrian-sounding--
| | 00:27 | not too lame but not too cool either.
| | 00:29 | I want to record a vocal and see if I
can bring something cool at the table and
| | 00:33 | try to take it back to Brooklyn, so to speak.
| | 00:36 | It's already got kind of an indie vibe so
I'd like to try to push it all the way there.
| | 00:41 | I have a microphone set up here in
this studio and it's connected to our
| | 00:44 | computer via an Apogee Duet running
as a Mac aggregate device, so you can
| | 00:49 | actually hear what I'm doing as I record.
| | 00:51 | The mic is an Audio-Technica 4050,
which is a perfect mic for our vocal.
| | 00:55 | So let's quickly visit Reason's
preferences under the Preferences menu and check
| | 01:00 | that we have Apogee Duet Agrt selected.
| | 01:03 | So of course you'll choose your
own interface or microphone here.
| | 01:06 | Right, so we'll close
Preferences and get ready to record.
| | 01:10 | Now creating an audio track is super easy.
| | 01:13 | Just select a track close to where you
want audio track to appear, hit Command+T
| | 01:17 | or Ctrl+T, and the track shows
up just below where you were.
| | 01:20 | It's already record-armed,
but we can't hear it yet.
| | 01:23 | I have to enable record monitoring in the track.
| | 01:27 | With Reason's stock preferences this
monitor button is automatically enabled,
| | 01:31 | but I've had too many feedback
surprises upon instantiating a track,
| | 01:35 | so we changed the behavior to
manual monitoring earlier in the course.
| | 01:39 | This button is what that
preference setting affects.
| | 01:43 | Let's make sure the input is correct.
| | 01:45 | I'll click here and to make sure it's the
same device we set up in our audio preferences.
| | 01:49 | Now we're ready.
| | 01:51 | I'll do my best to sing
in tune. I've got signal.
| | 01:53 | I'll choose a pre-count.
| | 01:55 | Okay, I'm ready to begin recording my vocal.
| | 01:57 | I'm going to hit the asterisk key on the
number pad to get ready to record. So here we go.
| | 01:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:20 | Okay, great. Let's play it back and make sure it's
all there. And I'm going to turn off input
| | 02:25 | monitoring so I can actually
hear what's going on the track.
| | 02:28 | (music playing)
| | 02:44 | Okay, so that's our first audio track. Not bad.
| | 02:47 | Not great, but not bad.
| | 02:48 | Let's play it back to make sure everything is there.
(music playing)
| | 03:07 | Okay, so on playback I noticed the
clip indicator lit up on our output meter.
| | 03:12 | That's just telling me that the output of
Reason is a little too hot for what's going on.
| | 03:17 | So I'm going to go over here and back it
down just a little bit on our main mixer.
| | 03:20 | I can bring my vocal track down and or
I could bring the master fader down, but
| | 03:25 | I'm not a big fan of
bringing the master fader down.
| | 03:27 | I like it to stay at 0
all the time. Okay, great.
| | 03:30 | Now that that's fixed let's go back over
to our rack and our sequencer, and I do
| | 03:35 | that by pressing F6 and F7 together.
| | 03:38 | I want to get this track
perfectly in tune, and Reason makes this
| | 03:42 | absolutely seamless.
| | 03:43 | Each track is already configured for
audio inserts, and I can go over to my rack
| | 03:49 | and unfold the audio track
device and show Insert effects.
| | 03:53 | This black area here is
where an Insert effect would go.
| | 03:57 | Obviously it's empty at the moment, so
let's right-click and insert a studio
| | 04:01 | effect called the Neptune Pitch Adjuster.
| | 04:06 | And it brings it up, and it's already
prewired and preconfigured to go right in
| | 04:10 | between my vocal and the output.
| | 04:12 | So if I play, you'll
actually see some action going on.
| | 04:15 | (music playing)
| | 04:23 | And it's following along with
the note choices I selected.
| | 04:26 | Now, I know where in the key of A
mainly because the acoustic guitar says it's
| | 04:31 | in the key of A. So I'm
going to change chromatic here.
| | 04:34 | I'm just going to click up in the name,
Major scale, and we're going to put it
| | 04:38 | in A. Now, every note I sing will be
diatonic in A or follow one of the scale
| | 04:45 | notes in the key of A.
(music playing)
| | 04:53 | We'll go back to the top.
(music playing)
| | 04:59 | Perfect! So there's a little artifact or
two, and we could solve that by changing the
| | 05:07 | Correction Speed, either to slower or
faster. Either one is fine. If you want to
| | 05:12 | full-on T-Pain effect so you
just speed it all the way up.
| | 05:15 | (music playing)
| | 05:25 | So we get a full-on T-Pain effect that way,
but let's back it off.
| | 05:30 | This'll be fine for this particular example.
| | 05:33 | So great, we have our
vocal tuned and sounding good.
| | 05:36 | The next part of this chapter focuses
on expanded Neptune features and expanded
| | 05:41 | vocal possibilities.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Expanding the vocal possibilities with Neptune| 00:00 | I want to take the opportunity to show
you a unique feature of Neptune that will
| | 00:04 | take this track to a very cool place.
| | 00:07 | Let's record another vocal.
| | 00:08 | This time I'll sing falsetto, and
whether I'm good or not really doesn't matter,
| | 00:12 | as you'll soon see and hear.
| | 00:14 | We'll go over to our sequencer and
create a new track with Command+T or Ctrl+T,
| | 00:19 | and of course it's record-enabled.
| | 00:21 | We'll click on monitor the input so
that we can actually hear what we're doing,
| | 00:25 | and I'll get ready to sing.
| | 00:26 | Now, I want to mute the other vocals so
I can concentrate on what I'm singing at
| | 00:30 | the moment, and I'll be ready to record.
| | 00:33 | So I'll press asterisk to
begin recording and off we go.
| | 00:35 | (music playing)
| | 00:55 | Okay, not so bad. Not perfect, but
as you'll soon hear, it won't matter.
| | 01:00 | So I'll go back to the beginning
of the track and let's hit play.
| | 01:03 | (music playing)
| | 01:06 | Ah, I can't hear it so I need to get rid
of input monitoring and go back and play.
| | 01:10 | (music playing)
| | 01:27 | Not bad. We're going to fix that up really quick.
| | 01:30 | Let's go over to our rack.
| | 01:32 | We're going to unfold that
device and show the Insert effects for
| | 01:36 | this particular track.
| | 01:37 | We'll right-click here in the empty area
and choose Neptune Pitch Adjuster again.
| | 01:43 | Now, on this track I want
to do some different things.
| | 01:46 | I want my MIDI input to go to the voice
synth part of Neptune and I want to play
| | 01:53 | this with my MIDI keyboard attached to Reason.
| | 01:55 | Now to do that I'll need to actually
tell Reason to go look at the MIDI keyboard
| | 02:00 | and attach it to Neptune.
| | 02:01 | We do this by right-clicking somewhere
on the device and creating a track for
| | 02:06 | the device, in this case for Neptune
2. That puts a new track lane in the
| | 02:11 | sequencer for this inserted device.
| | 02:14 | Let's go back to the beginning.
| | 02:16 | It's already in record, and we're going to
listen to what chord playing might do to this vocal.
| | 02:20 | Let me hit asterisk for record and off we go.
| | 02:23 | (music playing)
| | 02:42 | Instant Imogen Heap.
| | 02:43 | Now if I want to get rid of my
original vocal, we'll go over here into the
| | 02:47 | Neptune and pull down Pitched Signal.
That's the original corrected vocal that
| | 02:52 | I've sung. And now all we'll hear is the voice synth.
| | 02:55 | (music playing)
| | 03:11 | Not bad. And so if we add in our original track,
we'll have kind of a finished little
| | 03:16 | beat with a vocal on top, and then we
are instant car-commercial land here.
| | 03:19 | (music playing)
| | 03:36 | Awesome! So I may want to adjust some mix
blend issues or I may want to adjust some
| | 03:41 | other parameters in the Neptune synth,
but this takes us where we want to go
| | 03:44 | very quickly, and it turned kind of a
pedestrian-sounding track into something
| | 03:48 | really cool very quickly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Creating Custom Beats QuicklyUsing the ReDrum drum module| 00:00 | After working with Reason awhile, you
have certainly experienced the power of
| | 00:04 | beat creation this software allows.
| | 00:06 | In this video, I want to help you
customize your beats just a bit.
| | 00:10 | We won't get in depth with total
customization until later in the course.
| | 00:14 | We're still getting up and running quickly.
| | 00:15 | But a bit of customization is in
order at this point in the series.
| | 00:20 | The Redrum Drum Computer has been a
feature of Reason since version 1.0, and it's
| | 00:25 | still a staple of custom
beat creation in music today.
| | 00:28 | We'll start with a new session,
and I'll create a Redrum instrument.
| | 00:32 | So, I'll right-click in the blank
area here, choose Instrument, and select
| | 00:36 | Redrum Drum Computer.
| | 00:38 | It loads up with a stock set of
sounds, but I want something cooler.
| | 00:41 | So I'll open the Patch
Browser and load in a cooler kit.
| | 00:45 | As with all other Reason instruments,
the Patch Browser automatically opens
| | 00:49 | the Factory Sound Bank in the folder with the
list of patches compatible for our device.
| | 00:54 | I'll choose House Kit 02,
and it will load the patch.
| | 00:58 | We can play these sounds manually with
our mouse by clicking the Play icon up at
| | 01:03 | the top of each sound module.
| | 01:05 | And these sounds can be loaded in and
customized on an individual basis by
| | 01:12 | clicking the menu. But these sounds
that are loaded in are fine for now.
| | 01:16 | You'll notice a pattern bar with 16
buttons and some controls in the lower
| | 01:20 | right-hand portion of the device.
| | 01:22 | This is reminiscent of older rolling
pattern-based drum machines or analog-
| | 01:26 | style sequencers, and it's still
a very valid way to work fast for
| | 01:30 | customization of rhythm tracks.
| | 01:33 | The Select button on each sound
module brings the pattern buffer into
| | 01:37 | display for that module.
| | 01:39 | I'll select the first module, which is
my kickdrum, and I'll put a kick on every
| | 01:44 | beat by clicking the pattern
buttons at specific places.
| | 01:47 | Now, you'll notice that the grid
is divided into groups of four.
| | 01:52 | Each group of four indicates a quarter note.
| | 01:54 | Since there are 16 buttons, think
of these as 16th notes in a measure.
| | 01:58 | So, the first of every four notes
gets pushed in 4/4 on the floor beat.
| | 02:02 | The next thing we want to work on is the snare.
| | 02:05 | Now, that's in my second module,
so I'll hit Select on the second module.
| | 02:08 | And that brings up the
pattern display for our snare drum.
| | 02:12 | Since there is nothing
programmed in for the snare, it's blank.
| | 02:15 | Selecting our kick sound again brings that
pattern display back up. It's still there;
| | 02:19 | it's just not displayed when
we select our number 2 module.
| | 02:22 | Let me program the snare on
beat 2 and 4. So we'll play it.
| | 02:28 | (music playing)
So I want to add an offbeat open hi-hat.
| | 02:33 | I can do this while we're playing.
| | 02:35 | It's actually named OH Congos.
| | 02:37 | That's our open hi-hat. I'll select it.
| | 02:40 | We can play it here just to make sure,
and we'll add it on every offbeat.
| | 02:44 | (music playing)
| | 02:47 | Now, I don't really like the sound of
that, but I can adjust it with some of the
| | 02:51 | parameters here in Module 5. Let's do that.
| | 02:54 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | I will pull down the level, work with the note
length, and I can raise the pitch or lower it.
| | 03:04 | That's not bad.
| | 03:08 | (music playing)
| | 03:12 | I'll add an additional hat and adjust it
so it adds that distinctive house shuffle.
| | 03:16 | All right! Here's the sound, and it's on Module
8, so we'll select that to display the pattern.
| | 03:23 | (music playing)
| | 03:27 | Now, of course that sounds pretty bad,
but we're going to adjust the pitch.
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:43 | Now, we're starting to
sound like some house music.
| | 03:45 | Lastly, I want to change the kick
pattern to move the groove along just a bit.
| | 03:49 | It needs some dynamic action.
| | 03:51 | Right now, everything is at the same volume.
| | 03:53 | The Dynamic slider indicates
the volume level programmed in.
| | 03:57 | We have Medium selected now, and I'll
change this to Hard and program some
| | 04:02 | more dynamic beats.
| | 04:03 | Let me select my kick drum.
| | 04:05 | And you can see when I hit the
button, the color changes subtly.
| | 04:10 | This indicates I have Hard
Dynamics selected in the kickdrum.
| | 04:14 | (music playing)
| | 04:18 | Each sound has three
layers of dynamics available:
| | 04:21 | soft, medium, and hard.
| | 04:23 | To program soft hits in, I just move the
slider to soft and program it accordingly.
| | 04:29 | You can see the color change again,
and now I have all soft beats.
| | 04:33 | To get a mix going, I'll just
program some hard and some soft.
| | 04:38 | Let me bring it down to soft here.
| | 04:41 | (music playing)
| | 04:47 | Now, the whole thing is a little loud,
so let me adjust my level of the kick.
| | 04:50 | (music playing)
| | 04:55 | That's Redrum for you.
| | 04:58 | After all these years, it's still one of
the hottest beat-creation tools available.
| | 05:02 | Now, following our theme of getting up
and running quickly, in the next video we
| | 05:06 | show how to add some semi-custom
harmony and instrumental rhythm to this beat.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding Auto Combinators| 00:00 | Since we now have a basic house beat,
it makes sense to continue on the house tip.
| | 00:04 | I want to quickly complete
this track and make it cool,
| | 00:08 | but let's say I'm short on inspiration
or too pressed for time to really finish
| | 00:12 | customizing it before our gig.
| | 00:14 | The Combinator is your new best friend.
| | 00:16 | The Combinator is simply a device that
combines several instruments, effects,
| | 00:21 | and rhythm devices into one unit.
| | 00:22 | It can do almost anything.
| | 00:24 | It's a remarkably flexible device that
can assemble an infinite number of units,
| | 00:29 | depending on your CPU resources, to make
monster synths, super-potent effects, or
| | 00:35 | rhythm devices that include several
drum machines and loop players all working
| | 00:39 | in tandem to create music.
| | 00:41 | With that in mind, when the
Combinator was introduced several years ago, we
| | 00:45 | designers were tasked with a set of
patches called Song Starters that would help
| | 00:50 | get a song started quickly with
minimal key presses, to inspire if you will.
| | 00:54 | Let me bring up a few of these
patches now and play around with them.
| | 00:58 | You should do this as well
if you're following along,
| | 01:01 | stop the video where you need to, and
resume when you are ready to see more action.
| | 01:05 | Right-clicking in the blank area here,
I'll go to Utilities > Combinator.
| | 01:11 | That will open up a new blank Combinator.
| | 01:14 | And using the Patch Browser,
let's go browse some patches.
| | 01:17 | So what opens up in the documents folder,
we want to go to Reason Factory Sound
| | 01:22 | Bank/Combinator Patches/
Performance Patches/Song Starters.
| | 01:29 | I'm going to choose, with our theme,
the Deep House Starter Combinator.
| | 01:35 | And it loads up and it's ready to run.
| | 01:38 | Let me play Reason at this point,
let you hear what's going on.
| | 01:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | So, we have our initial Redrum kit loop
that we created in the last video, and
| | 01:54 | we now have this Combinator sound.
| | 01:56 | So, if I went to the mixer board and
muted the Redrum, this is what it sounds like.
| | 02:05 | Now if I muted the Combinator, and
just let the Redrum play, that's of course
| | 02:12 | the rhythm we had in our last video.
| | 02:14 | (music playing)
Both together!
