How do I get started

[outbackyak]

Well, it is technically possible to use Reactor (one of the component programs in Komplete 7) to compose music, but it's not what it was really intended for. To get full use out of the whole Komplete 7 bundle you definitely need a host sequencing program.

That link didn't work for me, but I found it by searching for the name. This isn't really a beginners guide to Reason exactly - it's more for a person who knows a bit already but wants to go further. It does give some good insight into the sort of stuff you can do though. But you don't have to work this way if you don't want to.

Reason (and most other sequencing programs), allow you to enter data in a number of ways. You can play it in live using a controller like a MIDI/USB keyboard or drum pads (what the guy in the video was doing), or you can enter the data by hand with a mouse into what's known as "the piano roll" view.

In Reason you can also use step sequencing similar to the way the drums work in the iMS-20. You can do this directly with the ReDrum device for drums, but not directly for Kong (another drum machine) as it doesn't have a step sequencer built in.

There's a couple of workarounds for step sequencing Kong, though - you can step-program the pattern into Redrum and use the gate outputs plugged from Redrum to trigger the Kong. It works fine, but you have to do a little manual wiring, and since Kong has 16 pads while Redrum has only 12 you'll need two Redrums to do it for all the pads on Kong.

Or you can use another device called the Matrix Pattern Sequencer in exactly the same way, but you'll need 16 of them as the Matrix only has one gate output (you can also step program synths and samplers the same way, or alternatively the Thor synth has its own step sequencer and you can use the gate and CV outputs form Thor to step program any of the other synths or samplers).

But there's a third drum machine in Reason called Dr OctoRex, which lets you play special audio loops called .rex loops. Reason comes with lots of .rex loops (I'm not sure how many - several thousand anyway, and you can buy more or there a legal free ones on the net). And you don't have to program these at all - you just load in the .rex drum loop and you can sequence it in a variety of ways.

You can load 8 loops in each Dr OctoRex, and they don't have to be just drum loops - there are also instrument .rex loops, like guitar, bass & synth loops. It's possible to build a whole track this way. Dr OctoRex also provides powerful tools for editing how the loop sounds on playback, and it will automatically time stretch the loop so it can play back at different tempos from the original recording. You can also change the pitch of each slice of the .rex loop, so if it's an instrument loop you can change the melody completely, while keeping the same rhythm, and if you want to you've also got complete control of the rhythm as well.

Watch this intro to Dr OctoRex to get a feel for what it can do - it really is just about as easy as the vid makes it out to be. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmWCOrvFdRo It can do a lot more than is shown here, but it covers the basics reasonably well.

[buggs1a]

outbackyak,

Thank you so very much.You have no idea how much I appreciate you and the others for chiming in here.

I'm on my imac now and have some news for you and everyone else.

I just tried Reason 5 seriously for the first time. I think it's a huge app and extremely complex for a newb like me. Just meaning there's a lot to the app. So much it can do.

Well I made a drum beat with the ReDrum step sequencer and recorded it in Garabeband using the imacs speakers turned all the way up. Reason demo won't save. I just used 2 sounds is all. I think I used the hip hop kit, but not sure. I am going to upload it to my soundcloud and would appreciate your feedback. I just mean for if it sounds cool sort of or if I seem to know what I'm doing at all, even though that's extremely basic.

I have 3 other songs I'm going to upload too. 1 is from Garageband and one from the demo of live and the other from, hmm, now I forget lol. Oh yeah, iSequence lol. Brain froze there for a second. It's 4:17am PST Wednesday and I'lm going to bed in a bit. I took one song and just made a basic beat and exported as wav I think to the imac. I exported it as midi too, but it's just piano which I don't understand about export as midi gives a piano only.

I have experience so far only with sequencing my sounds. So a 16 step whatever it is called. That's all I know so far. Click where you want the sounds to go. I don't know if Garageband has this, but it does have I think, a piano roll, no idea though really nor do I know how to use it to place sounds. Piano roll is the piano on the left and you have on the right like where each note or sound goes?

Anyhow I liked Reason from the beat that I made in ReDrum, except I'm not sure in each drum kit if there's only the 6-10 sounds or whatever. From looking at it the 20 minutes right now, it looks like something I could learn if I gave it some effort.

