Reasonfreaks

Archive for the ‘Reason Tutorials’ Category

Building patches with the RF-01 ReFill might seem complex and hard to learn, but it’s not. You’ll find yourself building patches in no time after reading this little RF-01 NN-XT Tutorial.

First Steps
First thing to do is to create an NN-XT. Once loaded you press the patch loading button and navigate to the RF-01 ReFill. There you load an NN-XT Osc which comes the closest to the type of sound you want to make. If you want to make a typical synth bass then the Saw and Square waves are your best bet. To make a sub bass you should try the Triangle and Sinus waveforms, etc, etc. You’ll soon find out which waveforms are best suited for a particular sound. But also remember that there are no rules in sound design. You decide how it will sound.

Layering NN-XT Osc’s
You can ofcourse stack multiple waveforms onto eachother to get to richer sounds. Or to create detuning and panning effects. This can easily be done by selecting all the zones in your exsisting patch [Ctrl]+[A], and copy the entire patch by pressing [Ctrl]+[C]. This will copy everything you have in the NN-XT. Now browse to the NN-XT Osc you want to add to your patch and load it. Now you will only see the last loaded NN-XT Osc in your NN-XT. But since we copied the previous settings you made we are now able to paste them into the patch by pressing [Ctrl]+[V]. Now you will have your previous patch plus the last loaded NN-XT Osc in your NN-XT. This process can be repeated as much as you like or till your CPU says no more. Read the rest of this entry »

Traditionally, the way to do surround mixes in Reason is to connect it through Rewire to a surround-capable audio application, such as Cubase. However, with a little bit of creative wiring, and the right equipment, surround mixes are not only possible in Reason, you can also do some neat tricks that programs like Cubase can’t do.

Traditionally, the way to do surround mixes in Reason is to connect it through Rewire to a surround-capable audio application, such as Cubase. However, with a little bit of creative wiring, and the right equipment, surround mixes are not only possible in Reason, you can also do some neat tricks that programs like Cubase can’t do. While the ideas presented here are done with multi-channel mixing in mind, you may find that you can use some of them in your stereo mixes too.

What you’ll need

• A multi-channel soundcard, with supported drivers (preferably ASIO)
• Appropriate amplifier(s) and/or speakers (ie: 5.1 capable)
• A reasonable amount of CPU horsepower, depending on how many instruments you plan to use (any Athlon or P4 system should be fine)
• Reason 2.5 (2.0 might be OK too, I don’t remember if it has all the modules you’ll need though. 1.x is not an option). The demo files in this tutorial only use sounds and patches from the Reason Factory Soundbank.

Configuration and Initial Setup
First, you need to check if your soundcard drivers can provide the appropriate outputs to Reason. Go to Reason’s Audio Preferences, and click the Channels button: Read the rest of this entry »

Compression is one of the few concept that many younger electronic artist have trouble coming to grips with. This article is a follow-up to Dave’s wonderful article on basic concepts of an audio compressor. In this tutorial I shall touch upon some of the finer points of uses for compressors.

Compression is one of the few concept that many younger electronic artist have trouble coming to grips with. This article is a follow-up to Dave’s wonderful article on basic concepts of an audio compressor. In this tutorial I shall touch upon some of the finer points of uses for compressors. Before I get down to the nitty gritty, I must make one disclaimer: all of this information isn’t the matter-of-fact way to compress, but mearly a push in the right direction. An artist friend of mine once said, “Hearing is believing”. This saying holds true to using compressors in Reason, mixing with hardware, or on any other digital audio workstation. Read the rest of this entry »

The Malström is a very advanced synth. It uses a cool way of sound generation which is called Graintable synthesis. This is actually an invention of Propellerhead.

The Malström is a very advanced synth. It uses a cool way of sound generation which is called Graintable synthesis. This is actually an invention of Propellerhead. They have combined Granular synthesis with Wavetable synthesis. Graintable synthesis uses wavetable like sounds. Which are sampled sounds like the attack of a guitar. Then this sound is cut up in little parts which are the grains. Each of these grains have a timbre (sound color) of their own. If you load up a graintable and leave all the controls on the Malström alone the sound will play back like it would have normally.

The fun part begins when you start to mess, speed and modulate the grain sequence up. You can control the speed of which the grain sequence is played without changing the pitch of the graintable. You could also isolate one grain at a time by making the sequence to stand still. Further on in this tutorial you will learn how to do that. I’ll try to explain each control of the Malström and tell you what it’s used for. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a useful thing to set the default song to an empty one in Reason. This way you can work fast without having to delete various devices which also hog a part of your memory right away. Once you have done this the next step would be to add at least a reverb and a delay to the send section of your mixer. Do this by just putting your mouse over the mixer and right click your mouse.

Setting up the rack:

It’s a useful thing to set the default song to an empty one in Reason. This way you can work fast without having to delete various devices which also hog a part of your memory right away. Once you have done this the next step would be to add at least a reverb and a delay to the send section of your mixer. Do this by just putting your mouse over the mixer and right click your mouse. Now select create and choose a reverb. Repeat this and choose a delay. The first thing i usually add to the rack is a Redrum because the drumtrack is almost allways the basis of a track. After that i take care of the bassline. This can come from any device except the Redrum

Setting up the Redrum:

When i start to compose a track it’s very useful to have the beat before adding bass and melody’s. I usually get the main beat line started out. This mainly exists out of a kick, snare, clap and hihats. Once this is playing it’s easy to get into the groove. The Redrum has various functions to make your beat a bit more interesting. Like the shuffle. Which moves the 16th notes to get some sort of shuffling effect (shuffle:). You can set the amount of shuffle in the transport bar which also holds the start, stop and rec button and others. On the right side you can find it. Read the rest of this entry »