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:21 | Now, one of the cool things about this
is you can alter some of the behaviors of
| | 02:25 | this Combinator by turning the knobs here.
| | 02:28 | So, this seems to be the main
kick level in this Combinator.
| | 02:31 | (music playing)
| | 02:37 | We can add some resonance to the
percussion, alter our bass level, and so forth.
| | 02:49 | That's cool! Let's bring up another patch.
| | 02:52 | Now, one of the cool things about the
Patch Browser is it's not limited to
| | 02:56 | the Patch Browse button. Clicking
on the name of the patch brings up a
| | 03:00 | contextual menu that includes all of the
patches in the current folder with the loaded patch.
| | 03:05 | This allows for quick changes.
| | 03:07 | You can use this menu or the up/down
arrow buttons to change through patches,
| | 03:13 | and of course it takes time to load up.
| | 03:17 | This is a very quick way to
kind of compare some things.
| | 03:20 | Let's bring up another patch
called Piebald's Second Tan.
| | 03:26 | (music playing)
This will add kind of a different sound to what we've got.
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:39 | And again, tweaking the buttons and
the knobs provides for a different sound.
| | 03:44 | Let's even bring up a
different kind of sound here.
| | 03:46 | We'll call it Sinebeat. Pushing Play.
| | 03:50 | (music playing)
| | 03:56 | These are all great idea starters or
things that will help you get inspired
| | 04:01 | to write a new beat.
| | 04:03 | A couple more that are very cool,
| | 04:05 | Warm Bathroom is one of my favorites.
| | 04:07 | (music playing)
| | 04:14 | Now, let's say you don't want to really
rely on Reason to create everything for you;
| | 04:18 | you want to play a little
bit on your MIDI keyboard.
| | 04:20 | You want to have a little
bit more customized control.
| | 04:23 | That's after all what this video is about.
| | 04:26 | So let's bring up some of
those kinds of Song Starters.
| | 04:28 | Now, I am going to move over to
Arpeggiated patches and bring up a
| | 04:36 | different kind of sound.
| | 04:37 | Now, this will actually require me to play it
via my MIDI keyboard, and I can do that now.
| | 04:45 | (music playing)
| | 04:48 | It creates a beautiful arpeggiated
kind of sound in tempo with our track.
| | 04:53 | Now, I am going to move
this back up to 128 and play.
| | 05:02 | (music playing)
| | 05:13 | You can hear the arpeggiation
follow the song tempo and pattern.
| | 05:17 | SQ80 Sqaure Arp is another great patch.
| | 05:19 | (music playing)
| | 05:34 | And one of my favorites: Science.
| | 05:37 | (music playing)
| | 05:50 | Though this was a quick introduction to
the Combinator, I hope you can see how
| | 05:54 | powerful a device like this can be,
especially for filling out a sparse track and
| | 05:58 | quickly making your
productions bigger and more fulfilling.
| | 06:02 | Our next video will focus on larger
productions, only this time using Dr.
| | 06:06 | Octo Rex to fill up the empty space in a track.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing multi-loops in Dr. Octo Rex| 00:00 | We've already seen how using Dr.
| | 00:02 | Octo Rex can help create a track
quickly, but how do we use this device to
| | 00:06 | quickly customize tracks?
| | 00:08 | This video reveals all.
| | 00:10 | In the previous segment, we used the
Combinator to help fill out a track.
| | 00:14 | Now let's take that track to another
level and learn a few new features of
| | 00:17 | Reason in the process.
| | 00:19 | In our existing rack from the previous
video, I'll create a Dr. Octo Rex device.
| | 00:26 | Now, I don't know what kind of
patch I might use at this point.
| | 00:29 | I just want to explore and find
something cool to make the track bigger, or
| | 00:33 | perhaps something to inspire me to
take the track in a different direction.
| | 00:35 | I'm open to suggestions and
Reason makes this essential songwriting
| | 00:39 | process intuitive and easy.
| | 00:41 | Let's start Reason playback.
| | 00:44 | It plays the Redrum loop we created
earlier, along with a stack loop loaded into Dr. Octo Rex.
| | 00:50 | Now, I'll go into the Dr.
| | 00:51 | Octo Rex Patch Browser and select
some loops, single-clicking only.
| | 00:56 | (music playing)
| | 01:05 | As you can see, the loop plays all the way
through from top to bottom in the correct tempo.
| | 01:11 | Now, let me just browse through some loops
and see what hits me, makes me kind of work.
| | 01:18 | Go into Synth Bass here.
(music playing)
| | 01:31 | Again, I'm just kind of looking for
some things that might inspire me.
| | 01:34 | Let's go into some Synth loops here.
| | 01:36 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | Very nice! Let's go into Music Loops, Rhodes.
| | 01:56 | (music playing)
Okay, I kind of liked it.
| | 02:00 | Let's double-click and
actually load it into the device.
| | 02:03 | Click through here. Oh! That's nice.
| | 02:11 | (music playing)
Pretty.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:20 | Great! I like that loop.
| | 02:23 | That's the one we'll settle on.
| | 02:24 | Now, let me add another Dr.
| | 02:26 | Octo Rex for some interesting bass lines, kind
of in the same way we found the Rhodes loop.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 02:41 | We'll select maybe one of these.
(music playing)
| | 02:47 | Okay. I like the energy, I like that sound.
| | 02:50 | But as you can hear, the loop or the
bass is out of key. Well, no problem.
| | 02:55 | I'll just unfold the Dr.
| | 02:57 | Octo Rex device, access the Loop Transpose
knob, and turn it until I have the correct key.
| | 03:02 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | All right! It looks like F is our correct key.
| | 03:15 | But the Rhodes changes keys halfway
through or it plays a different chord that
| | 03:20 | the bass can't follow.
| | 03:21 | Well again, it's not quite as simple
as one knob turn, but I can automate the
| | 03:25 | Loop Transpose button and record that change,
and then we'll have our loop. Let's do that now.
| | 03:31 | I'll Option+Click Loop Transpose and
it will create a new lane in the Dr.
| | 03:36 | Octo Rex number 2 sequencer channel.
| | 03:39 | Let's combine both windows by pressing
F6 and F7 together to create a window where
| | 03:45 | both the rack and the sequencer are displayed.
| | 03:48 | I'll scroll down to see the second
Dr.Octo Rex here, and we can begin.
| | 03:53 | I'll go back to the beginning of my track.
| | 03:55 | Let me do a pre-count.
| | 03:57 | Put it and record, and we'll
see if I can automate this.
| | 04:00 | (music playing)
| | 04:13 | Not bad. Great! And you can see that
there's some data here now for us.
| | 04:22 | Let's see how that plays back.
| | 04:23 | (music playing)
| | 04:28 | Wonderful!
(music playing)
| | 04:34 | And you can see the
automation actually taking place.
| | 04:36 | Great! Lastly, I'll bring back the
Combinator that we used in a previous video, load up
| | 04:44 | a sound called Piebald's Second Tan.
| | 04:52 | So, once that patch is loaded in,
I'm ready to play it on my MIDI keyboard.
| | 04:57 | But Reason doesn't know
that's the device I want to play.
| | 05:00 | Right now, the second Dr.
| | 05:02 | Octo Rex is selected, so we'll scroll up
in our sequencer and select the Combinator.
| | 05:07 | Now, the MIDI keyboard knows that the
Combinator is what we want to effect. I can play these.
| | 05:12 | (music playing)
| | 05:18 | Okay. Let's record some of that.
| | 05:21 | I'll hit asterisk and I'll
have a pre-count of four beats.
| | 05:24 | (music playing)
| | 05:42 | And on and on and so forth.
| | 05:44 | Now, we actually want this to loop from now on,
| | 05:46 | so let me play back what we've just done.
| | 05:48 | (music playing)
| | 06:05 | Great! Now, let's say that you didn't have
a MIDI keyboard connected but needed to play
| | 06:11 | some chords into Reason anyway.
Propellerheads has already thought of this.
| | 06:15 | Pressing F4 reveals the computer MIDI
keyboard to allow those without MIDI keys
| | 06:20 | to play on the typewriter
keyboard of your computer.
| | 06:23 | It's not perfect, but it works in a
pinch and it's a very thoughtful feature.
| | 06:27 | We'll go over here and press Computer
Keys, and that allows the typewriter to
| | 06:31 | begin acting as a computer keyboard.
| | 06:34 | You can see the presses
on the keyboard as I go.
| | 06:37 | It's a very thoughtful feature, and
speaking of thoughtful features, our next
| | 06:41 | chapter dives into the most significant
part of Reason 6.5, the Rack extension.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Rack ExtensionsTrying and buying Rack Extensions| 00:00 | The Rack Extension is arguably the most
significant new feature in Reason 6.5.
| | 00:06 | For the first time, the Reason Rack
is available to third-party developers.
| | 00:10 | This allows instruments and plugins
that are part of a natural workflow in
| | 00:14 | other software workstations to take
their rightful place in the Reason Rack.
| | 00:18 | Companies like Korg, iZotope, and
Softube have developed instruments and effects
| | 00:23 | in the Reason Rack Extension format,
and other companies are in the process of
| | 00:28 | developing new Rack Extensions as we speak.
| | 00:31 | All rack extensions are found in
the Propellerhead shop, on the web,
| | 00:35 | at propellerheads.se.
| | 00:37 | From the Propellerhead's website,
we can navigate to the Shop area, click Rack
| | 00:43 | Extensions, and see the
latest offerings right away.
| | 00:48 | If we want to look at every Rack
Extension available, we'll hit the Browse button.
| | 00:53 | Here we find many different
creative tools, with more added every week.
| | 00:58 | If I want to find out more about a
particular Rack Extension, I'll just click on
| | 01:03 | the icon, and a new page
loads with more information.
| | 01:06 | Each Rack Extension has a
30-day unlimited trial period.
| | 01:11 | So, you can try out the product in
your own Reason Rack to see if it enhances
| | 01:16 | your music-making process.
| | 01:18 | If you would like to try a
particular plugin, simply hit the Try tab.
| | 01:24 | If you're not logged in,
you'll be required to do so at this point.
| | 01:31 | If you are already logged in,
the download will immediately start, the
| | 01:35 | Authorizer will launch, and the new
Rack Extension will become available the
| | 01:39 | next time you launch Reason on your computer.
| | 01:41 | At the end of 30 days, the trial
license expires, and you'll be required to
| | 01:46 | purchase that Rack
Extension to continue using it.
| | 01:49 | When the Authorizer is finished
writing the new license to your computer, you
| | 01:54 | can quit the Authorizer and go
back to the Propellerhead shop.
| | 01:58 | If you wish to purchase a Rack
Extension, click Buy next to the icon in
| | 02:03 | the Propellerhead shop.
| | 02:04 | If you're logged in, it will carry
you to a confirmation page where payment
| | 02:08 | information is entered or retrieve
if you bought Rack Extensions before.
| | 02:12 | Confirming or checking out of this
sale will purchase that Rack Extension for
| | 02:16 | you and download it to your
computer, and authorize it for use.
| | 02:20 | Ultimately, you'll need to save this
Rack Extension license to your ignition
| | 02:25 | key for permanent use.
| | 02:27 | Clicking on Account and going to your
account setup will take you to your
| | 02:31 | own account on the Propellerhead site,
and it allows you to review all of
| | 02:35 | your purchased products.
| | 02:37 | Clicking on the Rack Extension tab
displays all of your purchased Rack
| | 02:40 | Extensions and offers options for
managing licenses and ignition keys.
| | 02:46 | In the next video, we'll actually try
out some of these Rack Extensions and see
| | 02:50 | how they alter or affect our creative process.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Rack Extensions| 00:00 | Now that we know how to try Rack
Extensions and buy them, let's hear some in action.
| | 00:05 | Rack Extensions show up in the Create
menu, under the appropriate tab within Reason.
| | 00:11 | Instruments, Creative FX, Studio FX,
Utilities all show up in the appropriate
| | 00:17 | tab below the stack Reason instruments.
| | 00:21 | Let's bring up the new
Radical Piano and have a quick look.
| | 00:27 | The large knob in the center controls
blend between different piano mics and
| | 00:31 | sounds, and the controls underneath
deal with resonance, attack, key release,
| | 00:37 | hammer noise, and other parameters
needed to get a great piano track.
| | 00:41 | It includes an ambiance generator and
a one-knob compressor for the perfect
| | 00:46 | touch a modern piano sound needs.
| | 00:48 | Let's listen to some patches.
| | 00:50 | American Pop Piano is one of the cooler patches,
and it loads up as the default patch. Let's play it.
| | 00:55 | (music playing)
| | 01:07 | Atlantic Records Stereo Upright is my
take on what the Atlantic Records Upright
| | 01:11 | Piano sounded like back in the 1950s.
| | 01:13 | (music playing)
| | 01:25 | And Windham Hill is kind of a chill piano.
| | 01:28 | (music playing)
| | 01:45 | So that's the Radical Piano.
| | 01:46 | Let's delete this device by
selecting it and hitting Command+Delete or
| | 01:50 | Ctrl+Delete and we'll
bring up another instrument.
| | 01:53 | How about the new Korg
Polysix, in Reason no less?
| | 01:58 | You can see it contains all the parameters
needed to accurately model the hardware unit.
| | 02:03 | Let's play some patches.
| | 02:04 | Now notice that I didn't have to go
into my Patch browser to deal with this.
| | 02:11 | I just went up and clicked on the name of
the patch and the rest of the patches in
| | 02:15 | that folder automatically show up.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:24 | Let's try Velocity Arp.
| | 02:26 | (music playing)
| | 02:31 | Instant 80's, got to love it. And P6 Strings.
| | 02:37 | (music playing)
| | 02:48 | And the low polyphony actually makes the
notes cut off just like the real Poly6 would do.
| | 02:53 | We can actually increase our voice
count if we choose to, and that won't happen.
| | 02:59 | (music playing)
| | 03:06 | The wonders of software.
| | 03:07 | Let's delete this and try
some effect Rack Extensions.
| | 03:12 | I have a vocal already recorded in this song.
| | 03:15 | It's just me counting from one to
eight and back to one, but it will help
| | 03:19 | showcase the power of some of these new devices.
| | 03:21 | I want to unfold the
Counting track and Show Insert FX.
| | 03:26 | This is where we'll put the new Rack
Extensions because they are effects.
| | 03:29 | Of course we want them to affect
my vocal that I already recorded.
| | 03:32 | Here is the unaltered vocal.
| | 03:34 | (Vocal: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 03:46 | (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. One, two.)
| | 03:52 | And that will just be on a loop, the
effect will be applied to that voice, and
| | 03:58 | you'll hear it as it goes.
| | 04:00 | Let's instantiate a
Spectralizer, under Creative FX.
| | 04:06 | Now, I'll need to turn the Dry/Wet knob up
all the way because I want to hear only effect.
| | 04:11 | Let me play my counting and off we go.
| | 04:14 | (Vocal: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 04:25 | That is so cool.
| | 04:26 | (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 04:32 | (One, two, three, four, five, six--)
| | 04:36 | If I bypass it, of course it
will leave the original vocal unaltered.
| | 04:42 | (Eight, seven, six, five, four,
three, two, one.) Amazing effect.
| | 04:48 | (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. One, two.)
| | 04:57 | Now notice that I'm not changing any of the parameters.