[buggs1a]

http://soundcloud.com/buggs1a

Ok, I've updated my soundcloud with the 4 new tracks. Remember this is all just figuring things out in the software. The 4 new tracks are the 4 most top ones. The names are:

Reason 5 drum test
Test 1 Jan 3 2011
My Song
My Song 3

I like this because I can use soundcloud as a blog for my music, Most all is going to be basic for a while still of course.

I'll fiddle with Korg more and more as time goes by and upload from it. I love how it can upload to soundcloud from within the app. I wish all other music apps did that. Even mac or pc ones, not just ipod or ipad.

[X-Trade]

You've got the right idea!

I thought "My Song 3" was fairly good actually. Shame about the sound quality though obviously, but they don't all sound that bad.

[buggs1a]

How do I have the right idea?

Soundcloud is dead right now. Can't get home page to load nor the soundcloud iPod app works.
I tried to listen again to what I uploaded.
Ok site worked finally.

[outbackyak]

Yes - I agree. My Song 3 sounds pretty good. What program did you use to make it?

The Redrum beat has poor sound quality, but that's to be expected seeing that you had to record it through speakers.

****************************************************
A Reason/ReDrum mini-tutorial

Whenever you start a song in Reason, the first thing you want to do is create a Mixer 14:2 from the create menu - now create a ReDrum, and it will automatically wire itself into the 1st channel of the mixer. Now you've got control over the volume much easier than without the mixer.

Any new instrument device that you create will automatically wire itself into the next available mixer channel. (If you hit Tab, the rack flips around and you can see the red cables going from the outputs of the Redrum into the inputs of Channel One in the Mixer. We won't mess with this right now, but it's this cabling system that lets you create some amazing sound possibilities with Reason that are much harder to do in most sequencers. You've got almost total control of signal flow, both of sound outputs and CV and Gate outputs - I spend most of my time dreaming up new ways of patching things together rather than actually making music. As a really basic example: at the moment the Redrum is connected to a single stereo channel of the mixer which is fine; but if you want to you could disconnect this and wire each individual drum sound to its own channel - then you could process each channel differently. You might want a lot of reverb on the snare, but none on the kick for example)

About loading sounds in Reason and Redrum. Each drum kit in Redrum has up to 10 sounds (I said 12 in my last post - oops!). You can load in new kits from the button in the bottom left of the Redrum UI directly below the kit name in the red print. The button is the central one of 3 that has a little folder icon.

Click on this and it should take you straight to the Reason ReDrum Drumkits folder where you can check out all the other kits. You can't audition them before you load them unless you have a controller keyboard or similar connected to Reason via USB or MIDI, but they load pretty quick. Once its loaded you can audition each sound - at the very top of each ReDrum channel there are three white buttons - the right one has a little right-pointing triangle. Click this to hear the drum sound for each channel.

If you don't like a particular drum sound in a kit you can load an individual sound into any one of the 10 channels. Click on the Select button for the sound you want to change, then click on the folder icon at the top of the channel - that takes you to the folder the current sound is in, you can choose a new one from the same folder, or navigate to a different folder if you want to change the sound from say a snare to a crash cymbal.

Pretty much all the sample based instruments in Reason use this system, but the things like the NN-XT sampler are more complex.

*****************************************************
About using the step sequencer in Redrum: for each step of the pattern you can set one of three volume levels, soft, medium & hard. If you just click on the step you get medium. Shift-click gives hard. Alt-click (PC) or Option-click (Mac) gives soft. So you can make your drum patterns more dynamic this way.

Once you've programmed a pattern you can make new patterns on the same Redrum (up to 32 patterns per Redrum, in 4 banks of 8 ) which you can select using the buttons numbered 1-8 and A-D which are just to the left of the step sequencer buttons. If you like you can copy your 1st pattern and paste it to a new pattern where you can modify it. Make sure the Redrum is selected (it will have a blue line around it) Command-C to copy the current pattern, select the next pattern with the buttons and Command-V to paste it. Then edit the new pattern to make it slightly (or very) different to your first pattern.

Now you've got a few different patterns you can record pattern changes in the sequencer. If the ReDrum is selected the track is already armed for recording. To record pattern changes set the Redrum to the first pattern you want (probably A1, the first one you made). Hit the Record button in the Transport bar and it will start recording. Now click on a different pattern - 2 - and as soon as Reason gets to the next bar it will change to the new pattern (so you need to hit the button slightly before you want it to change). Keep on doing this with your different patterns for 8 bars, and then hit stop.

Now is a good time to change the how Reason looks. At the moment the sequencer is attached to the bottom of the rack. It's small and hard to work with. Cilck the Window menu button in the main menu area at the top. Now click "Detach Sequencer Window" and Reason splits into two parts - a window for the rack and a window for the sequencer. Much bigger and easier to work with. You can always change back the same way.

Hit 1 on your number pad to take you back to the start of the track. In the Transport bar hit the Loop button so it lights up blue. Now your 8 bars will loop continuously (that's assuming that you haven't moved the left or right loop indicators in the Sequencer - the black vertical lines with the "L" and "R" flags on them).

You can edit the patterns that you've recorded; look at the track for the ReDrum - there are little blue boxes labelled A1 or A2 or whatever. If you click on one you'll see that the pattern has a little black triangle pointing down. Click on this and it will give you a list of all the patterns which you can choose from.

You can also shorten or lengthen the pattern. Say you meant to do two bars of A1 but you've accidentally done three. Click on the pattern to select it and there are two arrows that point left and right. Click on the right arrow, drag to the left and it will shorten by a bar. This now leaves you with a gap one bar long and if you play it back that gap will just be silence - probably not what you want.

You can either select the next pattern and lengthen it to fill the space by grabbing the left arrow and dragging left, or if you don't want to use this pattern you can draw a new pattern in. Hit "W" on your keyboard. The arrow selection tool turns into a pencil tool. Draw in a new pattern, and then select which pattern you want this to be in exactly the same way you did before. Make sure you hit "Q" on your keyboard to re-select the selection tool first - you can't select with the pencil tool.

You can't layer one pattern on top of another - if you do, it will just play whichever is on top, not both at once. If you do want to layer drum sounds, just create a new ReDrum with its own lane.

That's a very basic intro to using patterns with ReDrum. I rarely use them myself - I prefer to draw the pattern directly into the piano roll because it gives you greater control of volume and timing, but this doesn't suit everybody.

********************************************************
Other programming methods. You can also create the pattern in Redrum, but instead of using the pattern selection method I've outlined you can copy the pattern directly to the piano roll using the "Copy Pattern to Track" item from the main drop down menu for the Redrum (that's right click for Windows - I'm not sure what the Mac command is).

If you do this make sure you position the loop markers around the bar(s) you want the pattern to be copied to, or it will fill up the whole 8 bars of the loop with 1 pattern. You move the loop markers by dragging the "L" or "R" flags - they'll snap to each bar line when you drag them (you can change this snap feature to smaller lengths like quarter notes and eighth notes if you want to, but for now I'd stay with 1 bar).

Now if you look at the track lane you'll see a new clip in a separate lane just above the pattern lane. That's the pattern you've copied to the track. Double-click the new pattern and the sequencer will shift from Song mode to Edit mode and you'll see the pattern laid out in the piano roll with each drum hit in it's own mini-lane, labelled with the name of the drum sample at the left. (This is a special piano roll view just for the Redrum - the piano roll for instruments looks quite different and works very differently).

The hits are displayed as orange and red square or rectangles (light orange = soft; orange = medium; red - hard). If they aren't coloured but instead are grey double-click in the pattern to make them change.

At the moment you can't move them around because snap is set to 1 bar. This means the minimum you can move a hit is 1 bar. So if you want to edit them you need to change the Snap setting in the drop down box at the top of the sequencer page.

It's set to "Bar" at the moment; change it to 1/16. Now you can move the hits around and they will snap to 16th notes. You can move them left to make them sound earlier, right to make them sound later. You can move them up or down - now they will play a different drum sound.

You can select multiple hits to move too - not just one. Hold Control and click each hit you want to select - they will turn brown to show you they are selected. Let go of Control and click on any of the brown hits - now you can move them around as a group, and they will maintain their horizontal and vertical spacing (if you don't let go of Control it won't move the notes when you drag - instead it will copy them as you drag). Or you can click and draw a selection rectangle around the hits you want to select.

You can also write in new hits with the pencil tool "W". You can delete notes with delete on your keyboard, or with the eraser tool ("E" on your keyboard). Remember to hit "Q" again to get the selection tool back.

If you look below the hits you'll see a lane marked "Velocity" with vertical orange or red bars. That's where you can adjust individual volume for each hit - the higher the bar the louder the hit. Editing this can be tricky if there are multiple hits on the same beat - the easiest way I've found is to move the note to an empty beat, change the length of the vertical bar, then move the hit back.

If you want to play the beat that you've been working on make sure you turn off the "Enable Pattern Selection" button on Redrum - it's a square orange light. If you don't it will play the pattern that you've programmed plus the pattern that is selected on ReDrum and it will sound very weird.

To get out of Edit mode and back to Song mode click the "Song" button in the top left corner of the sequencer window.

******************************************************
One last thing - the drum sounds are pretty dry. Lets make them sound a little more lively. Click on the Mixer (not the Redrum) and create an RV7000 Advanced Reverb device. It will wire itself into the 1st auxiliary send & return of the Mixer. Now gradually increase the top red knob in the 1st mixer channel - and you'll hear the reverb level gradually increase.

A little reverb goes a long way, especially on drums, so don't wind it up full; somewhere between 20 and 40 is probably plenty with the default reverb patch. Sounds much nicer now doesn't it? And you can change the reverb patch too if you want using the folder button on the RV7000.

There are patches designed specifically for drums as well as lots of other ones and special effects like weird echoes. If the loop is playing while you check out the patches you can audition each patch by single-clicking on it. Double-click to select the one you want - you may have to change the send level with the red knob to get the level right now you've changed the patch.

[buggs1a]

Dang man! Lol.

Yep. The sound is bad on a couple because I used the Mac speakers and the mic to record.

I used GarageBand with a few loops on the song 3. The reason the last bit is only the main drum beat is because I was thinking about adding more stuff to it a little bit.

I don't like one thing about loops. They're so repetitive. So I'm not sure what to add to a song that has the same sound/instrument. Like the bass had only 2 or 3 different loops so I used them and arranged them. I wanted more so it wouldnt be so repetitive. The piano like sound only had that 1 loop or if it had another it didn't fit the one I used.

When I open GarageBand after Reason it says something about rewire and how I need to open GarageBand first.

My hope is that I'll be able to use the Korg a bit more and export some stuff but I guess sometimes I'm lazy or something to turn on my iPad. Although if the new iPad 2 has a much better screen and resolution this should change.

[buggs1a]

I just thought of something. I need speakers, so what are some good speakers? I'm not wanting computer speakers, but like what I see in magazines how they look like normal speakers, not pc speakers.

[outbackyak]

Yes, that's the trouble with loops - they are repetitive, and everybody has the same ones (at least if they are the ones that come with the program). And getting them to match up with other loops can be very difficult. Even if they are in the right key and match your chords, the feel/rhythm/groove can be completely different. It's not impossible to overcome this, but it can be a lot of work.

Reason has some tools for getting loops to work (most other sequencers offer similar features, and can use .rex loops too). The .rex files I mentioned earlier aren't just loops. Each file has been sliced into segments so that every drum hit or note is in its own segment.

That means you can change the tempo easily over quite a wide range before it starts sounding weird - The segments are played faster or slower in rhythm, but they aren't time stretched. Also you can edit each slice indivually - suppose the loop is fine but one note is playing the wrong pitch - you can pitch that slice up or down to get it in tune with your track. You can play the slices in any order you like, so you can completely change the loop and make it your own, not just what everybody else has.

Or a drum beat might be fine, but the feel isn't quite right for your track - you can change the timing for each individual slice so it has the same feel as your other tracks. Sounds like a lot of work, but actually it isn't as Reason has a feature called the ReGroove mixer which allows you to impose a groove onto a .rex loop or any other MIDI data - it's very useful for making your music sound more human and less robotic.

Re ReWire: yes, if you want to use GarageBand and Reason together you have to open GarageBand first and then open Reason. Just the way it works. ReWire can connect 2 programs together, but one has to be the Host and the other the Slave. Reason can only act as a Slave, not a Host (I don't know why), so in your case GarageBand is the Host, Reason is the Slave, and you have to open them in that order.

Similarly when you close them you have to close Reason first, and only then close GarageBand. Make sure you save for both programs - they keep separate files. It's a bit of a pain, and there ought to be a better way, but for now it's the best we've got.

********************************************
Re speakers: what you want is to get some powered near-field studio monitors - ones with the amp built in. You'll get a much more accurate idea of what your music sounds like than on desktop speakers or hi-fi speakers. Desktops just sound like crap, and hi-fi speakers are designed to make your music sound good, not to be accurate. You want to hear what your music really sounds like, not somebody else's idea of what it should sound like. Decent near-fields aren't designed to flatter your music - they are designed to reproduce it as accurately as possible so you know what the mix really sounds like.

What to get is another question entirely - it depends on your budget and also on what sort of music you are going to make. They range in price from a hundred dollars up to many thousands. The really cheap ones aren't any improvement over hi-fi speakers. The really expensive ones aren't affordable. NOTE: watch out! The prices quoted for nearfield monitors are often only for one speaker, not a pair.

I'm assuming you are in the US, right? So you are probably going to be looking at a minimum of US$300 for a low-cost but decent pair, up to whatever you think you can afford; you probably don't need to spend more than $500. Yes a more expensive pair will sound better, and have greater bass extension, but you pay a lot more.

Your best bet is to read reviews (by experts - not Amazon buyers) or ask questions on a forum devoted to music production like KVR. At the cheaper end some names that spring to mind as having a decent rep are KRK, M-Audio, Samson, the cheaper Mackies, etc. For dance music you wouldn't go wrong with a pair of KRK RP5G2's which got a very good review in Future Music and are quite affordable (a pair on Amazon will set you back $299 plus delivery, or if you are good for a bit more money the RP6G2 or RP8G2 - all are very well-regarded in dance music production).

Most of these makers also make more expensive models but other names start coming in like Genelec (excellent reputation, but not cheap - avoid their cheapest model - you can get better for the same price), Adam, APS, Focal, Event - but some of these are getting into really expensive territory. Many professional dance music producers use Genelecs 8030A's or Mackie HR824 mark II's but now we are talking $1300 a pair. You don't need to spend this sort of money, let alone $3000+ for a pair of Event Opals.

I've just got some inexpensive Samson Rubicon R5A monitors. They are around the US$320 price per pair, and I'm very happy with them. They aren't going to go really loud - I never monitor at really loud levels anyway - and the bass response rolls off from about 55Hz, but for the price they sound very good to my ears, especially in the upper midrange and treble. If I was going to spend more I'd spend it on acoustic treatment for my room, not on bigger speakers.

They got a storming review in Future Music Mag a few years ago, beating out more expensive monitors in blind listening tests, but they might be a bit bass-light for dance music especially if you want to hear your subs well. The KRK RP5G2's might be a better bet for you at around the same price.

In the end the only way to choose is to listen to them - preferably at a store that will let you set up a few pairs so you can A/B them. Take along a CD of your favourite music - stuff you know really well in the style that you want to make. Then listen to them all and decide.

Just make sure that when you switch from one set to the next they are all set to exactly the same perceived volume level. If one set is louder our brain almost always prefers the loud one to the quiet one.

[buggs1a]

Thanks.
Yes I'm in the US.

I installed reason 5 on my pc and connected my maudio keyboard. I used my Sony headphones which I've had since the 90s. No speakers on pc. Sounds good my phones. Good bass too.

I noticed more drummsounds with my keyboard but maybe that's cus I wasn't in redrum. I loaded some kits and each key played a drum type sound. There were more then 15 easy. Was cool.

Ok now I'm off topic but sigh. I don't wanna get warned or something.

[outbackyak]

Headphones are fine for tracking your music - I use mine a lot, partly to avoid annoying my neighbours late at night. Mixing on them isn't a good idea though, as a mix that sounds good on headphones will usually sound weird on speakers.

Hey, we've been well off-topic for quite some time - last time I looked the forum said Korg, not Propellerhead. I don't think it's a problem.

