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Learning and using Reason (music record program)
Hookay! So I used basically everything I had to order this great program from Ebay the other day (brand new), and I though "Hey, since I am a retard, let's ask the LFS community for help" durr durrrrr!

Well, I have only used the demo version of this program before, and it was a beast, to say the least. So... soo much, my brain almost exploaded all over screen. It's like photoshop, just that it's about recoding music and such.

God damnit, why can't I manage to even write one topic without flooding it with bullshit before I actually start making a point.. which I by the way never do anyway.. so..well **** me.

POINT IS!: Are there other people using this program? What you think, what is good / bad? And are there sites / community that creates sounds, drum beats and such to this program? As far as I have understanded there is a LOT of possibilities in this program, and I just have to learn using it propper (again, I have not tested the full stuff yet).

So yeah, please, if you got experience / info about this program, let me hear ya, and we might even manage a successfull discussion if I don't end up teasing Eric with baby seal clubbing and rallypack moaning.
Yay good topic!

First register your stuff to get access to Propellerhead support and forums. Downloadable goodies awaits.

Reason is quite fun for just dicking around and patching and side processing synths. The purchasable addons like Reason Drums come with different pre-installs of nice setups that you can use as a base to get cool sounds.

Second, Reason has been by far the most user friendly professional audio software. Having gone through through Sonar, Cubase and Ableton Live, the Reason is currently living mostly Rewired to Reaper. Reaper is definitely the undisputed DAW king in price/performance and I highly recommend you to check it out.

If you plan to record and combine live instruments with Reason's synths, Rewiring is the way to go, I'd say.

At the moment I have Korg Axiom25 and Trigger Finger hooked to Reaper that sends midi signals via Rewire to different instruments in Reason and sends live audio back to Reaper that are recorded on different tracks. Cheapass Firewire M-Audio Solo audio interface is enough to record 16+ live audio tracks in 24bit/48khz.
Thanks for reply! Specially happy to hear that the community around Reason is great, with lots of additional stuff to download, learn and use.

I bought the program from this link btw: http://viewitem.eim.ebay.no/NE ... N-STOCK/370546686284/item

Basically to stop you from reading a lot of text, the Reason program I bought also comes with a great addition features to record!

I am playing guitar, so my main area is there. I am horrible at drums and all that, but some simpel rythms can manage to make. I hope to learn making somewhat acceptable crap rythms with bass/drums/keyboard, but I guess I have years of learning ahead of me!

One thing tho, I am not sure if I understood the part about rewiring. Care to explain that again or? If I understand right it sounds like an device you plug your instrument to, then it sends the sounds directly to a new sound track in the program , or something. Sorry my english sometimes is not sufficient
Its all about Ableton.

I found Reason too clumsy and "intimidating" so to speak. The whole "wiring" process just scared me away from trying to learn the program. I got the impression you spend more time trying to do all that stuff than you do making actual music.

But thats just me.
i'm partial to fl studio, myself.

Quote :I hope to learn making somewhat acceptable crap rythms with bass/drums/keyboard, but I guess I have years of learning ahead of me!

random screwing around is fun.
Thanks a lot for the link above, I am sure I will find it usefull
Quote from The Very End :Thanks for reply! Specially happy to hear that the community around Reason is great, with lots of additional stuff to download, learn and use.

I bought the program from this link btw: http://viewitem.eim.ebay.no/NE ... N-STOCK/370546686284/item

Basically to stop you from reading a lot of text, the Reason program I bought also comes with a great addition features to record!

I am playing guitar, so my main area is there. I am horrible at drums and all that, but some simpel rythms can manage to make. I hope to learn making somewhat acceptable crap rythms with bass/drums/keyboard, but I guess I have years of learning ahead of me!

One thing tho, I am not sure if I understood the part about rewiring. Care to explain that again or? If I understand right it sounds like an device you plug your instrument to, then it sends the sounds directly to a new sound track in the program , or something. Sorry my english sometimes is not sufficient

The Rewire technology is just a tunnel that can send and receive MIDI signals and live audio between Reason and another DAW (almost all modern DAWs support Rewire). Via Rewire I can control Reason from my recording and mixing station and thus save all automation, MIDI and audio data in one place for easier project management. Reason simply listens to what MIDI commands are coming through the pipe and sends them to the routed devices and sends audio back to DAW on assigned tracks.

