Messing Around with Reason

-or what to do when you don't have composition ideas of your own...
-or random Reason ruminations...

It's a blast to hunt for MIDI files on the web (there are TONS of them) and dump them into Reason.  That is when the fun begins.

Most of the time the tracks aren't labeled, so you haven't got a clue as to what instrument to assign. 

Think of it as detective work.  I dump a bunch of tracks and sit in the car doping out what might work where.  Reason doesn't support a General MIDI drum kit, so I remap all of the notes - I am CERTAIN that I am not hearing what the person who created the file did, but hey, that is fun of it.

Reason can be intimidating, but it is more than a single instrument.  It is also a sequencer, a mixer and FX.  It works stand-alone with nothing else if you wish.

Reason will connect well to a host or work on its own.  When you have a tune where you want it in Reason you can dump it out to an audio file - just make sure you have a few extra measures so the reverb tails (and any other sustained sounds) have a chance to die out.

Reason can be driven by any MIDI controller which will "talk to" Apple's "Audio MIDI Setup" in OSX.

If you want tons of instruments with all kinds of different sounds - LIVE, Reason is the right (inexpensive) choice.  Most other softsynth solutions are relative processor hogs - Reason is not.  With Reason I rarely get above 50% on the CPU meter in the reason transport module and that is on my 800Mhz TiBook (my tower barely wakes up).

Reason slanted more towards techno, trance... none of which I do.  I am more of a jazz fellow (small "j") and it still works just fine.

Reason has tons of knobs and tweaks, but you don't HAVE to use them to get good stuff out of either.  In Reason I rarely do anything other than load a patch into one of the modules (I use the sample players almost exclusively along with ReDrum). 

Getting Reason to play with DP is a bit work, because of ReWire, but it is not all that tough once you get the hang of it.

For me, where Reason shines is as a stand alone instrument.  From your experience in school you should know that Reason will plug a new module into the mixer for you.  If you have a module highlighted and you add an FX (comp, delay...) it will be added in line after the highlighted module.  With care you might never have to flip the rack around to add or move patch cables.  The sequencer is not quite as friendly as DPs, but then I am used to DP.

The thing to remember with Reason is that what you see is what you get.  There is almost nothing in the menus.  Add modules, Edit functions and the all important "Change Events" are about all there is to it.  The controls are there for you to tweak right in the rack, AND you can automate just about everything.

For a MIDI controller, have a look at the Oxygen and Ozone.  Make SURE you talk with Ted Hunter x1397 (or your personal sales engineer if you already have one) to find out if these will work with your OS and CPU.  M-Audio has an iffy reputation on the Mac side.  These are USB devices, but sometimes they won't work with the application and or OS.  The Oxygen will also work via MIDI if I remember correctly, but CHECK - this is not an area of current knowledge for me.  The allure of these units is that they are small, self powered (for Oxygen only), and they have more than just keys and pitch wheel.  This will allow you to control more than just which note and when.  I believe you can map the knobs on these to control various stuff within Reason - very cool. 

Mousing for everything is a drag - I have a Mackie Control for DP, for this very reason.
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