Reason 5 and Record 1.5 finally revealed
So what´s new:
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-Hat
This 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.
Noise
Adds 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.
Reason 5 released today and celebrated yesterday with…
… a massively big drum machine
Not content with merely releasing two of 2010’s biggest bits of music making software this week, Propellerhead Software has given MusicRadar a sneak look at its latest mind-bending project – a mammoth drum machine.
The gargantuan beat maker is like a strange hybrid of a midi-controller and one of those dance mat games you find in arcades. From what we can tell, it appears to utilise Propellerhead’s Kong Drum Designer, one of the highlights of the company’s new Reason 5 DAW.
Exploring Blocks in Reason 5
This official Propellerhead tutorial takes a look at using Blocks in Reason 5 and Record 1.5.
In this microtutorial we’ll build up a track – starting from an 8 bar loop – and ending with a full song structure all thanks to Blocks, the pattern-based workflow feature in Reason 5 and Record 1.5.
Blocks is a quick way to brainstorm, experiment, arrive at an idea and take it to the next level of arrangement and production.
Deeper insights into Reason 5
In this two part video Propellerhead guru James Bernard discusses some of the finer points of the new Propellerhead Reason 5 and Record 1.5 features.
In the first part, ‘Kong’, ‘Blocks’, ‘Dr OctoRex’ and ‘Live Sampling’ get the once over.
In part 2, Bernard looks at Neptune.
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 will be released on August 25th
Here’s what they have to say:
OK, so we have finally made Golden Masters of Reason 5 and Record 1.5. These were sent over to Austria for duplication yesterday. Things are looking good and the Stampfer machine is rolling along in true Austrian fashion. My guess is that we manage to give the good people over there a new emotional connotation to the word “checksum”.
I would like to thank all the stars that were aligned in zenith and the goat whose intestine are now spread around my keyboard as scarifies to the gods.
25th August is when the official release will take place for Reason 5 and Record 1.5. This is also when you will be able to download the demo of these precious babies. Or to quote every single release in the musical instrument industry “This will change everything” (again).
Reason 5 – micro tutorial on sampling
If it was good for Trevor Horn, The Beastie Boys, and pretty much every pioneering producer in the last 30 years… then it’s good for us too. Live Sampling is back in Reason 5 and Record 1.5. But before you start pitching your burp noises up 3 octaves we thought we’d teach you the basics of the process.
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.
Taking a closer look at The KONG from Propellerheads
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
DATAMASKIN