These are just presets that come with Spectralizer.
| | 05:03 | There's a lot of power under the hood,
and I encourage you to twist some knobs
| | 05:06 | and move some things around and
find out what works best for you.
| | 05:09 | All right, let's delete this
and let's pull in my favorite Rack Extension, Bitspeek.
| | 05:17 | If you've ever been looking to
process your vocal through an old speak and
| | 05:20 | spell, this is your device.
| | 05:23 | There are no presets. You just play around.
| | 05:25 | Let me start my vocal.
| | 05:27 | (Vocal: Three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 05:37 | (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 05:42 | There's your speak and spell right there.
| | 05:44 | (Vocal: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.)
| | 05:54 | (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight, seven, six, five, four, three.)
| | 06:01 | (One, two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight.)
| | 06:08 | Now remember, every parameter on
this device can be automated in Reason.
| | 06:12 | You just Option+Click the knob or the
button you want to automate, it appears in
| | 06:17 | the Sequencer as a new lane, and you
just go to town. Get crazy with this.
| | 06:22 | You can really mangle up a lead vocal,
a set of drums, an acoustic guitar,
| | 06:28 | anything that you want to run through this
kind of bit destruction. It's an amazing tool.
| | 06:33 | Now I want to show you one last Rack
Extension that's one of my favorites.
| | 06:37 | It's called Buffre.
| | 06:39 | So I'll delete Bitspeek
and we'll instantiate Buffre.
| | 06:42 | Now, this is what they call a beat
repeater, but you play it from an
| | 06:48 | attached MIDI keyboard.
| | 06:50 | Now, as an insert, this unit is not
automatically wired to Reason to receive MIDI
| | 06:55 | notes, but that's easily remedied.
| | 06:57 | I'll right-click my mouse somewhere
here in Buffre to create a sequencer
| | 07:01 | track so that I can connect my attached MIDI
keyboard and have it control the insert device.
| | 07:07 | It's already in record, ready to go.
| | 07:09 | So we'll click back over here, play my tracks.
| | 07:13 | (music playing)
| | 07:21 | See, I'm altering the pitch spin wheel
| | 07:23 | (music playing)
And the modwheel.
| | 07:27 | (music playing)
| | 07:46 | So that all occurs in real time as your
audio is moving along, a very, very cool
| | 07:51 | device that can seriously work on a track.
| | 07:54 | So that's the story with Rack Extensions.
| | 07:56 | I encourage you to take advantage of
the 30-day trial period and see what Rack
| | 08:00 | Extensions do for your workflow.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Making Guitar and Bass PartsCreating guitar sounds with the Line 6 devices| 00:00 | One of the many cool features of
Reason is the way it handles and processes
| | 00:04 | audio after recording.
| | 00:05 | Anything can be done to the source
audio after the fact--distortion, reverb,
| | 00:10 | delay, you name it--and the
original audio remains intact.
| | 00:14 | This is especially cool when recording
guitars and basses because the processing
| | 00:18 | options remain open right through to mixdown.
| | 00:21 | I have a song that I have been working
on in my studio that needs some guitar.
| | 00:25 | This is an actual in-progress production of
mine and not something prepared for lynda.com.
| | 00:31 | As a result, the exercise file you
receive may be substantially different from
| | 00:35 | the one I work with here,
but the results will be the same.
| | 00:38 | My friend David agreed to play some
guitar on this track and helped demonstrate
| | 00:42 | the power of Reason.
| | 00:43 | He's playing a Gretsch Countryman,
and I'll be running it through the included
| | 00:47 | Line 6 POD Device in Reason.
| | 00:49 | This is the exact same Line 6 product
that is offered throughout the Line 6
| | 00:53 | range, only the amp and cabinet choices
are more limited in this Reason version.
| | 00:58 | If you own POD Farm or a POD XT device,
connect it to Reason with a USB cable
| | 01:03 | and all of the end choices
available in those software packages will
| | 01:07 | automatically show up in the Reason list.
| | 01:09 | Let's give a quick listen to the
bridge of this tune before David records the
| | 01:13 | guitar part and see what it sounds like.
| | 01:15 | (music playing)
| | 01:36 | So, I'll have him play a
couple of guitar parts over this.
| | 01:39 | Let's see what happens.
| | 01:41 | The first thing I need to
do is create a new track.
| | 01:45 | Now, I have guitar signal showing
up. Dave, if you'll play and show us we've got
| | 01:49 | it. And I want to record monitor and click that
button so I can actually hear what we're doing.
| | 01:54 | So Dave play, great.
(guitar playing)
| | 01:56 | Now, I want to insert a Line 6
Device inside this audio track.
| | 02:01 | So I'll show the Rack by hitting F6,
unfold the audio track, show Insert FX, and
| | 02:08 | then right-click in the blank area,
choose Studio FX > Line 6 Guitar Amp.
| | 02:14 | Now, if you'll play, Dave, we'll
have a completely different sound.
| | 02:16 | (guitar playing)
| | 02:17 | Awesome! I'll change models just a bit to
kind of give you an idea of what we can do.
| | 02:25 | Dave, if you'll play along.
(guitar playing)
| | 02:32 | Perfect. All right, we're back to the 1968 Plexi,
which I kind of like. So, this is great.
| | 02:39 | Now, notice the Tuning Fork icon over here.
| | 02:42 | If I click that, this area
becomes a quick little tuner.
| | 02:47 | Dave, if you'll play and
will tune up very quickly.
| | 02:48 | (guitar playing)
| | 02:49 | Let me move my mouse. It selects the note
for you and tells you if you're in tune or not.
| | 02:56 | It looks like you're a little flat on the
D. Now, if you hit F3 the whole thing
| | 03:01 | blows up and you can see it in a giant
screen so that the player can actually
| | 03:05 | see for himself what's going on.
| | 03:07 | (guitar playing)
| | 03:11 | Perfect, thanks, Dave.
| | 03:13 | Let's turn off the tuner.
| | 03:15 | Dave has already heard the
track and is ready to play.
| | 03:18 | I'll have him lay down a simple
Power Chord Track
| | 03:21 | to complement my tune.
| | 03:22 | Now notice I don't have pre-engaged.
| | 03:24 | I don't want to pre-count it at this point.
| | 03:26 | I just want to get into record and go.
So, here we go. Let's put in record.
| | 03:29 | (music playing)
| | 04:16 | So, at this point I might want to name
the track. I'll just click over here and
| | 04:20 | name it PWR Chord 1, and number one
because I'm actually going to put another one on it.
| | 04:27 | Now I want to duplicate this track,
so I'll just right-click here on the track
| | 04:31 | header, select Duplicate Tracks and
Devices, and we'll make a duplicate with
| | 04:37 | the Line 6 already inserted, already in record.
| | 04:40 | We'll just record-enable that.
Dave, if will play a little bit for us?
| | 04:44 | (music playing)
| | 04:45 | Okay, now obviously we don't want the
audio that it duplicated, so I'll just hit
| | 04:50 | Delete and get rid of it.
| | 04:52 | Put my play head back to
where I want it. And off we go.
| | 04:57 | (music playing)
| | 05:44 | Great! Thanks Dave.
| | 05:45 | Now, I noticed as we were recording a
couple of clip indicators were illuminated.
| | 05:50 | I'm not too worried about it at this point.
| | 05:52 | It is rock and roll, and we are
distorting the mess out of this guitar, so
| | 05:57 | I'm going to let it go.
| | 05:58 | It sounded great as I was monitoring
it and if it happens to you, you might
| | 06:01 | evaluate whether you want
to do another take or not.
| | 06:04 | In this case we're just going to let it go.
| | 06:07 | Next, we'll do the same thing, only with bass.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating bass sounds with the Line 6 devices| 00:00 | You saw how easy it was to record
guitar tracks in Reason in our last video
| | 00:04 | using the included Line 6 POD device.
| | 00:07 | Now let's do the same thing,
| | 00:08 | this time with bass, using the
included Line 6 Bass POD device.
| | 00:13 | I'll create a new track with Command+T,
go over to the Rack, unfold it, insert
| | 00:22 | the bass with Studio FX > Line 6
Bass Amp, and we're ready to go.
| | 00:29 | Let me input monitor our track.
| | 00:31 | (music playing)
| | 00:34 | Yay! So we'll go back over to our rack,
mess with the sound a little bit, play it.
| | 00:42 | That's actually pretty awesome.
| | 00:43 | Let's use that sound.
| | 00:46 | Our playhead is where we want.
| | 00:47 | Let's just press record and go.
| | 00:48 | (music playing)
| | 01:34 | So I'll get a quick mix-up.
| | 01:35 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | So you've seen how easy it is to
create bass parts and guitar parts using the
| | 01:57 | built-in Line 6 POD devices.
| | 01:59 | Now go out and create something.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Printing guitar and bass tracks with final amp settings| 00:00 | Now that I've recorded guitar and bass tracks
for my song, I need to do a bit of housekeeping.
| | 00:05 | In the middle of a session it's
sometimes hard to keep up with naming,
| | 00:08 | so I'd like to rename the
tracks now and keep things organized.
| | 00:12 | I'll rename this PWR Chord 2, and our
bass track should be named Distorted Bass.
| | 00:22 | I want to take these sounds and
print the output to a new track.
| | 00:26 | This will allow me to export the
guitar tracks to another program if I choose,
| | 00:31 | and it will allow for assurance that
the sound I hear now will be preserved
| | 00:35 | forever as part of a new audio file.
| | 00:38 | The quickest and easiest way to
accomplish this is through the Bounce Mixer
| | 00:42 | Channels command in the Reason File menu.
| | 00:44 | When I select Bounce Mixer Channels,
Reason presents a dialog that helps me
| | 00:50 | determine the complexity of the bounce.
| | 00:53 | I can choose several tracks, one track,
or the whole thing, via the Master Section.
| | 01:00 | Now you'll notice that
Distorted Bass is already checked.
| | 01:04 | That's because we have it selected in
our mixer window here and Reason assumes
| | 01:08 | that whatever you have selected
will be what you want to bounce.
| | 01:12 | I can choose where the bounce occurs
in the signal path of each channel,
| | 01:16 | I can select the range or
portion of the song to bounce,
| | 01:20 | I can determine the file format, and
I can determine what happens to that
| | 01:24 | file once it's bounced.
| | 01:26 | Let's select the PWR Chord tracks and
the bass track we've just recorded and
| | 01:30 | bounce them out with the Line 6
Device inserted as part of the sound.
| | 01:34 | The resulting file will be the sound
we hear with the Line 6 Devices inserted
| | 01:39 | and active on these tracks.
| | 01:41 | In other words, it will be baked in
and we can no longer change the sound.
| | 01:45 | I'll choose All except fader section
because I want the resulting output to be
| | 01:50 | unaltered by my fader or pan
position in the Reason mixer.
| | 01:55 | I'll select Loop to bounce only the
looped part of the song, and I'll select New
| | 02:00 | tracks in song because I want the
resulting audio file to come right back into
| | 02:04 | my song and I want to mute the original tracks.
| | 02:07 | Now you notice the file format grays out,
because of course it will bounce the
| | 02:12 | correct file format for you
and bring it back into your song.
| | 02:17 | So it's bouncing the
tracks out, and there they are.
| | 02:20 | Now if we play our tracks, we'll
notice that the old tracks are muted in our
| | 02:23 | mixer and the new tracks have the resulting
Line 6 Device burned in as part of the sound.
| | 02:29 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | Now, of course, we'll need to alter
the fader level and pan position of each
| | 02:43 | of these sounds, because they're
essentially new audio files brought back into Reason.
| | 02:48 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | This is the quickest and easiest way I
know of to print volatile or potentially
| | 03:01 | changeable effects into
the resulting audio file.
| | 03:03 | I don't expect Reason to change
anything on its own of course, but a mistake or
| | 03:08 | unintended move may alter a distortion
sound I'm completely in love with and
| | 03:13 | sometimes I just don't want to risk that.
| | 03:15 | I always print effects once I'm happy
with the sound and it's just my preference.
| | 03:19 | But Reason makes it really easy to
deal with my peculiar quirks as a producer
| | 03:24 | and keep me creating.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Using Synthesizers and SamplersUsing the SubTractor analog synth| 00:00 | Synthesizers and samplers have been a
significant part of Reason from the start,
| | 00:04 | way back in the fall of 2000.
| | 00:07 | All of the original instruments are
still part of important music making today.
| | 00:11 | I'd like to show you the different
synthesizers and samplers, play a little,
| | 00:15 | and help you understand the choices
available to you in such a powerful software package.
| | 00:19 | Let's start with the SubTractor.
| | 00:21 | We'll right-click in the area, go
to Instruments, and select SubTractor
| | 00:25 | Analog Synthesizer.
| | 00:26 | It will load up with a
bass guitar patch by default.
| | 00:30 | Now, it's one of the original instruments,
and these synth models what was so cool
| | 00:34 | about the original Roland, Moog, and
Sequential Circuits products: immediate
| | 00:39 | control and power at your fingertips.
| | 00:42 | It has two analog-style oscillators
and two low-pass filter that allow this
| | 00:47 | synth to re-create sounds from major
synthesizers of the late 1970s and early '80s.
| | 00:52 | Let's hear a few patches.
| | 00:56 | Let's load up a patch called Analog Replicant.
| | 00:58 | (music playing)
| | 01:04 | Very 1980s analog.
| | 01:06 | (music playing)
| | 01:19 | Super cool! Since we're in the
analog domain, let's pull up AnalogBrass.
| | 01:23 | (music playing)
| | 01:37 | Now we'll go to one of my favorites in the root
folder called Juicer II. It's a lead sound.
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 01:48 | Very cool! We'll go over to the
Bass folder and choose AfterlifeBass.
| | 01:54 | (music playing)
| | 02:00 | I'm just altering the mod wheel,
and you can see it on screen as I move it.
| | 02:06 | A very cool effect.
(music playing)
| | 02:16 | And it only plays one note at a
time, monophonic, just like your favorite
| | 02:20 | vintage analog synths.
| | 02:22 | Trance Bass is another great bass sound,
and again, I can click on the name,
| | 02:26 | because I know it's in the same folder.
| | 02:28 | (music playing)
| | 02:42 | Zappit Bass is another cool one.
| | 02:43 | (music playing)
| | 02:55 | This sound has after-touch,
which after you press the initial key,
| | 02:59 | if you press harder, the filter will
raise, so the vibrato will come on, and
| | 03:05 | SubTractor is really great implementing that feature.
(music playing)
| | 03:11 | Let's go to some effects and load up 2keyed.
| | 03:15 | (music playing)
| | 03:32 | Awesome! Computer Glitch will be our last one.
| | 03:35 | (music playing)
| | 03:53 | The filters are very powerful, and the
oscillators have many waveforms available for you.
| | 03:57 | And every parameter that you see is
available for automation within the Reason Sequencer.
| | 04:03 | So that's SubTractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.
| | 04:06 | In the other videos in this
chapter, we'll be going through additional
| | 04:10 | instruments that Reason
provides as its stock palette.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Malström Graintable synth| 00:00 | The Malstrom synthesizer is an amazing
implementation of Graintable synthesis.
| | 00:06 | It basically combines wavetable
synthesis and granular synthesis into one unit.
| | 00:11 | Spectral shaping, wavetable sweeps,
and waveform stretching are all standard
| | 00:16 | sound-generation techniques in this synthesizer.
| | 00:20 | It also utilizes Comb filtering, which
gives a very cool sound to this instrument.
| | 00:24 | Let me show you some sounds.
| | 00:26 | Let's instantiate the instrument by
right-clicking in the blank area, going to
| | 00:30 | Instruments, and selecting
Malstrom Graintable Synthesizer.
| | 00:35 | Again, it loads with the default patch,
called Vesper, and we'll change that to
| | 00:39 | more of a rhythmic sound, called EbberTone.
| | 00:42 | (music playing)
| | 00:51 | Now you can hear that it's
arpeggiating, or bouncing, automatically.
| | 00:56 | I'm just pressing one or two
keys and Malstrom is doing the rest.
| | 01:00 | It follows tempo, so if I bring the tempo up,
(music playing)
| | 01:06 | it will follow right along.
(music playing)
| | 01:11 | Of course, hitting Undo brings us
right back to our original tempo.
| | 01:15 | Next, I want to bring up a patch called Cygnus.
| | 01:18 | (music playing)
| | 01:35 | This is a very interesting
sound based on additive synthesis.
| | 01:38 | It's a really cool sound.
| | 01:39 | Now let's move to some pads.
| | 01:45 | Let's load up AiryAddictivePad.
| | 01:46 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | Tangerine Strings are one of my favorite pads.
| | 02:05 | (music playing)
| | 02:33 | Comb filtering is a big part of that patch.
| | 02:36 | Let's move to some bass
patches. Carnivorous Bass.
| | 02:42 | (music playing)
| | 02:46 | If you're into dubstep, there you go.
| | 02:48 | (music playing)
| | 03:00 | And you can see my mod wheel moving as I play.
| | 03:03 | CHiPs is one of my favorite lead
sounds, and it's found under MonoSynths.
| | 03:08 | (music playing)
| | 03:21 | One last sound called Colours Lead.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:28 | Now I'll play a little arpeggiated pattern here.
| | 03:31 | (music playing)
| | 03:40 | So that's a basic overview of Malstrom.
| | 03:42 | If you want to have quirky sounds or
kind of an attitude to your song, it's a
| | 03:46 | wonderful instrument to bring up in that case.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the Thor polyphonic synth| 00:00 | Thor is truly one of the most powerful
synthesizers ever developed, by anyone.
| | 00:06 | It has the capability to create sounds using
most major forms of synthesis we have available.
| | 00:12 | It does analog modeling terrifically.
| | 00:15 | It has one of the best PPG-style
wavetable synthesizers I've ever seen, even
| | 00:20 | better than the original 2.3.
| | 00:23 | It handles FM-style synthesis for
Yamaha-DX7-type sounds and it even masters
| | 00:29 | phase modulation synthesis for
those obscure late 1980s synthscapes.
| | 00:34 | It includes a built-in analog-style
sequencer and features both popular and
| | 00:39 | obscure filter modules.
| | 00:41 | The true power of Thor is it can mix
any type of synthesis with any other
| | 00:47 | within the patch to allow for a super-hybrid
synth capable of almost any modeling needed.
| | 00:53 | Since it's a beast with analog
sounds, let's start with analog sounds.
| | 00:58 | We'll go to our Patch Browser >
Poly Synths, and load up this sound.
| | 01:05 | (music playing)
| | 01:16 | Really cool! Let's go to
another sound called Listening.
| | 01:20 | (music playing)
| | 01:30 | There is your immediate film score right there.
| | 01:33 | Let's move to a sound called Number Five.
| | 01:35 | (music playing)
| | 01:46 | Let's to move to some basses, and we'll
bring up the sound called Wobbly Reese.
| | 01:52 | (music playing)
| | 01:58 | If you're into dubstep, there you go.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:03 | So you can do the whole thing.
(music playing)
| | 02:13 | And while we're in basses
let's go get another one.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:23 | Cool! Now for some FM. We'll go
back to our root folder, DS8 Mk IV.
| | 02:30 | (music playing)
| | 02:44 | That's one of the sounds everyone
was using in the '80s, so Thor brings it
| | 02:47 | right to your palette.
| | 02:49 | Wavetable and additive synthesis can be
found in some of the pads that I've created.
| | 02:55 | I've been working with Propellerhead
for almost 10 years and many of my sounds
| | 02:59 | are found in the Factory sound bank.
| | 03:01 | They really reveal the
power of all these synthesizers.
| | 03:05 | Now for some wavetable or additive
synthesis. This is a favorite pad of mine.
| | 03:10 | (music playing)
| | 03:16 | You can hear, there's a lot of motion to this.
(music playing)
| | 03:30 | Let's move over to the Sequence sound bank.
| | 03:36 | Three Stepper Bass ought to be a good one.
| | 03:37 | (music playing)
Very cool!
| | 03:40 | (music playing)
| | 03:48 | And you can see the LEDs around the
sequencer move in tempo as I press a key.
| | 03:53 | (music playing)
| | 04:00 | Excellent! Another great patch is EightQuinox.
| | 04:04 | (music playing)
| | 04:17 | This is my favorite synthesizer.
| | 04:19 | Thor is so powerful and potent that
it's my go-to creation tool when producing
| | 04:24 | and designing new sounds.
| | 04:26 | The ability to have multiple forms of
synthesis and filtering available in the
| | 04:30 | same patch is unique in the
instrument world, and should give you hours of
| | 04:35 | pleasure as you explore
everything that it's capable of.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the ID8 Instrument Device| 00:00 | The ID8 device was originally included
in the now-discontinued Propellerhead's
| | 00:05 | product called Record.
| | 00:07 | When Record was integrated into
Reason 6.0, this unit also followed.
| | 00:13 | The original intent for this unit was
for it to be used as a device compatible
| | 00:17 | with standard MIDI file imports,
and it is still the default instrument used
| | 00:22 | when a standard MIDI file
is imported into Reason.
| | 00:25 | But it turned into a
songwriter's toolbox for two reasons:
| | 00:28 | first, the sounds in the patches in this
unit are topnotch, and secondly, all of
| | 00:33 | the patches are available from the
front panel--no browsing required.
| | 00:38 | Patches are broken into basic groups
of instruments for quick selection and
| | 00:42 | the whole group of instruments is displayed at
one time, each instrument one button-press away.
| | 00:50 | Let's go through some patches.
| | 00:51 | We'll load up the stock Grand Piano sound,
and I'll just play a little bit of that.
| | 00:56 | (music playing)
| | 01:08 | I love the Vibes patch.
| | 01:09 | (music playing)
| | 01:20 | The Mark II Rhodes is an amazing patch.
| | 01:23 | (music playing)
| | 01:41 | The Whirly is really good.
| | 01:42 | (music playing)
| | 01:52 | The Rock Organ is totally cool.
| | 01:55 | (music playing)
| | 02:11 | Finger Bass is really cool.
| | 02:13 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | And the Mod Wheel
creates a little filter effect.
| | 02:20 | (music playing)
| | 02:27 | The Upright Bass is not bad at all.
| | 02:29 | (music playing)
| | 02:35 | The Flute, under Brass and Wind, is really sweet.
(music playing)
| | 02:51 | And we can't leave it without Drums.
| | 02:53 | (music playing)
| | 03:01 | Though not officially a general MIDI
synth, it's perfect for building a quick
| | 03:06 | palette of sounds based
on the standard MIDI spec.
| | 03:09 | ID8 patches are designed to load
quickly and easily, and the amount of work
| | 03:15 | needed to get a proper sound created is minimal.
| | 03:18 | For great sounds and a
songwriter's workflow, use ID8 and keep the
| | 03:22 | ideas flowing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the NN-19 digital sampler| 00:00 | The NN-19 is another unit that has
been around since version 1.0, and still
| | 00:06 | offers features that are not found on
its more powerful brother, the NN-XT,
| | 00:10 | namely the ability to automate
most every parameter on the device.
| | 00:16 | It models the great samplers of the
early 1990s and adds a fantastic synthesizer
| | 00:21 | engine to shape the sounds.
| | 00:23 | The NN-19 is the sampler of choice
for manipulating a single sample or a
| | 00:28 | multi-sampled single-layer sound.
| | 00:31 | Let's bring up a couple of patches.
| | 00:33 | Using the Patch Browser, we'll hit MELSTRINGS.
| | 00:36 | (music playing)
| | 00:46 | Keeping in the Mellotron
vein, we'll bring up MELCHOIR.
| | 00:48 | (music playing)
| | 00:59 | If we go into the Synth and
Keyboard category, we'll find a ton of
| | 01:03 | vintage synth type patches.
| | 01:04 | Now, these were sampled and recorded
directly from the original vintage synths
| | 01:09 | and are available in NN-19.
| | 01:11 | (music playing)
| | 01:26 | And keeping with the Vintage
Synth motif, let's bring up a SOLINA.
| | 01:30 | (music playing)
| | 01:36 | Now, utilizing the Synth engine
with the mod wheel, we have a little
| | 01:39 | filter action going on.
| | 01:41 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | Again, that patch was created
with an original ARP Solina.
| | 01:57 | Let's go to the Guitar
category and pull up a NYLON Guitar.
| | 02:02 | (music playing)
| | 02:20 | Keeping with the guitar theme, Acoustic Guitar.
| | 02:22 | (music playing)
| | 02:37 | If we really wanted to step back in time,
we'll go to the Voice category and get some Choirs.
| | 02:42 | (music playing)
| | 03:00 | Another choir.
(music playing)
| | 03:23 | If a simple sampler will fit the bill,
or if you need access to certain sound
| | 03:27 | parameters for automation,
NN-19 is the right choice.
| | 03:31 | It's easy to program and the
patches are quickly loaded.
| | 03:35 | This sampler maybe an original item
in Reason, but its usefulness is still
| | 03:39 | essential, all these years later.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the NN-XT advanced sampler| 00:00 | The NN-XT device, like its
counterpart, Thor, maybe the most advanced
| | 00:05 | sampler built to date.
| | 00:07 | It allows multi-sample patches with
velocity switching available for nearly
| | 00:11 | every velocity that MIDI transmits.
| | 00:14 | The synthesizer engine can be
individualized for every single sample in the patch.
| | 00:21 | While this is an absolutely insane
amount of power and control over the
| | 00:24 | sound recordings, Reason makes it
easy to program with tools like Grouping
| | 00:29 | and Multi-Selection.
| | 00:30 | Additional features include Velocity
Fade In and Fade Out to smoothly transition
| | 00:35 | between velocity layers, and External
Control Mapping right in the patch to allow
| | 00:41 | faders in your controller to
alter the patch in meaningful ways.
| | 00:45 | To showcase NN-XT, I'll unfold the
Parameter section so we can see more
| | 00:50 | of what's going on.
| | 00:51 | Also, instead of browsing the Factory
sound bank, I want to browse the included
| | 00:56 | Orkester sound bank and grab some Strings.
| | 01:00 | Let's choose Violins and long violins.
| | 01:04 | (music playing)
| | 01:19 | We'll choose a cello section next.
| | 01:25 | (music playing)
| | 01:42 | Since we're in the Orkester sound
bank, let's check out some percussion.
| | 01:45 | (music playing)
| | 02:02 | As you can see, there are
three samples mapped to the C2 key.
| | 02:07 | Each sample represents a different
velocity, as indicated here in the name.
| | 02:13 | If we select Zone Via MIDI, we'll
be able to see what the key is doing.
| | 02:17 | (music playing)
| | 02:23 | And for the snare.
| | 02:24 | (music playing)
| | 02:28 | All of the samples in this Percussive set
are multi-mapped with velocity in this manner.
| | 02:33 | Let's try Percussive Set B.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 02:56 | Now I'm back to the Factory sound bank.
| | 03:01 | Let's try this Baritone Sax.
| | 03:03 | (music playing)
| | 03:11 | In order to see the velocity samples on
this, we'll scroll down. And if we look
| | 03:16 | in the name, we can see the soft, the
medium loud, and the very loud samples.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:29 | Let's check out some sampled pads.
| | 03:32 | We'll scroll all the way down and
grab a patch called Wild At Heart.
| | 03:36 | (music playing)
| | 03:58 | Another patch I just love is the
Vibes patch in the root folder.
| | 04:02 | (music playing)
| | 04:18 | We'll move to another section,
called Combos and Extras, and bring up the
| | 04:22 | Rhodes and Angels patch.
| | 04:23 | NN-XT does a tremendous
job layering sounds together.
| | 04:27 | (music playing)
| | 04:46 | Let's look at a couple of drum and
percussion patches. Electronic Luv Kit.
| | 04:52 | NN-XT will allow you to put individual
sounds on individual keys, with the complete
| | 04:59 | synth engine available for each and every key.
| | 05:02 | For example, I have all my favorite
kick drums, snares, hats, cymbals, and
| | 05:08 | percussion mapped out across every key
in NN-XT, so when it comes time to choose
| | 05:13 | sounds, I just start playing the patch
in the keyboard rather than waste time
| | 05:17 | browsing through menus.
| | 05:18 | Every key does something completely
different with a different sample mapped
| | 05:22 | across all 128 keys.
| | 05:24 | (music playing)
| | 05:30 | As you can see, there are a ton of
different kick drums and as your song is
| | 05:34 | playing along, if you'll just tap along with it.
| | 05:38 | Don't like that kit drum? Move to another.