[buggs1a]

Thanks.
I just found out I can use my iPad to remote desktop to my pc and use reason. Pretty cool. Can't use all buttons though since you can't do certain things with touch. Kinda cool though.

I just wish so bad I had reason. Grr. $280 and I have to pay my mother close to $600 per month for a couple months. Grr. Kinda like I wish I had a loaner till can buy it in April. Lol.

The Korg is similar in some ways so that's kinda cool.

I wonder if I could use my maudio keyboard with the Korg, but being it's on iPad not sure if it's worth doing.

[buggs1a]

Ok. I just uploaded a new pattern called Reverb. I hope someone will let me know how it is. I just was messing around with knobs and stuff.

soundcloud.com/buggs1a

[outbackyak]

Yep, that's the idea - it's probably a bit heavy on the reverb if you were using this as your main groove (unless you are trying for an ambient feel), but it would be fine for a secondary groove with a cleaner main groove, or for a spot special effect or something like that.

One of the nice things about reverb is you can use it to give a 3D depth to your tracks. Our brain interprets heavily reverbed sounds as coming from sources that are physically further away. So if you want a sound to be upfront in the mix you would use little or no reverb, and if you want to push it further back you can use more reverb. Even if the heavily reverbed sound is quite loud our brain still thinks it's far away, so you can add a sense of depth to your track instead of just width with stereo placement.

*********************************************************

Now that you've got the hang of using a reverb send on the 14:2 Mixer on the whole of your groove you should try flipping the rack around and disconnecting the cables between the main outs of the ReDrum and Channel 1 on the mixer.

Have a look at the back of the Redrum: there are stereo out jacks for each sound, labelled 1 to 10. Connect each of these pairs of jacks to the first 10 channels of the mixer. (Just click on the top jack of channel 1 on the Redrum, and drag it to the top jack of the input to channel 1 on the mixer, and repeat this for each drum channel. It will automatically connect both the left and the right output to the mixer channel, so any panning of sound on the Redrum will still be heard through the mixer.)

Now you've got full control of the send level to the reverb for each drum, so you can have more or less reverb on each individual drum sound. Very useful - lots of reverb on a snare might sound fine, but normally you would have no reverb (or only a little) on a kick.

And since there are four auxiliary sends on the mixer you can connect another three different effects units to the mixer in exactly the same way you connected the reverb. Try adding these: 2 DDL-1 Digital Delay Lines and a Scream-4 Distortion.

Set one DDL-1 to 3 steps and turn its pan knob to around -45 (left). Set the other to 2 steps and turn its pan knob to around 45 (right).

Now if you bring up the send levels for these with the red knobs for the snare channel, you'll hear the snare being echoed to the left and the right of the main snare which is in the centre. The left echo is every three 16th notes, the right is every two 16th notes. How many repeats you hear is set by the feedback knob on each DDL-1.

Now bring up the send for the Scream-4 for the snare. You'll hear the main snare sound begin to get distorted by the Scream-4. BUT! The echoes are still clean - they aren't distorted at all. This might be exactly what you want - but it might not.

You've just discovered one of the most important things to know about auxiliary send and returns. The Auxiliaries are independent of each other; they run in parallel, not series.

If you want the distortion on the echoes but not the main sound you would wire them differently, and if you wanted to have distortion on both the echoes and the main sound you would have to wire them differently again.

Getting distortion on both is easy. Instead of using the Scream-4 as a send and return, we'll use it as an insert effect instead. An insert is where the sound is wired directly between the sound source and the mixer.

1. First, delete the original Scream-4 by clicking on it and hitting Ctrl-Delete.

2. Disconnect the snare from the mixer channel.

3. Create a brand new Scream 4 but hold down shift when you create it. This way it doesn't get any automatic wiring - you'll have to do that.

4. Drag the left output from the Snare channel on the Redrum to the left input of the Scream-4. It automatically connects the Right as well.

5. Drag the left ouput of the Scream 4 to the left input of the empty mixer channel where the snare used to be connected. It automatically connects the Right as well.

All done. Now the snare is distorted, and so are the echoes. Play around with the different distortion types and settings on the Scream 4 to see how versatile this FX unit is. The Scream 4 is usually used as an insert effect, not a send effect but it works either way - you just get different results.