I make it sound more complicated than what it really is but it's flexible and solid.
I have a google session in front of me I sence ;p Haha!
Well, but maybe I'll learn it, who knows?

Arghgh, have to wait 2-3 weeks before it's arriving, I am really pumped up to try it! Btw, do you produce much music with it? For example drum beats, are you got at them, and what advices would you give to a n00b? I have rhytm, that is ok, but since I don't play drums my knowlege of the posibilities with it is around 0.
Quote from The Very End :and what advices would you give to a n00b? I have rhytm, that is ok, but since I don't play drums my knowlege of the posibilities with it is around 0.

just do what sounds good to you. depending on what kind of music you're making, you might use a different set of instruments than another form of music, but it's all the same. in a lot of videos i've seen for beat making, people tend to lay down the bass and drums before cymbals/hihats. that way you don't have to think about it like you were sitting in front of a drum kit, and you don't have to play it all at once. loop the beat and fiddle with it, and enjoy.

do you have any input devices? (keyboards, samplers, etc)
I'm a little bit out of date because I'm still running Reason 4, like Spanky I'm rewiring it into either Pro Tools or Reaper.

I think Reason makes more sense for musicians who have experience with hardware mixers / instruments / effects. Perhaps younger guys who've never seen a rack of actual hardware will be confused by the interface, but if you've ever operated a physical studio or even just a modular synth setup before, you'll find Reason's interface is very intuitive and simple to use, and you can get the results you want very quickly.

I've been meaning to get a copy of Record, I still haven't tried it, but most of my music is live these days, and if I am recording it's usually for somebody else in their studio not mine.
Quote from bunder9999 :just do what sounds good to you. depending on what kind of music you're making, you might use a different set of instruments than another form of music, but it's all the same. in a lot of videos i've seen for beat making, people tend to lay down the bass and drums before cymbals/hihats. that way you don't have to think about it like you were sitting in front of a drum kit, and you don't have to play it all at once. loop the beat and fiddle with it, and enjoy.

do you have any input devices? (keyboards, samplers, etc)

With the program it also followed a input device, which again is plugged into the computer by an USB port. As far as I know / understood, it's pretty descent

Quote from thisnameistaken :I'm a little bit out of date because I'm still running Reason 4, like Spanky I'm rewiring it into either Pro Tools or Reaper.

I think Reason makes more sense for musicians who have experience with hardware mixers / instruments / effects. Perhaps younger guys who've never seen a rack of actual hardware will be confused by the interface, but if you've ever operated a physical studio or even just a modular synth setup before, you'll find Reason's interface is very intuitive and simple to use, and you can get the results you want very quickly.

I've been meaning to get a copy of Record, I still haven't tried it, but most of my music is live these days, and if I am recording it's usually for somebody else in their studio not mine.

I have no experience with a mixing stuio or anything from before, so the demo version relly scared the crap out of me. But, the more I used it, the more I understood. I never will be great at the program, but I will be able to produce some simple music in the future. I'll play with the program, **** around a little and accidentically learn new stuff, I am looking much forward to that
check this guy out... he's one of my favourite beat makers on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSE34seiABI

he's using reason, a mpc and a mini keyboard for inputs. you don't necessarily have to chop samples (depending on your creativity), but he shows the initial sample, and lays down the chops. you don't see him lay down the drum beat (it might be a drum machine, but i doubt it), but you do get to hear the final product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxt3-_8omrY

this guy also uses reason. the video is a little old now, but it should still get the idea across (this one shows the drum beat too, 808/snare). he had a website full of free beats, but it looks like he took them all down, i'm guessing he got big enough that he didn't need to sell them online.

edit: omg lol, he made a new video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHj4sF2__kw

either way, spend a couple weeks on youtube, fiddle around with the software, and don't forget to post some of your work here for our critiques.

i'd love to get into making music, but i don't have a decent enough computer, nor the room for a "studio" setup.
Thanks for the tips and infos

About studio, lol, well I have a computer, speakers and a guitar, that's my "great" studio, the pc is even a laptop with the crappiest mouse attached

But, I will try to make various riffs, post them here, and then beeing laughed at by you guys, I guess it's the only way to learn
I use Nuendo/Cubase for audio related stuff.
Quote from The Very End :With the program it also followed a input device, which again is plugged into the computer by an USB port. As far as I know / understood, it's pretty descent



I have no experience with a mixing stuio or anything from before, so the demo version relly scared the crap out of me. But, the more I used it, the more I understood. I never will be great at the program, but I will be able to produce some simple music in the future. I'll play with the program, **** around a little and accidentically learn new stuff, I am looking much forward to that

You actually don't need a MIDI interface or other input device next to mouse and keyboard to make sounds happen. You can just click notes on a grid and you can lock them to a beat so everything is perfectly synced. Some music theory is helpful so that you understand what kinda makes a rhythm work but it's really very simple. Punching MIDI notes live with an interface takes some patience and usually quantasizing notes to align better with the grid but can make the rhythm sound more natural if you got the chops.