(music playing)
| | 05:44 | It makes browsing for sounds much, much simpler.
| | 05:46 | (music playing)
Snares.
| | 05:49 | (music playing)
Moving into hats.
| | 05:55 | (music playing)
Percussion.
| | 05:55 | (music playing)
And special effects.
| | 06:01 | (music playing)
| | 06:05 | The Cinematic Luv kit is the same way.
| | 06:07 | (music playing)
| | 06:14 | If you'll notice the parameters
change as I hit the different key,
| | 06:17 | that's the synth engine changing
to accommodate for the new sample.
| | 06:21 | (music playing)
| | 06:31 | Moving over to the Percussion
folder, we have the same concept with
| | 06:36 | African Percussion.
| | 06:37 | (music playing)
| | 06:42 | So we could play--
(music playing)
| | 06:50 | --and get some ultra-realistic drum sounds.
| | 06:51 | Multi-sample capability,
multi-velocity layers, the ability to customize the
| | 06:57 | synthesizer engine separately for
every single sample, and features like
| | 07:02 | Velocity Cross-Fade all combine to
make NN-XT a powerhouse of sample glory.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing the Kong Drum Designer| 00:00 | Though not technically a keyboard-based
instrument, Kong is a fantastic device
| | 00:05 | for rhythm programming and manipulation.
| | 00:08 | Modeled after pad-based drum machines,
this unit delivers a workflow that
| | 00:12 | is familiar to many.
| | 00:14 | Reason takes this concept of a drum
machine many steps forward, and delivers
| | 00:19 | some serious power with this unit.
| | 00:21 | It has the basic structure of the
flagship NN-XT combined with a drum
| | 00:26 | synthesizer and a basic
Dr. Octo Rex unit called Nurse Rex.
| | 00:31 | Kong includes an effects
engine with a modular approach,
| | 00:35 | so each sound can be completely
customized, ready for your track.
| | 00:39 | Many of the patches included in the
factory sound bank for Kong were provided by
| | 00:44 | influential MCs and DJs
throughout the music world.
| | 00:47 | Each of their offerings provides a
peek into ways of working that may be
| | 00:51 | invaluable to your productions.
| | 00:53 | The first kit that comes up is
the Kong kit. Let's have a look.
| | 00:57 | Clicking each pad with the mouse
plays the sounds associated with that pad.
| | 01:03 | If we unfold and show drum and effects,
we get into the inner workings of Kong.
| | 01:07 | Here, we see the Bass Drum modeler, the
Snare Drum modeler, a basic NN-XT called
| | 01:15 | the NN-Nano for the hi-hats, a bass
drum synthesizer based on analog modeling,
| | 01:23 | snare drum, tom, physical
modelers, and synthesizer modelers.
| | 01:31 | All of these, and more, are available in Kong.
| | 01:34 | Let's go through some of the patches.
| | 01:42 | Here, we have bass drum synthesizers,
and for the first time we see our Nurse Rex.
| | 01:47 | This is based on Dr. Octo Rex, but with just
one loop instead of eight.
| | 01:53 | (music playing)
| | 01:58 | We'll move to another DJ and bring up P-90.
| | 02:04 | (music playing)
| | 02:13 | You can see the effects in blocks FX1 and FX2
appear and disappear as the pads are played.
| | 02:21 | Some have transient shapers and parametric
EQ, others have Tone, Overdrive, Reverb.
| | 02:28 | All kinds of things are available to you.
(music playing)
| | 02:36 | Moving along, let's choose another DJ.
| | 02:38 | (music playing)
| | 02:49 | All that with the mouse!
(music playing)
| | 02:53 | Now, if you notice, the higher I click
in the pad, the more velocity sounds, and
| | 02:59 | the lower I click in the pad,
the less velocity is transmitted.
| | 03:02 | (music playing)
| | 03:15 | A couple more. Militia.
| | 03:16 | (music playing)
| | 03:42 | One of the neat things about Nurse Rex
is you can choose the slice in the loop
| | 03:46 | that you want to play.
| | 03:47 | (music playing)
| | 03:50 | Before, it was this.
(music playing)
| | 03:53 | And we changed it to this.
(music playing)
| | 03:57 | Cool, huh? So, if you have a favorite Rex loop and
you love just the snare drum out of it,
| | 04:06 | go ahead and bring the whole loop in
and carve out just the snare for the
| | 04:08 | particular pad that you choose.
| | 04:11 | (music playing)
| | 04:13 | You would just load it in here.
(music playing)
| | 04:20 | And doing that brings us right
back to where we were. One more kit.
| | 04:28 | Get a little island action going.
(music playing)
| | 04:45 | I'm not sure how authentic that is, but if
they say it's a Rasta kit, we'll take it.
| | 04:50 | So what I want to do at this point is
show you how easy it is to compose a new
| | 04:52 | beat using Kong and the Reason sequencer.
| | 04:56 | I want to bring up a kit that I've
created and we'll see what happens.
| | 05:05 | So, let me see what these sounds are like.
(music playing)
| | 05:09 | I can also use my attached MIDI keyboard.
| | 05:13 | (music playing)
| | 05:18 | Excellent! Now, in order to record this
loop, I want to do a couple of things.
| | 05:22 | I want to actually change the loop
to 4 bars, so I'll put my Right Loop
| | 05:26 | locator on bar 5, Enable Loop, hit
Click because I want some click, and
| | 05:32 | instantiate the pre-count.
| | 05:34 | Now, the idea is that I'll play one drum
at a time, and as Reason loops through,
| | 05:38 | I'll overdub in real time
with additional drum sounds.
| | 05:41 | So, I'll go over to record and,
well, we'll see what happens.
| | 05:44 | (music playing)
| | 05:53 | And the next sound.
| | 05:55 | (music playing)
| | 06:20 | Cool! Continuing on!
Let's add some claps and other different things.
| | 06:25 | (music playing)
| | 06:37 | Keep on adding. And more!
(music playing)
| | 06:46 | Oh, I don't like that cymbal.
(music playing)
| | 06:48 | And here it comes again.
(music playing)
| | 06:53 | That's not so bad.
(music playing)
| | 06:59 | Now, let's stop.
| | 06:59 | At this point I can't remember where my hi-hat
is on my MIDI keyboard, but let's start again, all right?
| | 07:03 | So I'll get my count off.
| | 07:05 | (music playing)
| | 07:14 | And. So there's our drum loop.
(music playing)
| | 07:24 | Later in the course, I'll show you how
to edit this MIDI data so we can maybe
| | 07:27 | get rid of that second cymbal crash
and have a great drum loop as a result.
| | 07:31 | The newest instrument in the Reason
lineup, Kong, takes its place alongside the
| | 07:36 | most powerful sound-
creation tools our industry has.
| | 07:39 | Sample playback, percussive modeling,
built-in compression, and other effects
| | 07:44 | combine to make Kong a staple of
beat-based music all over the world.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing the Combinator| 00:00 | When the Combinator was released in
Reason 3.0, it was a revolutionary step
| | 00:05 | for software synthesis.
| | 00:07 | For the first time, a user could
combine several synthesizers, effects,
| | 00:12 | utilities, and creative devices into a
larger group controlled by one master set
| | 00:17 | of parameters and controllers.
| | 00:19 | Now, the Combinator concept is a
staple of the software world, but no one has
| | 00:24 | implemented it more efficiently.
| | 00:25 | Let's have a look at a few patches.
| | 00:29 | I love this patch called Hybrid's Downfall.
| | 00:34 | (music playing)
| | 00:44 | Now, it's locked to tempo, and if I move
the tempo up, it will follow right along.
| | 00:49 | (music playing)
| | 01:05 | I love that patch.
Another one of my favorites is Goldberry's Love.
| | 01:12 | (music playing)
| | 01:28 | With a Simulation Pad, I used some of
the new devices available in Reason 6.0,
| | 01:33 | such as the Echo and Alligator. Check it out!
| | 01:36 | (music playing)
| | 01:52 | Moving to more traditional,
and huge forms, of synthesis,
| | 01:56 | let's go to Poly Synths.
| | 01:58 | Dual Blade is one of my staples.
| | 02:00 | (music playing)
| | 02:17 | Envelope Blades is another
one of my favorite patches.
| | 02:19 | (music playing)
| | 02:29 | Very responsive to velocity.
| | 02:31 | (music playing)
| | 02:38 | Moving to bass patches, this is a
serious contender for bass of the year.
| | 02:46 | (music playing)
| | 03:03 | Staying with basses, The Gap Company,
right below it, is still one of my favorites.
| | 03:08 | (music playing)
| | 03:13 | Since we can layer to our heart's
content, let's move over to some performance
| | 03:18 | patches, to Layers, and see what's in here.
| | 03:22 | (music playing)
| | 03:39 | Our last patch is another one of the
patches that I just love, in Strings,
| | 03:44 | oddly enough, called Griffin's Secret Strings.
| | 03:48 | (music playing)
| | 04:11 | The Combinator brings complex and
unruly synthesis under one umbrella for
| | 04:16 | seamless integration inside Reason.
| | 04:18 | What used to take an entire Reason
rack to accomplish now can be folded up in
| | 04:22 | one unique device ready for music making.
| | 04:25 | Complex modular synthesis is now a
patch away, and the Combinator can take
| | 04:30 | most of the credit.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing a synth or sampler without a MIDI keyboard| 00:00 | There's no doubt that Reason and a MIDI
keyboard make a powerful creative pair.
| | 00:05 | But what if you're not so great
with piano keys, or what if you're in a
| | 00:08 | situation where a MIDI keyboard,
whether large or small, doesn't make sense?
| | 00:13 | Reason includes a
function just for this purpose.
| | 00:16 | We introduced this device earlier in the
course, but I want to take a moment and
| | 00:20 | fully describe the onscreen Piano Keys
function because I think it will help
| | 00:24 | many of you utilize
Reason instruments more fully.
| | 00:27 | Pressing F4 brings up
the onscreen MIDI keyboard.
| | 00:30 | It can be played two ways:
| | 00:32 | with a mouse and with the
computer QWERTY keyboard.
| | 00:36 | Choose between the modes
with the indicator tabs.
| | 00:39 | When in Mouse Keys mode, clicking on
one of the keys sends a MIDI signal to the
| | 00:43 | synthesizer that can also be
recorded in the Reason sequencer.
| | 00:47 | Clicking further up the key sends a
low velocity, and clicking further out on
| | 00:53 | the key sends a high velocity.
| | 00:57 | This will help you simulate dynamic
playing as low velocities are interpreted to
| | 01:01 | soft notes and high velocities are
processed as wild notes, in most patches.
| | 01:06 | (music playing)
| | 01:12 | The Repeat and Hold options are
helpful when tweaking patches.
| | 01:16 | The Repeat box causes Reason to
retrigger notes at quarter note intervals.
| | 01:20 | (music playing)
| | 01:28 | That goes on forever as long,
as you have Repeat checked.
| | 01:31 | The Hold box forces Reason to hold
pressed notes until the box is unchecked,
| | 01:37 | releasing all the notes.
(music playing)
| | 01:46 | Octave are shifted with a mouse
click on the included piano keyboard.
| | 01:53 | The keys display the octave.
| | 01:57 | In Computer Keys mode, the QWERTY
keyboard on your computer becomes an
| | 02:02 | emergency MIDI keyboard.
| | 02:04 | The letters A, W, S, E, D, and so
on become triggers for the selected
| | 02:09 | Reason synthesizer, and follow a
typical piano keyboard layout, as
| | 02:13 | indicated in the display.
| | 02:14 | Z and X keys change the octave,
and the number keys change velocity.
| | 02:22 | Chords and individual notes can be
played and recorded by the sequencer.
| | 02:26 | (music playing)
| | 02:33 | Let's move up an octave.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | Velocity can be changed while playing,
simulating a more dynamic performance.
| | 02:43 | (music playing)
| | 02:46 | The Shift key acts as a momentary sustain pedal.
| | 02:53 | (music playing)
| | 03:02 | For varied velocity programming,
the Velocity Variation Selector can randomly
| | 03:08 | change the output velocity within three ranges:
| | 03:10 | Light, Medium, and Heavy.
| | 03:12 | (music playing)
| | 03:15 | It's all random, but it
makes for a cool performance.
| | 03:19 | If by chance you need to change the
QWERTY mapping of the onscreen computer
| | 03:22 | keyboard to accommodate your playing
style, Reason allows a user to completely
| | 03:27 | customize these keys in the Preferences menu.
| | 03:31 | Even if you're an accomplished
pianist, you'll come to appreciate this
| | 03:35 | thoughtful addition to the Reason toolset.
| | 03:37 | If you've never used a piano keyboard
before, the onscreen computer keyboard
| | 03:41 | will help take advantage of
sound-creation tools you may have never been able
| | 03:45 | to explore otherwise.
| | 03:46 | Either way, this function is a
valuable tool that you'll use over and over again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using third-party ReFills| 00:00 | Though the Reason factory sound bank
and the included Orkester refill are
| | 00:04 | top-notch sound libraries, creative
musicians appreciate the chance to hear other
| | 00:09 | ideas and influences.
| | 00:10 | Fortunately, Propellerheads provided a
way for this to happen, in the form of a refill.
| | 00:16 | A refill is simply a sound library
wrapped up into one file that is compatible
| | 00:19 | with the Reason architecture.
| | 00:21 | Refills can include patches, samples, or
songs, or any combination of the three.
| | 00:26 | Anyone can create a refill, including
yourself, with the free Refill Pack or
| | 00:31 | application, downloadable from
the Propellerheads' website.
| | 00:35 | The ElectroMechanical refill, free
from Propellerheads for registered Reason
| | 00:39 | users, is a wonderful
introduction to the world of refills.
| | 00:42 | I am partial to these sounds because I
created most of them, and this was my
| | 00:46 | first product for
Propellerheads way back in 2004.
| | 00:49 | This sound library includes
electromechanical instruments such as Rhodes Pianos,
| | 00:54 | Wurlitzer Pianos, Hohner Clavinets
and Pianettes, and Hammond Organs.
| | 00:59 | Let's create a new
Combinator and begin exploring.
| | 01:02 | To locate patches and sounds in a
refill, simply open up the browser via the
| | 01:07 | Browse Patch button, navigate to where
the refill is stored on your computer,
| | 01:12 | and open up the file.
| | 01:15 | The file hierarchy and patch
organization should be familiar territory.
| | 01:19 | Let's open up a few patches
and see what they sound like.
| | 01:25 | (music playing)
| | 01:33 | We'll move to the Wurlies.
| | 01:34 | Now, we have an old 100 from the '50s
and a 200, which is the more modern sound.
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 01:54 | We'll bring up some Hammond organs.
| | 01:59 | (music playing)
| | 02:18 | And some interesting textures
built on all of these patches.
| | 02:26 | (music playing)
| | 02:39 | If you like what you hear and are a
registered user of Reason, go download this
| | 02:43 | refill from the
Propellerheads site and enjoy it yourself.
| | 02:46 | Now, staying with the
ElectroMechanical motif, let's move to another refill
| | 02:51 | focusing on more advance
versions of these same pianos.
| | 02:54 | These refills are distributed by M-
Audio and Renegade Media via Beatport.
| | 02:59 | I'll locate the file via the Patch
Browser, and open up Rhodes Suitcase > Recording Rhodes.
| | 03:10 | These patches are huge.
| | 03:12 | Over 450 samples are used
to create this instrument.
| | 03:16 | You can vary the direct amp or room
sounds in real time and enjoy these unique
| | 03:21 | instruments that have been on
hit records since the 1950s.
| | 03:24 | (music playing)
Hear are the release samples?
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:36 | We'll vary up the Amp Level and the Room Level.
| | 03:38 | (music playing)
| | 03:58 | We'll try another more affected sound.
| | 04:00 | (music playing)
| | 04:08 | Now, let's move into another realm
altogether and try out some other refills.
| | 04:16 | wHaCked looks interesting.
| | 04:18 | Let's load up some patches.
See what this sounds like.
| | 04:24 | (music playing)
| | 04:54 | Let's back out and see what these
Not Really Tonal patches have for us.
| | 04:58 | (music playing)
| | 05:08 | Now, you've seen how easy it is to
use additional refills inside Reason.
| | 05:13 | The Refill format is a compact way to
deliver high-quality sounds for Reason and
| | 05:17 | it's very easy to create your own
with the free Refill Packer application.
| | 05:21 | There are thousands of refill titles
available for sale and several thousand
| | 05:26 | more available for free on the
Propellerheads website and other legal vendor sites.
| | 05:31 | Most sound designers offer a limited
free version of their sounds so you can try
| | 05:35 | out a few patches before you
decide to buy the entire set.
| | 05:38 | Go grab some refills and explore what
third-party designers have to offer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Adding EffectsPutting reverb on vocal tracks| 00:00 | Reverb, delay, and chorusing effects are
essential for a modern music production.
| | 00:06 | Though the perceived level of the
resulting effects treatment may vary from
| | 00:09 | one style of music to another, the
fact is, every modern production utilizes
| | 00:15 | synthetic reverberation, delay, and
other time-based effects to create a sense
| | 00:19 | of size and space in a mix.
| | 00:21 | In Reason, there are several ways to
apply effects to a sound, but for the
| | 00:26 | maximum use of resources, and to
keep your mix glued together with common
| | 00:29 | room spaces, I want to reveal what I think is
the best way to manage effects in a modern mix.
| | 00:35 | Reason makes this really easy.
| | 00:37 | Let's return to the track of mine
that we used for the guitar and bass in
| | 00:41 | a previous chapter.
| | 00:43 | As before, this is a personal track of
mine not created for this lesson, so the
| | 00:47 | example file you work with may not
look like what I have on the screen.
| | 00:51 | I want to focus on the
right effect for this vocal.
| | 00:54 | Right now it's completely dry and unaffected.
| | 00:56 | (music playing)
| | 01:08 | So I need a few effects to
make that vocal really shine.
| | 01:12 | I could go over to my rack, Show
Insert Effects on the lead vocal,
| | 01:16 | quickly insert a Reverb device in
the track, adjust Wet and Dry to taste.
| | 01:20 | (music playing)
| | 01:27 | And I can even insert another
effect right below, such as Delay.
| | 01:32 | (music playing)
| | 01:38 | But that still doesn't allow me to
easily blend between the effects, and it may
| | 01:42 | create a situation where the lead vocal
ends up in a completely different aural space
| | 01:47 | than the rest of my track.
| | 01:49 | Instead, let's delete these devices
by Shift+Selecting them and hitting
| | 01:53 | Command+Delete or Ctrl+Delete.
| | 01:56 | Let's now scroll up to the
Master section of this rack.
| | 01:58 | The Master section has facilities to
route up to eight stereo or mono effects
| | 02:03 | chains, with as many devices in
that chain as we care to use.
| | 02:07 | Pressing Tab flips the rack around so we can
see the inputs and outputs for the effects.
| | 02:12 | This is just like looking at
the rear of a physical rack.
| | 02:15 | Pressing Tab once again flips the rack
around so we can see the front side again.
| | 02:19 | Right-clicking on the Master section
itself to create a Reverb Unit lets Reason
| | 02:25 | understand that I want a reverb
created as part of an FX send, and it
| | 02:29 | automatically routes the cables accordingly.
| | 02:32 | It's connected to FX Send 1
and returns to FX Return 1.
| | 02:39 | Let's name this unit Reverb 1.
| | 02:44 | When I look at the Master section on my
mixing board, I see Reverb 1 in the FX 1 slot.
| | 02:51 | Let's go back to the rack and add a
few more effects for a wider palette.
| | 02:55 | Right-clicking on the Master section
again and selecting another reverb unit
| | 03:01 | tells Reason to auto-route this
device to the next available FX send slot.
| | 03:06 | Let's call this unit
Reverb 2 and move it into place.
| | 03:13 | We'll flip the rack around and verify
that it's in FX Send and FX Return 2.
| | 03:20 | We can see that it shows up in the
Master section of the mixer as well.
| | 03:24 | Next, I want to bring in
my favorite delay chain.
| | 03:27 | It's three devices, so it's
cumbersome to create and route.
| | 03:31 | It's much quicker to copy the chain from
another song and paste it into this one
| | 03:35 | with all of the settings
I like already dialed in.
| | 03:38 | I'll open the song with
the effects chain I like.
| | 03:42 | Select all of the effects by
Shift+Clicking on each device and right-click and
| | 03:47 | select Copy Devices and Tracks.
| | 03:49 | Now, I'll click back into the song I
was working on and paste these in, by
| | 03:55 | right-clicking on the Master section,
as before, and pasting the devices in.
| | 03:59 | I'll move them into place,
right where I want them.
| | 04:03 | Now, I still have to connect this
chain to my Master section, so I'll go
| | 04:07 | behind the rack again by hitting Tab,
unfold the devices so I can see the
| | 04:10 | inputs and outputs, and begin
connecting by clicking on a jack and dragging to
| | 04:16 | my desired destination.
| | 04:18 | Since most of my chain is already
connected, all I have to do is connect a few
| | 04:22 | cables and I'm up and running.
| | 04:24 | I've got the left side of FX Send 4
going into the left input of Delay 1, the
| | 04:31 | right side of FX Send 3 going
into the left Input of Delay 2,
| | 04:37 | both of those left outputs going into
the equalizer, and the stereo output of
| | 04:41 | the equalizer returning back to FX Return 3.
| | 04:44 | It's very complex, but it was so much
easier copying and pasting from the other
| | 04:48 | song that I really
didn't have to think about it.
| | 04:50 | Now, I'll Tab back to the front of the rack.
| | 04:52 | I'll close out of this other
song and have a look at our mixer.
| | 05:00 | And we'll see that Reverb 1 is in FX 1
slot, Reverb 2 is in FX 2 slot, and the
| | 05:05 | Delay EQ is in FX 3 slot. Off we go.
| | 05:08 | (music playing)
| | 05:13 | When I turn on and dial in the level
for each send on my vocal channel, a nice
| | 05:18 | dose of effective love
comes pouring out towards me.
| | 05:21 | (music playing)
| | 05:36 | This is the most efficient way to
accomplish effects routing in any mix environment.
| | 05:40 | This technique ensures continuity of the
recorded spaces, provides a bit of glue
| | 05:45 | so the whole mix gels together
properly, and conserves resources on your
| | 05:49 | computer as it respects
good engineering etiquette.
| | 05:52 | There are eight slots available for
infinitely long effects chains, so don't be
| | 05:56 | afraid to start chaining together
effects and continue experimentation as long
| | 06:00 | as the music requires.
| | 06:01 | In our next video, I'll take this
technique further by applying these same
| | 06:06 | effects to several other tracks at the
same time, using sends and returns to my advantage.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding effects to other tracks| 00:00 | In the last video we connected several
different reverbs and delay chains to the
| | 00:04 | Master section of this rack and mixing console.
| | 00:07 | Since they are routed through the
Master section instead of through the inserts
| | 00:10 | of the individual tracks, they are
available to every channel on the mixer and
| | 00:14 | can be blended at whatever level we choose.
| | 00:16 | Let me show you how it's done.
| | 00:18 | I'll solo up our vocal track and remind you of
the effects blend we created in the last video.
| | 00:23 | It still sounds great!
| | 00:26 | (music playing)
| | 00:42 | If I un-solo the vocal and move to
Dubstep Bass II, I can blend in these very
| | 00:47 | same effects to keep everything in
the same acoustic space, as it were,
| | 00:52 | or at least to keep groups of things
in a similar space if I choose to do
| | 00:56 | so creatively. I like that!
| | 00:59 | (music playing)
| | 01:07 | I want to bring in some reverb for
our snare drum, so I'll solo it up.
| | 01:12 | (music playing)
| | 01:17 | That sounds about right.
| | 01:19 | (music playing)
| | 01:24 | Now, the last thing I want to do is
bring in some delay for this DubSaw sound.
| | 01:28 | (music playing)
| | 01:34 | And we can see Delay EQ over here on the
right-hand side lighting up. A little reverb.
| | 01:41 | See the returns coming up?
| | 01:43 | (music playing)
| | 01:53 | In the current FX Send mode,
the blend between dry and affected signal is
| | 01:58 | maintained as the main
channel fader moves up and down.
| | 02:00 | Let me demonstrate.
| | 02:01 | (music playing)
| | 02:06 | As I move the channel fader down, of
course there's no dry signal or affected
| | 02:10 | signal; the blend maintains its balance.
| | 02:12 | (music playing)
| | 02:22 | If I want an independent effects
setting apart from the movements of the main
| | 02:25 | fader, I hit PRE under the FX On switch
and the blend relationship between the
| | 02:31 | effects send and the channel fader is
disabled, allowing the effects to maintain a
| | 02:35 | static volume from this track
regardless of the fader level.
| | 02:39 | So you'll notice that even though
the channel fader is down, there are
| | 02:43 | still some effects going.
| | 02:44 | Bringing some dry signal now.
| | 02:45 | (music playing)
| | 02:49 | This is super effective if you're setting
up a headphone send or a musician's mix.
| | 02:54 | So I've now shown you how
professional mix engineers use similar effects to
| | 02:59 | glue a track together.
| | 03:00 | With so many effects built into
synth sounds, drum sounds, and guitar amp
| | 03:05 | presets, it's hard to create a
homogenous environment that listeners can settle
| | 03:09 | into as they listen to produce music.
| | 03:12 | Utilizing the same effects for
multiple channels in Reason helps maintain
| | 03:16 | spatial oneness and places your
listener in a comfortable aural environment,
| | 03:20 | ready to receive music.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing cool effects via the master section| 00:00 | The last thing to discuss concerning
effects and inserts is how to utilize
| | 00:04 | the Master section in Reason to
either creatively affect your song or to
| | 00:08 | finalize level for output.
| | 00:10 | Once again, Reason makes
this task easy to accomplish.
| | 00:14 | We have our song from the
previous two videos sounding great.
| | 00:17 | I want to show you some possibilities
that can enhance your music, even at this
| | 00:21 | late stage of production, using the
Master inserts of Reason's mixer.
| | 00:25 | I'll move to the Rack Display and
click Show Insert FX on the Master panel.
| | 00:31 | The now-familiar insert area presents
itself to us and I right-click in the area
| | 00:35 | to bring up the contextual menu.
| | 00:37 | For now, I'll choose MClass
Maximizer, under Studio Effects.
| | 00:41 | This device will help maximize mix
level and protect the outputs from clipping.
| | 00:45 | Let me show you how it works.
| | 00:47 | (music playing)
| | 01:07 | Adjusting the settings creates a
super-loud but peak-free mix, and I could
| | 01:11 | bounce down now for a great track.
| | 01:14 | But I want to show you how this
section can be used for more creative ideas.
| | 01:18 | Let me just get through a few devices
and show you what can happen before we
| | 01:21 | finish up this chapter on effects, and I'll
leave you to more exploring after the video is over.
| | 01:26 | Here we go. I'll select this device and I want
to delete it by hitting Command+Delete
| | 01:31 | or Ctrl+Delete, and let's bring up something
cooler, maybe a Pulverizer, under Creative FX.
| | 01:36 | I think a tremolo might be in order, so let's
scroll down to some of the Tremolo patches.
| | 01:42 | (music playing)
| | 01:47 | Then I'll scroll through.
(music playing)
| | 01:55 | Awesome! Let's delete this
device and bring up the Alligator.
| | 02:04 | I think Anticipation
Pendulum has got my name on it.
| | 02:07 | (music playing)
| | 02:14 | Gator Aid is another great one.
| | 02:16 | (music playing)
| | 02:21 | Synchro Slaps is great.
| | 02:23 | (music playing)
| | 02:32 | Very cool! Let me show
you kind of another device.
| | 02:34 | It's the Stereo Imager.
| | 02:39 | (music playing)
| | 03:01 | Now, let's delete this device, and I want
to change gears completely and bring up
| | 03:04 | a Neptune device
introduced earlier in the course.
| | 03:07 | And I want to play Neptune from my
attached MIDI keyboard with the mix running
| | 03:11 | and see what happens.
| | 03:13 | Now remember, I right-click
anywhere in the Neptune device, select Create
| | 03:17 | Track for Neptune1, and get ready to
play the now-attached MIDI keyboard.
| | 03:22 | I'll make some basic settings to
allow the keyboard to control the voice
| | 03:26 | synth, and I'm going to remove the original
signal so all we hear is the voice synthesizer.
| | 03:31 | Let's see what happens.
| | 03:32 | (music playing)
| | 03:45 | Now all I'm doing is playing on the
MIDI keyboard just across the octaves and
| | 03:49 | seeing what happens.
(music playing)
| | 03:57 | Pretty cool! Hopefully you see how
cool Reason can be as I apply effects.
| | 04:02 | I've said this before, but this is an
incredible amount of power available for music making.
| | 04:07 | I hope you take the time to explore and
understand how FX devices in Reason can
| | 04:11 | be connected and strung together and I
hope you're inspired enough with these
| | 04:15 | cool effects to go create some
groundbreaking new music that rocks the world
| | 04:19 | and brings peace to your soul. Enjoy!
