Walk around the Thor step sequencer
Propellerhead guru James Bernard takes a look at Reason’s Thor step sequencer, in the latest of his weekly series of tips for Reason + Record:
Have you ever loaded up a really neat Thor Step Sequencer patch that sounds great? Have you then done all sorts of automation to make it behave the way you want it to in your track? Well in this week’s tip I’ll show you how to tame the Thor Step Sequencer so you can trigger it, transpose it, and use note on/off messages from a controller to “play” the pattern exactly how you want.
You can view the full series on Propellerhead’s YouTube channel.
Link:
Random audio madness in Reason
The RAM (Random Audio Madness) system is a modular synthesis system used within Reason 4 or Reason+Record 1.0 and above where you can load your own sounds, and then process them through a series of effects that resemble insanity in a can. Enable or disable any effect, and then shape the sound using the other rotaries and buttons.
Reason 5 KONG intro
Propellerheads continues to deliver nice demos for Reason 5, here’s the KONG
Has music just not sounded the same to you since Miami Vice went off the air? Then you’re in luck! The synth drums in Kong bring analog drum sounds back to your music. Most analog sounds these days are sampled, meaning the sound you load is the sound you’ve got. In this micro tutorial you’ll see how easy it is to make wonderfully tweakable analog synth drums and assign them to your pads
Reason 5: Get to know Octo Rex
The new Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player lets you load up to 8 REX loops into a single player but it’s so much more than that. This tutorial gets you up close and personal with the machine that will redefine how you use REX loops in your production.
Behind the Props
This official video is pretty glossy, but it does offer some interesting insight into Propellerhead Software and the origins of ReBirth, Reason & Record.
Seeing the precursors to ReBirth is especially interesting.
The second half of the video turns into a fairly standard promo for Reason 5 and Record 1.5.
Via ST
How big a Reason fan (nerd) can you be…
I love Reason, but this far, don’t think so…
CycleOn with Reason
Although not a brand new release the Cycle on from peff is a real treat (free to all reg Reason users at Propellerhead)
CycleOn is a real-time playback system for ReCycle REX loops. This combinator based instrument patch is designed to create live performance and DJ Style effects using Propellerhead Software Record + Reason 4.0 (both applications are required).
The main features of CycleOn include Tempo Synchronized Loop Playback; crossfading between two loops; auto-synchronized start and stop; loop start re-triggering effects; delay based audio juggling; a dual stage beat repeater effect; and one-click effect initiator buttons. The controls are programmed for use in a live situation, and when used in conjunction with a control surface, CycleOn patches form the foundation of a compelling performance piece.
Final teaser from Propellerhead’s on Reason 5 – The Kong
So we have come to the end of the week and we are treated with yet another appetizers before the new release of Reason 5 and Record 1.5
This time they have taken control over – THE KONG
Are we surprised, not really, this is also something that has been floating around as rumors for some time and many have asked for:
Analog synthesis, physical modeling, sampling, REX loops, support sound generators, effects, flexible routing, multiple hit types and more. The Kong Drum Designer is not your regular drum module. It’s the drum module focused on letting you get exactly that drum sound you’re after.
Kong has 16 pads and 16 drums. Build your drum sounds based on any of the nine different drum modules. Flavor the sound with 11 support generators and effects. Program automation, create alternating groups and let Reason’s powerful sequencer control the beat.
Reason 5 ships with a sound bank with a generous supply of kits for Kong across a wide variety of styles.
(Click to enlarge)
Modules at a glance
Synth Bass Drum
From hard knocking kicks to long booming ones, the analog modeling kick drum can do them all.
Synth Snare
The synth snare drum is based on tone, harmonic and noise. Short and snappy or long and noisy. You decide.
Synth Hi-HatThis module has four different hit types that can be spread out across the pads: closed, semi-closed; semi-open or open.