********************************************************

Now for something a lot more complex:

Lets get distortion on the echoes, but not the main snare sound.

1. Turn down the Auxiliary 2 send to zero, and turn down the volume slider for the first vacant mixer channel to zero. This patch can get very loud.

2. Flip the rack around and disconnect all the connections to both DDL-1's and the Scream-4. All of them.

3. Reconnect the snare output of the ReDrum to the mixer channel it was connected to before - not the channel you just zeroed.

4. From the top Aux 2 output on the mixer, take a cable to the left input of the Scream-4. It will wire up both inputs automatically.

5. Take a cable from the left output of the Scream-4 to the left input of the 1st DDL-1. It will automatically connect the right input as well - you don't want this, so:

6. Take this jack out of the right input and drag it to the left input of the other DDL-1 (yes, the left not the right - this way it's mono, which is what you want).

7. You could wire the outputs of the 2 DDl-1's back to the return jacks of the Aux, and then this would be a straight send and return (you would wire the left output of the first DDL-1 and the right output of the second DDL-1 to the left and right inputs of the #2 Aux return jacks on the mixer). But we aren't going to - we want a bit more control.

8. Take a cable from the left output of the 1st DDL-1 and wire it into the inputs of the first free channel on the mixer - the one you zeroed earlier.

9. It automatically wires the Right input. Again, this is not what you want, so:

10. Go down to the first DDL-1 and drag the cable from the right output over to the right output of the second DDL-1.


Whew! All done. Wind up the Auxiliary 2 send for the snare channel to maximum, start your drum loop playing and gradually increase the volume for the channel you've just created (the one that has the Scream-4 and DDL's connected to it).

Voila - distortion on the echoes, but not on the central main snare sound. But why did I do it this convoluted way instead of just wiring the DDL's back to the Aux returns?

Because this way you've got control of the drive to the distortion and independent control of the level of the effect. The Scream 4 sounds quite different if you've got a low-level input - not just quieter, but less distorted too.

So wired this way you can set the level of distortion by how you set the send knob, and still have the distorted echoes set to any volume you like. Try winding the send down to around 50 to 60 - the sound gets quieter, but it also gets less distorted, and you can adjust the volume with the return channel to whatever you want.

This is the beauty of Reason - you can create just about any wiring you want to create just about any effect you want. The signal flow is up to you. On most sequencers doing something like I've described would either be impossible or mean going through endless menus and it's hard to remember how the whole patch fits together.

In Reason you can physically trace the signal flow, and you can actually see the patch. To me that's a lot more comprehensible than drop-down menus.

Also, there are normally several different ways of achieving a desired outcome or to get a variation on the outcome. There's actually a much simpler way of doing the "distorted echoes, clean main sound" effect, but it doesn't give you the same level of control as this patch.

If you create a Combinator there's all sorts of examples of weird effects patches in the Combinator patch folder in the Effects Device Patches folder. You would wire your sound source (say the snare from a redrum for example) into the input of these. Some of these have incredibly complex routing, not just of audio as we've been doing so far, but of CV as well.

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What can you use CV for? Damn near anything! As a really basic example I could modify that last "distorted echoes, clean main sound" patch by creating a Malstrom synth with shift held down. We aren't going to use it for it's synth sound at all, so it doesn't need to be connected to the mixer. Instead we are going to use one of its LFO's to control the amount of distortion on the Scream 4.

Flip the rack around and connect a cable from the Mod A output mini-jack on the Malstrom to the Damage Control input mini-jack on the Scream 4. Seriously weird, especially if you increase the rate of the LFO on the Malstrom (it's the yellow knob in the Mod A section), or change the LFO waveform to some of the more complex ones available - drag up and down on the picture of the LFO waveform to see the 32 different waveforms available.

You can control how strong the effect is by flipping the rack around again: next to the Damage Control mini-jack is a little black trim pot. Wind it down to decrease the effect; winding it up further than half way won't make any extra difference (at least for this patch).

I can spend countless hours doing this sort of weirdness - which is why I almost never finish any actual music.

[buggs1a]

Lol. Um: I created the Reverb in the Korg.

So can I export it to pc and then use reason to do what you've suggested up ^?