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Using the Sequencer and TracksUnderstanding the layout of the sequencer| 00:00 | The Sequencer window in Reason
is where it all comes together.
| | 00:04 | MIDI, audio, and automation tracks are
displayed alongside one another to give a
| | 00:09 | good indication of what's going on
in the song with one quick glance.
| | 00:13 | We should be using our ears, after all,
so we need a display that will show us as
| | 00:17 | much as possible in the
most efficient way available.
| | 00:20 | With this in mind, let me take you on a
short tour of the Sequencer page and show
| | 00:25 | you how Reason displays data.
| | 00:27 | I have a song here that I wrote and
produced a while back, and I only have one
| | 00:32 | chorus displayed so we
can get right to the point.
| | 00:34 | The song is available as an exercise file
so you can open it up as you follow along.
| | 00:38 | Now, we've been using the Sequencer
page on and off through the course, but
| | 00:42 | it's time to become properly introduced to
the most important features of the Sequencer.
| | 00:47 | First, let's look at the bottom of the window.
| | 00:49 | On the left we have the audio input and
output mini-meters with clip indicators.
| | 00:54 | This is a great way to quickly gauge
overall input and output levels to see
| | 00:58 | if clipping occurs.
| | 01:00 | Very handy when recording and tracking.
| | 01:02 | Next to the audio mini-meters we
have the main DSP Usage Indicator.
| | 01:07 | This lets us see how Reason is
utilizing available CPU power.
| | 01:11 | As the meter climbs,
it signifies more computer DSP usage.
| | 01:15 | So if this meter is high most of the time,
either increase your Latency Settings
| | 01:19 | in Preferences or reduce the number
of instruments playing at one time by
| | 01:24 | bouncing Mixer channels to audio.
| | 01:26 | Let's play the song for a minute and
let's see how the DSP meter reacts.
| | 01:29 | (music playing)
| | 01:38 | So the meter barely even moved.
| | 01:40 | This is a really powerful computer,
and likely your system is going to be the same way.
| | 01:44 | Reason is very efficient with resources.
| | 01:47 | But if you had 170 tracks and a lot of DSP on
each one, it will probably move up a good bit.
| | 01:53 | The next MIDI meter, which you'll rarely see,
is the Calculation and Disc Usage Indicator.
| | 01:58 | It's mainly used when loading up
samples or when Reason is calculating a
| | 02:02 | particularly troublesome set of DSP commands.
| | 02:05 | The button for blocks is next.
| | 02:07 | We'll get in the Blocks mode
a bit later in this chapter.
| | 02:11 | Further right is the built-in Click
Track, Pre-Count Enabler, and the Click
| | 02:15 | Volume Level knob, which we've using
since the beginning of the course.
| | 02:19 | The Tap Tempo button allows us to do just that:
| | 02:22 | tap on this button with your mouse in
real time to determine tempo as it comes.
| | 02:27 | If you're trying to match tempos with
an existing groove or you're producing a
| | 02:31 | track and have a tempo in mind, simply
tap it out and Reason will automatically
| | 02:35 | adjust tempo to correspond to your input.
| | 02:39 | Next comes the Bar and Beat Display,
the Time Display, Tempo Indicator,
| | 02:44 | and Meter Indicator.
| | 02:46 | Each display allows clicking and
dragging in real time and also allows text
| | 02:50 | entry, by clicking on the display and typing.
| | 02:55 | There's a Standard Transport panel next with
a couple of buttons we have not discussed yet.
| | 02:59 | Now, I won't be covering them very
deeply in this particular course, but the Dub
| | 03:03 | and Alt buttons determine what happens
to recording as more takes are recorded
| | 03:08 | under the same track.
| | 03:09 | Are you using the new recording as
an alternate take or as an overdub?
| | 03:14 | The Reason users manual goes over
these concepts in detail if you're
| | 03:18 | interested in knowing more.
| | 03:20 | Queue Rack enables Quantize
During Record for MIDI tracks.
| | 03:24 | Sixteenth note
quantization is the default setting.
| | 03:27 | The next section is the Loop Start and
End Section with quick buttons to place
| | 03:32 | the playhead at the loops
start or the loop endpoints.
| | 03:35 | By the way, the quick key command for
this is Option or Alt, left and right arrows.
| | 03:40 | Option+left arrow key puts the
playhead at the left loop locator point and
| | 03:45 | Option+right arrow key puts the
playhead at the right loop locator point.
| | 03:49 | The last button opens the Reason
Regroove Engine page, and I'll discuss this more
| | 03:54 | later in this chapter.
| | 03:55 | Moving to the top of the
Sequencer page, we have Edit mode.
| | 04:01 | When Edit mode is engaged the selected
track expands to reveal notes and other
| | 04:06 | MIDI data, if it's a MIDI track, and
alternate takes and overdubs within the edits
| | 04:10 | if it's an audio track.
| | 04:13 | In this case, we have no edits.
| | 04:17 | The Tool palette is next, containing
tools to erase, cut, locate, and zoom around
| | 04:22 | clips in the Sequencer.
| | 04:24 | The Q, W, E, R, T, and Y keys toggle
between each tool for quick selection.
| | 04:32 | Snap is enabled to lock the playhead and
editing locators to a grid, indicated by
| | 04:38 | the pulldown menu underneath.
| | 04:39 | The grid can be set to the bar, quarter note,
sixteenth note, or several other divisions.
| | 04:46 | If I use the selection tool to choose an
audio track, more information about the
| | 04:51 | clip is displayed next to the toolbar.
| | 04:54 | Information concerning location, fade times,
clip volume, and transposition is available.
| | 05:03 | I suppose now is as good a time as
any to show you how easy it is to
| | 05:06 | transpose audio in Reason.
| | 05:07 | Let me solo up this hybrid pad and
change the transposition in real time.
| | 05:13 | (music playing)
| | 05:27 | So that just totally ruins the track,
but that's how easy it is to transpose
| | 05:30 | something in Reason.
| | 05:35 | (music playing)
| | 05:46 | Very cool! Hitting undo
takes it back one step at a time.
| | 05:50 | If you want to bring it back to zero,
you can either hit undo 12 times or you
| | 05:54 | can type 0 in the box.
| | 05:56 | You know, while we're at it, let me show
you how easy it is to change tempo and
| | 06:01 | hear those changes in real time.
| | 06:03 | I'll un-solo the pad and move to the
Tempo Indicator and drag the tempo up and
| | 06:08 | down as I play the song.
| | 06:10 | (music playing)
| | 06:29 | Very cool! Or we can go even slower if we want.
| | 06:32 | Let me use Option+left arrow key to go
back to my left loop locator point and
| | 06:37 | type in, I don't know, maybe like 70.
| | 06:39 | (music playing)
| | 06:45 | Then we'll go back to our regular tempo.
(music playing)
| | 06:50 | And it all happens completely
in real time. It's amazing.
| | 06:56 | By the way, if you want different
time-stretching algorithms for different
| | 06:59 | tracks, have a look at the Reason Rack.
| | 07:02 | Next to each audio track in the rack,
you can choose between three different
| | 07:06 | stretch types for each track.
| | 07:08 | All Around is great for most tracks,
| | 07:10 | Melody is for monophonic lead lines and
some guitar solos, and Vocal is for vocals.
| | 07:17 | Moving back to the Sequencer page,
zooming is accomplished mainly by holding
| | 07:21 | Command or Ctrl and using your track
pad or Magic Mouse on a Mac, or scroll
| | 07:26 | wheel on the Windows machine.
| | 07:28 | Manual zooming is available by grabbing
the zoom handles for horizontal zooming
| | 07:33 | or by clicking the magnifying glass
icons on the right side for vertical zoom.
| | 07:37 | There are three waveform height displays
available, by clicking on the associated icon.
| | 07:45 | Lastly, the small triangle underneath
the Waveform Height display hides and
| | 07:52 | shows the Transport panel on each page.
| | 07:56 | So that's a general
overview of the Sequencer page.
| | 07:59 | Next, we'll talk about how to use
Blocks mode for creative songwriting,
| | 08:04 | arranging, and production.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Utilizing Blocks mode| 00:00 | In the late 1980s, computer systems
finally became powerful enough to hold
| | 00:04 | larger musical phrases in
memory via MIDI note commands.
| | 00:08 | There was typically enough memory
available to hold four or eight polyphonic
| | 00:12 | phrases at a time, but there were limits.
| | 00:15 | So to conserve memory, a unique way
of composing music developed based on
| | 00:19 | patterns and phrases, or chunks of music.
| | 00:22 | These patterns or chunks would
be arranged to form a full song.
| | 00:25 | For example, pattern one of a song might be
the full verse and pattern two, the chorus.
| | 00:30 | An arrangement of patterns one and two,
then patterns one and two again would yield
| | 00:34 | a verse-chorus, verse-chorus song.
| | 00:37 | As clunky as it may sound today, there
were advantages to composing music in
| | 00:41 | this manner, namely the ability
to try out different arrangement
| | 00:44 | possibilities quickly and easily.
| | 00:46 | Reason has included this method of song
construction in the program to take what
| | 00:50 | was cool and fun about pattern
arrangement and layer it with the linear song
| | 00:54 | approach most of us use today.
| | 00:56 | Songs are arranged via blocks or
sequence phrases, making remixes of songs
| | 01:01 | easy and intuitive.
| | 01:02 | Blocks mode in Reason is turned on via
the Blocks button at the bottom of the page.
| | 01:07 | It turns bright blue, and the blocks line
at the top of the track list is created.
| | 01:12 | Additionally, there are now new tabs above the
Edit mode button at the top of the Sequencer:
| | 01:18 | Song and Block.
| | 01:20 | Selecting these buttons changes the
display of Reason's Sequencer accordingly.
| | 01:25 | Default view is Song mode.
| | 01:26 | That's Reason's native view for
arranging songs, and it's been the one we've
| | 01:30 | used throughout the course so far.
| | 01:32 | Clicking on the Blocks Display button
changes the function of the Sequencer page
| | 01:37 | to show the current block in use.
| | 01:39 | I'll show you how to
construct blocks in just a moment.
| | 01:42 | So, for now, follow along as I show
some key components of Blocks mode.
| | 01:46 | I have several blocks
already programmed into this song.
| | 01:50 | Clicking the Block List displays
available blocks and selects them accordingly.
| | 01:55 | Cycling through the already programmed
blocks, you can see how each block uses
| | 01:59 | different parts of our main song.
| | 02:02 | Creating a new block is simple.
| | 02:04 | Select an Unused Block in the Block
List and either begin recording new music
| | 02:08 | normally--notice all the tracks still
function as expected--or pasting copied
| | 02:13 | parts from our existing recordings in Song mode.
| | 02:17 | I'll copy some parts now.
| | 02:19 | Clicking the display to move back to
Song mode, I'll select a few phrases of
| | 02:22 | audio, automation, and MIDI to copy.
| | 02:26 | So, I'll take the Hybrid Pad, maybe a
guitar, maybe a couple of the acoustic
| | 02:30 | guitars, our Kong drum pattern,
and maybe the ride cymbal.
| | 02:34 | Let me just copy all that where it sits
and I'll go back to Block mode here, and
| | 02:39 | wherever the playhead sits
is where it's going to paste.
| | 02:41 | So I'll move the playhead back to measure
1 and hit Command or Ctrl+V to paste it in.
| | 02:47 | It pastes in the correct track lane ready to go.
| | 02:52 | The block can be as long or as short
as we need it to be, and the end marker
| | 02:57 | determines where the block ends.
| | 02:58 | In our case, bar 9 is perfect.
| | 03:01 | It's important to realize that Block
mode and Song mode are simply different
| | 03:05 | ways of displaying data;
| | 03:07 | editing, arranging, moving, recording,
and every other function of the Sequencer
| | 03:11 | is exactly the same in both modes.
| | 03:14 | I could record a new track of audio,
move some things around, edit MIDI data,
| | 03:18 | and do anything else just as in Song mode;
| | 03:20 | it's just another way of looking at music.
| | 03:22 | It's another paradigm of
the same reality, if you will.
| | 03:25 | However--and this is important--like a
paradigm, the worlds are entirely separate.
| | 03:30 | In Block mode, I can transpose a phrase
of audio, for example, and in Song mode,
| | 03:34 | that same phrase of audio is unaltered.
| | 03:37 | Features like this can be quickly
applied to change keys or do modulations using
| | 03:42 | the same audio clips for each new key.
| | 03:45 | Naming a block is as simple as double-
clicking the block name and retyping a new one.
| | 03:50 | It shows up in the Block List accordingly.
| | 03:54 | Now that I have a few blocks created,
let's move over to our Song mode again and
| | 03:58 | start arranging them.
| | 04:00 | Just as in the days of old, Song mode
is the place where musical blocks, or
| | 04:04 | chunks, are arranged into full songs.
| | 04:08 | To make things easier to see,
I'll delete all existing audio and start fresh.
| | 04:13 | An easy way to do this is click in the
Sequencer window, hit Command+A or Ctrl+A,
| | 04:18 | and just hit Delete.
| | 04:19 | That keeps all of our tracks
available but just deletes the audio.
| | 04:23 | To select and arrange blocks, I click
on the Pencil tool or press W on the
| | 04:28 | QWERTY keyboard to select it.
| | 04:30 | A new series of parameters and
dropdown list appears next to the toolbox.
| | 04:35 | The last dropdown list is the Block Select
menu, where we choose which block to arrange.
| | 04:40 | Now, with the Pencil tool, clicking
once in the Blocks lane draws in the
| | 04:44 | selected block at the current
grid level, down to a 16th note.
| | 04:47 | And clicking and dragging draws the
selected block in until the mouse is released.
| | 04:53 | You can see the waveforms fall
into their respective tracks.
| | 04:56 | Let's draw in a few blocks
and see what things sound like.
| | 05:02 | Cool to see what that sounds like.
| | 05:04 | I'll hit Shift+Return twice to go back
to bar 1, and we'll put the display over
| | 05:08 | there so we can kind of see what goes
on, and let's play and see what happens.
| | 05:11 | (music playing)
| | 05:30 | So, at the moment it's kind of a
hodgepodge of different arrangements, but it
| | 05:33 | sounds kind of cool, and you
can get some ideas off of that.
| | 05:36 | Let's get a little more creative and
let's draw some different grid levels
| | 05:39 | and see what happens.
| | 05:41 | Maybe I want to undo some
of this and start clean.
| | 05:44 | So I'll just hit Command+Z, or Ctrl+Z
if you're on a Windows machine, and let's
| | 05:49 | go back all the way.
| | 05:53 | So, let's take my Chorus Block, which is
the whole chorus, use my Pencil tool, and
| | 05:58 | let's go down to a 16th note grid.
| | 06:00 | Let's see what starts happening here.
| | 06:02 | I want to zoom in a little
bit so I can kind of see.
| | 06:07 | I will zoom in a little more,
put our playhead there so it will zoom
| | 06:15 | right around there. There we go.
| | 06:17 | And maybe a couple in here.
| | 06:24 | Let's just see what this sounds like.
(music playing)
| | 06:28 | Amazing! And then we can just drag this out.
| | 06:30 | Let's see what that sounds like.
(music playing)
| | 06:36 | So, if I spend a little time with it,
I could make that actually very, very
| | 06:40 | cool and kind of get that famous machine-gun
stutter effect that everything is doing right now.
| | 06:45 | Now, the real power of reason is
evident when you realize that Blocks mode
| | 06:48 | and Linear Song mode can be used at the
same time for the best-of-both-worlds approach.
| | 06:54 | Let me demonstrate.
| | 06:55 | I'm going to erase all of our different blocks,
so again, we can start with a clean palette.
| | 07:01 | I'll go back to Block mode. I need some audio.
| | 07:05 | Right now, I don't have any audio
available in Song mode, so I need some
| | 07:08 | audio as source material.
| | 07:10 | Let's go to a block with some drums,
maybe Drums Only, and I'll select and copy,
| | 07:16 | with Command+C or Ctrl+C, these clips, and I'll
place them back in Song mode. Again, no blocks.
| | 07:23 | It will paste where the playhead is.
| | 07:27 | So now we have some audio back in Song mode.
| | 07:29 | Let me go back into Block mode and maybe
I want some acoustic guitars as part of
| | 07:34 | this demonstration as well.
| | 07:35 | So let me copy both of these, Command+C
or Ctrl+C again, go back into Song mode,
| | 07:41 | and again it will paste
where my playhead is. Perfect!
| | 07:45 | So now we've got this for our palette.
| | 07:47 | (music playing)
| | 07:55 | Cool! Now, what I want to do
is layer a block over this.
| | 08:00 | If I take my Pencil tool, select--I
don't know--maybe one of the vocal
| | 08:05 | tracks, and draw in over this, if I scroll
down, you'll see the vocals have appeared now.
| | 08:13 | So if I play the whole thing now--
(music playing)
| | 08:19 | Perfect! Now, let me draw some more blocks
over this and try out some different things.
| | 08:25 | So Rhythm Guitar. Oops!
I don't like where that hit.
| | 08:30 | Let me just draw it back one more
time, right on the bar there. Perfect!
| | 08:35 | And we'll back up the playhead.
(music playing)
| | 08:41 | Then maybe something a little later out here,
| | 08:43 | maybe just the bass.
| | 08:50 | Again, I don't quite like the
way that laid out. Let's try. There we go!
| | 08:54 | (music playing)
| | 09:02 | Cool, all right! So that's Blocks mode.
| | 09:04 | Reason takes what was cool about
composing in patterns or chunks and
| | 09:08 | applies that to modern music
making in a very creative way that feels
| | 09:12 | natural and seamless.
| | 09:14 | Block editing and traditional linear editing
can remain completely separate from one another
| | 09:18 | as the different worlds they are,
or the paradigms can be joined and
| | 09:22 | layered together to create new abstracts that
could change the way you make music from now on.
| | 09:28 | Try it out for yourself
and see how far things go.
| | 09:31 | With the next video, I'll go over the
ReGroove engine and show you how to alter
| | 09:34 | timing and inflection to create unique
grooves and fields as your music demands.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the ReGroove Mixer| 00:00 | As with many other parts of the
music-making process, there is tension between
| | 00:04 | older established ways of doing
things and accomplishing task via new more-
| | 00:08 | efficient processes.
| | 00:10 | As ways of creating music change,
sometimes art suffers as we learn to use the
| | 00:15 | new processes to our advantage.
| | 00:16 | Fortunately, Reason has this
both-worlds-at-once mentality stamped all over its
| | 00:21 | DNA, and the ReGroove Mixer is another
great example of that implementation.
| | 00:26 | Clicking on the ReGroove Mixer icon
in the Transport control area brings up
| | 00:30 | the ReGroove Mixer.
| | 00:31 | There are eight slots available at
first glance and 24 more available via
| | 00:36 | the Channel Bank tabs.
| | 00:38 | Each slot can house a different groove
template to emulate an old Akai MPC60,
| | 00:43 | live drummers, programmed hip-hop
grooves, or any other set of velocity and
| | 00:47 | timing-based variations.
| | 00:49 | To load a groove into one of the slots,
simply click the Patch Browser button or
| | 00:54 | click the Patch Name area.
| | 00:56 | The factory sound bank comes up,
and we navigate to ReGroove Patches.
| | 01:02 | Here we find a number of preprogrammed
grooves ready to import into our song.
| | 01:06 | We'll bring several grooves into the
ReGroove Mixer, and I'll show you the
| | 01:10 | power behind this device.
| | 01:11 | Let's try some MPC60 patches in the
second slot here. Maybe some Vinyl.
| | 01:24 | These are actual grooves pulled
off vinyl records with some software
| | 01:27 | that Propellerheads has
| | 01:32 | Maybe a couple more. That should be enough for now.
| | 01:41 | The main slider in each slot affects
the intensity of the groove, from no
| | 01:45 | groove to full strength.
| | 01:47 | Slide moves notes in the groove
backwards and forwards in time, and Shuffle
| | 01:52 | applies a swing or a triplet
feel to offbeat 16th notes.
| | 01:55 | Pre-align quantizes all incoming notes
to a 16th note grid before the groove is
| | 02:01 | applied, to keep grooves consistent, and
Global Shuffle overrides the individual
| | 02:06 | shuffle parameter in each slot
in favor of the Global setting.
| | 02:10 | At the top of the slot, hitting Edit
brings up the ReGroove Editor, where
| | 02:14 | additional settings are
shown for adjusting the groove.
| | 02:17 | Hitting F8 closes the ReGroove Editor.
| | 02:21 | Now, even though grooves are loaded
in and active, as of yet, nothing has
| | 02:26 | been affected by the ReGroove Mixer,
so it's time to assign a few tracks and
| | 02:30 | listen to the results.
| | 02:31 | Let me solo up our Kong drum track
and show you how it sounds naturally.
| | 02:35 | (music playing)
| | 02:45 | Not bad. Clicking in the pulldown menu in
the Note Lane Designator displays ReGroove
| | 02:50 | slots that are available for this track.
| | 02:53 | We'll choose A1 and see what the
groove in slot A1 does for our track.
| | 02:57 | (music playing)
| | 02:58 | It can change in real time.
| | 03:04 | (music playing)
| | 03:07 | Clearly, you can hear the different velocity transitions.
(music playing)
| | 03:22 | So, this is Adelic.
| | 03:23 | (music playing)
| | 03:28 | And we can add some shuffle, slide
back and forth, and really kind of screw up
| | 03:36 | our groove if we choose to.
| | 03:37 | (music playing)
| | 03:40 | Now, of course with the slider at the
bottom, there is no effect being made
| | 03:43 | to the original file.
| | 03:44 | (music playing)
| | 03:47 | Yeah, you can hear it speed up a little bit
as we went through. So let's put this back on A1.
| | 03:51 | (music playing)
| | 03:56 | And that's the groove.
| | 03:57 | Now, if we solo up this Mophra
Bass here, we can put a totally
| | 04:02 | Now, that's starting to feel good.
(music playing)
| | 04:02 | different groove on this.
| | 04:03 | (music playing)
| | 04:14 | Buzz can have yet another groove.
(music playing)
| | 04:28 | Very cool! I can apply different grooves to
each MIDI track and adjust each groove to fit
| | 04:33 | the overall feel of my song.
| | 04:35 | This is especially useful if I'm
trying to match the feel of a particular old-
| | 04:39 | school loop with my percussion and drum tracks,
| | 04:42 | but I want a more maybe laid-back feel
with my bass and guitar tracks, and then
| | 04:46 | simultaneously I want to put a top of
the beat feel on synth tracks to maybe
| | 04:50 | nail that thing Prince was
doing in the early '80s.
| | 04:53 | The ReGroove Mixer is one of those
little gems in Reason that doesn't get a lot
| | 04:56 | of press time, but it's a producer's
secret weapon for firmly nailing a feel.
| | 05:01 | Play around with the settings in
ReGroove now that you know what they do and
| | 05:04 | discover if the included
presets help your songs.
| | 05:08 | If you want to know more about how to
construct your own grooves, have a look at
| | 05:11 | the owner's manual and see how using
custom grooves can set you up for better
| | 05:15 | success as a producer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing MIDI performance data| 00:00 | Up to this point, we've mastered many
difficult concepts on our path to getting
| | 00:04 | up and running in Reason.
| | 00:06 | You may think I've saved the most
difficult concepts for the last chapters,
| | 00:09 | but the fact is, editing MIDI data in Reason
is truly one of the easiest things you'll do.
| | 00:15 | This video will be very short but full
of facts, as I show you how easy it is to
| | 00:19 | change MIDI performance data in a track.
| | 00:21 | In the Sequencer page select a
MIDI clip that you'd like to edit.
| | 00:25 | Double-clicking on that clip brings us
into Edit mode and the display focuses
| | 00:29 | on the selected track.
| | 00:31 | Use Command+E or Ctrl+E to
toggle Edit mode on and off.
| | 00:36 | Select the proper Edit tool, as always,
with the Q, W, E, R, T, and Y keys.
| | 00:41 | The Pointer tool selects notes and
allows you to move them around.
| | 00:47 | (music playing)
| | 00:51 | And the Pencil Tool draws notes in at
the current grid resolution.
| | 00:55 | (music playing)
And let me zoom in a little bit here.
| | 00:59 | The Eraser erases notes
by clicking and dragging.
| | 01:08 | The Mute tool mutes the
whole selected clip, and so on.
| | 01:15 | Use the Pencil tool to alter velocity data.
| | 01:18 | Now, there's a trick to individual edits,
if you're used to other software packages.
| | 01:22 | Reason is designed to be as easy as
possible to use, so just start to the side
| | 01:27 | of the data spike and draw
over it to input new data.
| | 01:30 | If you try to edit the spike itself,
it gets a little tricky. All right!
| | 01:35 | Let's change tracks.
| | 01:36 | I want to show you how easy
it is to alter automation data.
| | 01:41 | Editing automation is as simple as
drawing a new line or selecting individual
| | 01:46 | edit points with the Select
tool and dragging or deleting.
| | 01:51 | So I can draw in with my
Pencil tool, or with my Select tool--
| | 01:55 | I'll just hit the letter Q--
I can select and drag.
| | 02:02 | Drum devices are smartly displayed in
the Drum Keys Editor, with each pattern
| | 02:07 | module named for you for easy editing.
| | 02:10 | Holding Shift while dragging notes
up or down keeps notes in exactly the
| | 02:14 | same time position.
(music playing)
| | 02:21 | And holding Option or
Alt while dragging copies the selected data.
| | 02:26 | Backing out of Edit mode and returning
to the main Sequencer page, clicking on a
| | 02:31 | clip with the Select tool highlights the clip.
| | 02:33 | You can then drag, Option+drag, delete,
and edit clip position as you wish.
| | 02:40 | Selecting a clip exposes handles that allow
start and end points in the clip to be modified.
| | 02:49 | Using the Razor tool, either by clicking
or clicking and dragging, separates the
| | 02:54 | clip, and it can be ready
for deletion or movement.
| | 02:59 | There's a lot of editing power here,
and I've only scratched the surface.
| | 03:02 | If you want to know more, you can simply
right-click on a clip for more options
| | 03:07 | or peruse the Reason user guide for more info.
| | 03:09 | Next in our video course: editing audio tracks.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Editing audio tracks| 00:00 | This video finishes our chapter on editing.
| | 00:03 | If you watched the video on MIDI editing
in the Sequencer, you'll recognize many
| | 00:07 | of the same commands and
functions for editing audio.
| | 00:10 | There are a few differences of course,
so I'll talk about them in this video.
| | 00:14 | In the Main Sequencer view,
selecting an audio clip highlights it and
| | 00:18 | prepares it for editing.
| | 00:19 | You can then drag, Option+Drag, delete,
and edit clip position as you wish.
| | 00:28 | Selecting a clip exposes handles that allow
start and end points in the clip to be modified.
| | 00:35 | Clip selection also introduces the clip
volume line that allows for fade-ins and
| | 00:40 | fade-outs, and adjusts overall clip gain.
| | 00:45 | As with MIDI clips, holding Shift
while dragging up or down keeps audio in
| | 00:49 | exactly the same time position.
| | 00:52 | Using the Razor tool, either by
clicking or clicking and dragging, separates and
| | 00:56 | prepares clips for further editing.
| | 01:00 | Now, when we look at complete audio
clips in Edit mode, there's not much to see.
| | 01:05 | It's only when there are multiple clips
joined into one that Edit mode becomes
| | 01:09 | interesting for audio.
| | 01:10 | So let's cut up a piece of audio
and I'll let you see this in action.
| | 01:14 | So I'll toggle out of Edit mode by
pressing Command+E or Ctrl+E and return to
| | 01:19 | the Sequencer page.
| | 01:20 | Let's select a portion of audio
and cut it up using the Razor tool.
| | 01:28 | I'll randomly rearrange a few clips in
Snap mode and we'll see what happens.
| | 01:36 | When I'm through arranging, I'll select
all of the clips together and hit Command+K
| | 01:40 | or Ctrl+J for Join Clips.
| | 01:43 | This command is also
found in Reason's Edit menu.
| | 01:47 | Now, when I double-click on this file,
the Edit mode looks way different, ready
| | 01:52 | for some serious manipulation.
| | 01:54 | Reason calls this Comp mode, but it's
really just a way to edit audio and wrap
| | 01:57 | it all back up in a tidy seamless
package in the main Sequencer view.
| | 02:02 | In this case, the gray waveform is the
unused portion of the audio clip and the
| | 02:07 | blue part is where the audio is
chosen as part of our main clip.
| | 02:10 | Dragging the handles edits the
breakpoint and clicking on the now-exposed
| | 02:15 | MIDI handle on top of the joint slider
adjusts the length of the cross-fade.
| | 02:19 | You can now move the whole thing
around and find the most useful edit.
| | 02:24 | Backing out of Edit mode, again by
pressing Command+E or Ctrl+E, reveals a
| | 02:27 | seamless audio clip without all the
messy edits that get in the way of a
| | 02:31 | quick visualization.
| | 02:33 | I hope you enjoyed scratching the
surface with me concerning audio editing.
| | 02:36 | As with so much in life, there is way
more to study and uncover, but I hope this
| | 02:40 | introduction was helpful and informative.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
ConclusionWhat's next?| 00:00 | I hope you've enjoyed Up
and Running with Reason 6.5.
| | 00:03 | I know I've really enjoyed making this
course and I've learned a few new things
| | 00:07 | along the way as well.
| | 00:08 | To find out more about Reason, you can
begin exploring by right-clicking just
| | 00:12 | about anything within the application,
including audio clips, MIDI clips,
| | 00:16 | devices in the rack, and more.
| | 00:18 | Also, the Reason users guide has a wealth of
information and is really well put together.
| | 00:23 | The Propellerheads website has many
resources as well, so check the site from
| | 00:28 | time to time and see if
something might be useful for you.
| | 00:31 | Check back with lynda.com to see what
other courses are available for learning
| | 00:34 | audio engineering and music production.
| | 00:37 | And lastly, you can always check
out my website at jchrisgriffin.com.
| | 00:41 | From time to time there are workshops
and master classes that I host in the New
| | 00:45 | York City area, and sometimes there
are free patches on the line as well.
| | 00:49 | Here's to skillful editing! Have fun!
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