Synth Tom Tom
If your fondest memories in life include a musical backdrop of those ubiquitous tom tom breaks in 80s ballads, then this module will make your eyes misty. With its range of settings, this module can produce a wide selection of percussion sounds.
Physical Bass Drum
Built on physical modeling, this module generates organic sounding kicks with flexible settings for tuning, size, beater characteristics and more.
Physical Snare Drum
This module has four hit types (center, position 1, position 2 and edge) to generate a very natural sounding snare drum. It comes with settings for snare tension, bottom and top pitch and more.
Physical Tom Tom
This model has settings for size, tuning, stick and more, making it capable of sounding like a wide range of tom tom-like drums.
Sample player
The NN-Nano is a multi-layered sampler & sample player that lets you build drum sounds by layering samples. You can create layered sounds or use velocity settings to create velocity switching between samples.
REX player
Nurse REX is an extremely versatile loop player. You can use it to trigger an entire loop from a pad, in sync of course, or use it to play a selected slice only. You can assign one loop across several pads and set the REX player to trigger chunks of slices – still in sync: instant breakbeat bliss!
Support Generators
The support generators can be added after the drum module in the signal flow. They can add noise or tone to the sound if you need a little extra to get the sound you’re after.
NoiseAdds noise to the sound.
Tone
Adds tone – from the lowest sub to ear-piercing high notes.
Effects
Kong comes with a selection of nine effect modules to help you shape your sound. Being Reason, you can of course also route external effects into Kong, or use Kong as an effect module.
Sampling in Reason 5 – Day 4
Remember the time when samples were something you sampled and not loaded from your hard drive? When a sampler was a machine that could record samples, not just play them back.
As samplers became software instead of machines, they came to rely on external sample editing software for recording and editing the samples and the art of spur-of-the-moment creative sampling was pretty much lost. Now we are bringing it back to Reason 5 with its live sampling input.
All sample players in Reason are now samplers. Just hook up a sound source to the rack’s sampling input and you are ready to start sampling. Use a mic, a turntable, an instrument or the entire Reason mix.
Sampling in Reason is simple and straightforward. Hit the sample button and Reason starts sampling. Reason will detect the sample start automatically. You can sample when Reason in running too if you like – no need to stop the music.
If needed, bring up the built-in sample editor to set start and end points, loop points and more. This is possible for all loaded samples by the way – not only the ones you have sampled.
As always, Reason lets you focus on music making – and sampling in this case. All samples are neatly stored in our song file and accessible in the new samples pane in the tool window. Here you can easily see what samples are loaded into what machine and delete and export samples as you wish.
Live sampling together with pitch detection of root key and automatic zone mapping makes it dead easy to sample an instrument and map the samples across the keyboard. This way you’ll create your own multi-sampled instruments for NN-XT and NN-19 in an instant.
Live sampling – coming in Reason 5.
Propellerhead Reason 5 – Day 3 teaser
Continuing from yesterday here we have yet another teaser from Propellerhead on their upcoming release of version 5 of Reason and updated Record.
Getting a vocal performance right means so much more than hitting the right notes at the right time. Sometimes you get that almost perfect performance with perfect feel and presence, but the singer might have missed a few notes. That’s when Neptune can save the day. Neptune is an advanced pitch adjuster, audio transposer and voice synth for Record 1.5.
As a pitch adjuster, Neptune will fine tune the pitch of an audio track to help getting your vocal performances just right. Neptune will fix the flat notes with an unbelievable audio quality . You can select a root key and a scale that you want to correction to use, or create a scale that fits your song. And, yes. By cranking the pitch adjustment settings to the max, you can get that effect sound too.
Neptune is also a natural sounding audio transposer. This is a great help if you ever needed to change the key of a song that’s already been recorded.
Perhaps the most creative-sparking function in Neptune is the voice synth. Play your MIDI keyboard and Neptune will create new harmonies from your vocal tracks in real time, or use it without the original voice to completely change the melody of the song. Endless creative options!
DATAMASKIN