Also the cord pulling and experimenting is most of the fun with Reason. Load a rack full of strange stuff and make weird connections. Pull a plug and insert it to a random input or unit and you might stumble on a freaky cool sound. Super compressed drums to a reverb unit that sends both channels to a different delay units that are combined back to a gate controlling vocal track? Everything goes!
Quote from BullHorn :I use Nuendo/Cubase for audio related stuff.

What are the strong and what are the bad sides with those two programs? What they do compared to Reason?

Quote from spankmeyer :You actually don't need a MIDI interface or other input device next to mouse and keyboard to make sounds happen. You can just click notes on a grid and you can lock them to a beat so everything is perfectly synced. Some music theory is helpful so that you understand what kinda makes a rhythm work but it's really very simple. Punching MIDI notes live with an interface takes some patience and usually quantasizing notes to align better with the grid but can make the rhythm sound more natural if you got the chops.

Also the cord pulling and experimenting is most of the fun with Reason. Load a rack full of strange stuff and make weird connections. Pull a plug and insert it to a random input or unit and you might stumble on a freaky cool sound. Super compressed drums to a reverb unit that sends both channels to a different delay units that are combined back to a gate controlling vocal track? Everything goes!

I am really looking forward to play around with it I think I have an advantage when it comes to rhytms. I have played in band as guitarist, and I played 6 years instrument in what we call here in Norway "Korps", played an instrument called Baritone.

So rhytms I think I will be able to create, but I will need to work on my immagination, learning to see posibilities and such. Ahhhhhh, I want to fiddle around and just make riffs, cool beats and then add some cheesy guitar sounds over lol!
Quote from spankmeyer :You actually don't need a MIDI interface or other input device next to mouse and keyboard to make sounds happen. You can just click notes on a grid and you can lock them to a beat so everything is perfectly synced.

that's a pain in the ass.
Quote from spankmeyer :Also the cord pulling and experimenting is most of the fun with Reason. Load a rack full of strange stuff and make weird connections. Pull a plug and insert it to a random input or unit and you might stumble on a freaky cool sound. Super compressed drums to a reverb unit that sends both channels to a different delay units that are combined back to a gate controlling vocal track? Everything goes!

Especially wiring random shit into the step sequencer.
Quote from thisnameistaken :Especially wiring random shit into the step sequencer.

Let's start dumping crazy stuff here. Pics of our racks' asses too.
Haha, I know close to nothing about the wiring stuff, but a friend of mine showed me how it worked some time back. Alltho I did not understand anything, he accomplished all kinds of strange sounds by plugging the cables everywhere.
Sorrrreehhh for bump, but I though it would be better posting in this topic instead of ruining a other (I am not drunk for a change)

So, I have had like no time at all to play with this program, but got some hours here and there, and basically just have been fooling around.
I don't know jack shit, so I basically just add guitar, then som borring rhytm drums.. eventually I hope to understand the drums more.
Luls.. at first I though it was somewhat easy to just make a standard drumbeat, but.. I was horrible wrong
I don't like the rhytms that are in the various drum machines in Reason, so I just add some rhytm drum notes in the songs.

Well, I canot even call it songs, for now it is just random riffs put togheter in a horrible mess... still I used like a good 3 hour just to create this misserable dog shit song I have attached.
Any inputs and advices? The guitar(s) are very raw material and I have not had the time making a good riff and the drums.. well pretend they are not there!

I need to be more creative... ****, any way to get creative without taking drugs? :/

Oh forgot the crapfest, link here:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CIC1LWU1

Edit: LOLS? 20mb?! What the hell have I done wrong now... well.. lols...
Seriously?! A thread made by TVE with a title "learning and using reason" and there are no puns, jokes and public humiliation? Instead there are helpful on topic comments... By Spankmeyer and Kev?! What has become of this forum?
Lol
well, it's soon 2012 so...

FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG