Propellerhead Reason 5.0 User manual

Operation Manual

Version

5

Operation Manual by:

Fredrik Hylvander

Anders Nordmark, Scribe

The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the

part of Propellerhead Software AB. The software described herein is subject to a License Agreement and may not

be copied to any other media except as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication

may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission

by Propellerhead Software AB.

Record are trademarks of Propellerhead Software. All other commercial symbols are protected trademarks and

Copyright notice for Adobe® Flash® Player:

pending in the United States and other countries. Adobe and Flash are either trademarks or registered trademarks

in the United States and/or other countries.

Table of Contents

4

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 19

Welcome! 20

About this chapter 20

About this manual 20

About the Reason operating system

versions 20

Conventions in the manual 20

Common Operations and

Concepts 23

About this chapter 24

Areas, windows and basic navigation 24

Song window overview 24

The Rack 25

The Sequencer 26

The Transport Panel 27

The ReGroove Mixer 27

Using several Reason Song windows 27

The Tool Window 28

The On-screen Piano Keys window 29

General window techniques 30

Resizing 30

Scrolling 31

Zooming in the Sequencer 32

Scrolling and zooming using a wheel mouse 33

Editing parameters 34

Knobs 34

Faders and sliders 34

Buttons 35

Fold/Unfold buttons 35

Multi Mode selectors 36

Numerical controls 36

Alpha-numeric controls 37

Numerical segment displays 38

Tool Tips 39

Context menus 40

Parameter context menus 40

Device context menus 41

Rack “background” context menu 42

Sequencer context menus 42

Undo and Redo 43

On-screen Piano Keys 45

About this chapter 46

Using the On-screen Piano Keys 46

Opening the Piano Keys window 46

Mouse mode 47

Computer Keys mode 48

Audio Basics 51

About this chapter 52

How Reason communicates with your

audio hardware 52

Manual audio routing 52

Audio quality 53

Audio settings 53

About audio levels 56

General information about audio and

computers 58

About latency 58

About processors 59

About RAM 59

Mac specific information 60

About using the built-in audio inputs and outputs 60

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Sequencer Functions 61

About this chapter 62

Introduction 62

Sequencer area overview 62

Song View and Edit Mode 62

Toolbar overview 64

Track List overview 64

Tracks overview 64

Lanes overview 65

Clips overview 65

Inspector overview 65

Ruler overview 66

Edit/Arrangement Pane overview 66

Song Navigator overview 66

Transport Panel overview 66

Track details 67

Track definition 67

Master Keyboard Input 67

The relationship between tracks, lanes, clips and

events 68

Track types 69

Track List elements 70

Creating tracks 71

Selecting tracks 72

Moving tracks 72

Deleting tracks 73

Duplicating/copying tracks and devices 73

Coloring tracks 74

Naming tracks 74

Folding tracks 74

Muting tracks 75

Soloing tracks 75

Lane details 76

Note lane 76

Parameter automation lane 77

Pattern lane 78

Creating/adding lanes 78

Deleting lanes 81

Moving note lanes 83

Copying (duplicating) note lanes 83

Muting lanes 83

Clip basics 84

Clip types 84

Toolbar details 84

Toolbar tools 84

Alternate tools 87

Snap 87

Sequencer Toolbar keyboard shortcuts 88

Ruler details 89

Transport Panel details 89

Transport keyboard commands 93

About the Inspector 94

About subticks in the Position and Length displays 94

About the “Match Values” function 94

Recording in the Sequencer 95

About this chapter 96

General recording functions 96

Record enabling 96

Click and Pre-count 98

Loop mode 100

General recording procedure 100

Undoing a recording 101

Note recording details 102

Setting up the instrument track 102

Recording notes 102

Recording notes in Loop mode 102

Recording over or into an existing note clip 103

Recording notes using the “Dub” and “Alt” functions 104

Parameter automation recording

details 106

Performance controllers vs. track parameter

automation 106

Recording performance controller automation 107

Recording parameter automation into Note Clips 108

Recording performance controller automation over or

into an existing clip 108

About performance controller automation on multiple

lanes 109

Recording parameter automation 109

Recording parameter automation in Loop mode 110

6

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Recording parameter automation over or into an existing

clip 111

Adjusting automated parameters during playback - “Live

mode” 112

Recording parameter automation on multiple tracks 112

Pattern automation recording details 113

Recording pattern automation 113

Tempo automation recording 114

Recording tempo automation 114

Arranging in the

Sequencer 117

About this chapter 118

Clip handling 118

Selecting clips 118

Deleting clips 120

Resizing (masking) clips 121

About masked recordings and events 122

Tempo scaling clips 123

Moving clips 125

About overlapping clips 127

Duplicating clips 127

Cutting, Copying and Pasting clips 127

Naming clips 128

Coloring clips 128

Splitting clips 129

Joining clips 130

Muting clips 131

Merging clips on note lanes 131

Matching clips using the “Match Values” function 132

Inserting bars 133

Removing bars 134

Note and Automation

Editing 135

About this chapter 136

The Edit Mode 136

Selecting what to edit 137

Opening note and automation clips for editing 137

Edit Mode elements 139

Edit Mode window handling 141

Note Edit Modes 141

Creating empty clips 144

Tool Window editing tools 145

Note editing 146

Selecting notes 146

Deleting notes 146

Drawing notes 147

Resizing notes 149

Moving notes 152

Duplicating notes 155

Using Cut, Copy and Paste 155

Quantizing notes 156

Transposing notes 159

Extract Notes to Lanes 160

Scale Tempo 163

Editing note velocity 164

Automation editing 166

Overview 166

Editing parameter automation 166

Drawing parameter automation events 169

Deleting automation events 170

Editing performance controller automation 170

About Automation Cleanup 171

Editing pattern automation 173

Drawing pattern automation 174

Moving, resizing and duplicating pattern automation

clips 174

Deleting pattern automation clips 175

The “Convert Pattern Automation to Notes” function 175

Editing tempo automation 176

Automating time signature 176

Moving, resizing and duplicating time signature

automation clips 177

Deleting time signature automation clips 178

Note and automation editing in the

Inspector 178

Editing notes and events in the Inspector 178

Matching notes or events using the “Match Values”

function 179

7

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Working with Blocks in the

Sequencer 183

About this chapter 184

Introduction 184

The idea behind Blocks 184

Arrangement Views 185

Song View (with Blocks disabled) 185

Song View (with Blocks enabled) 186

Block View 187

Editing Blocks in the Block View 187

Selecting a Block for editing 187

Renaming Blocks 188

Defining the Block length 188

Changing Block color 188

Recording in the Block View 189

Editing clips in the Block View 189

Arranging clips in the Block View 189

Arranging Blocks in the Song View 189

Creating Block Automation Clips 189

Resizing Block Automation Clips 191

Reassigning Blocks in Block Automation Clips 191

Muting lanes in Block Automation Clips 192

Converting Block Automation Clips to Song Clips 194

Combining Block Automation Clips with Song Clips 196

Working with the Rack 199

About this chapter 200

Rack device procedures 200

Navigating in the rack 200

Resizing the rack 201

About Device Groups 201

Creating devices 203

Selecting devices 205

Deleting devices 205

Re-ordering devices 206

About the “Sort Selected Device Groups” function 208

Duplicating devices 208

Cut, Copy and Paste devices 208

Naming devices 209

Folding and unfolding devices 210

Sounds and Patches 211

About this chapter 212

About patches 212

Devices that use patches 212

Loading patches 213

Saving patches 214

Copying and pasting patches between devices 215

Initializing patches 215

About ReFills 215

Using the Browser 216

Opening the browser 217

Browser elements 218

Navigating in the Browser 222

Using Locations and Favorites 223

Favorites Lists 224

Selecting and auditioning patches 226

Selecting and auditioning samples 226

Selecting multiple files 227

Cross-browsing patch files 227

Create Instrument/Create Effect 228

About patch formats and sampler devices 229

Using the “Search” function 229

Opening files 230

About browse lists 230

Handling Missing Sounds 231

The Missing Sounds dialog 233

Reason file formats 235

Routing Audio and CV 237

About this chapter 238

Signal types 238

Audio signals 238

CV/Gate signals 238

About MIDI routing 238

8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About cables 239

Cable appearance 239

Checking and following cable connections 240

Cable color 241

Automatic routing 241

Auto-routing of Instrument devices 241

Auto-routing of Effect devices 242

Auto-routing of CV/Gate signals 242

Auto-routing devices after they have been created 242

Manual routing 243

Connecting cables 244

Connecting cables using pop-up menus 244

Disconnecting cables 245

Disconnecting devices 245

Using CV and Gate 245

Routing CV and Gate signals 245

About CV Trim knobs 246

Song File Handling 247

About this chapter 248

Opening Songs 248

Opening a Song 248

Opening the last Song at program launch 248

Closing Songs 249

Closing a Song 249

Creating Songs 249

Creating a new empty Song 249

Setting up the Default Song 249

Saving Songs 250

Saving a Song 250

Including Song Information 251

Publishing a Song 252

About Self-Contained Songs 252

A note about saving Songs as audio files 253

Importing and exporting Standard MIDI

Files 254

Importing Standard MIDI Files 254

Exporting Standard MIDI Files 255

Exporting Audio 257

About this chapter 258

Importing audio to Reason devices 258

Exporting audio 258

Exporting Songs or parts of Songs 258

Sampling 261

About this chapter 262

Overview 262

One-click sampling 262

The Edit Sample window 262

About sample format, rate and resolution 263

General sampling functions 263

Setting up for sampling 263

Sampling 265

The Sample buttons 265

Sampling procedure 265

The Song Samples tab 268

Editing samples 270

The Edit Sample window 270

Setting Sample Start and End 272

Cropping samples 274

Normalizing samples 274

Reversing samples 274

Fading in/out samples 275

Looping samples 276

Saving edited samples 278

Renaming samples 278

Sample management 279

About Assigned and Unassigned samples 279

Saving samples in a song 280

Deleting samples from a song 280

Loading samples into a device 281

Duplicating samples 282

Exporting samples 283

About self-contained samples 285

9

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The ReGroove Mixer 287

Introduction 288

ReGroove basics 288

The ReGroove Mixer 289

Global parameters 289

Channel parameters 290

Copy, Paste and Initialize ReGroove channels 294

Groove Settings 295

Working with grooves 298

Applying grooves to your music 298

Commit to Groove - making the grooves

“permanent” 301

Creating your own ReGroove patches 302

Groovy tips & tricks 303

ReGroove patches in the Reason Sound

Bank 304

Remote - Playing and

Controlling Devices 305

About the various MIDI inputs 306

About Remote 306

Setting up 307

Adding a control surface or keyboard 307

Other functions 309

Example Setups 309

Remote basics 310

About Standard vs Remote Override mapping 311

About mapping variations 311

Locking a surface to a device 312

Locking a surface 312

Unlocking a surface 314

Remote Override 315

Activating Remote Override Edit mode 315

Remote Override mapping 316

Additional Remote Overrides... 319

Assigning Additional Overrides 320

Keyboard Control 321

Enabling Keyboard Control 321

Editing Keyboard Control 321

Saving Remote Setups 322

ReWire 323

About this chapter 324

Why use Reason with ReWire? 324

Introducing ReWire! 324

In ReWire version 1 324

In ReWire 2 324

How does it work? 324

Terminology 325

About system requirements 325

About synchronization 325

Launching and quitting applications 325

Using the Transport and Tempo

controls 326

Routing audio 326

Preparations in Reason 326

Routing in the ReWire host application 327

Routing MIDI via ReWire 2 327

Converting ReWire channels to audio

tracks 328

Details about various ReWire hosts 328

10

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Synchronization and

Advanced MIDI 329

About this chapter 330

Synchronization to MIDI Clock 330

ReWire users – read this! 330

What is synchronization and MIDI Clock? 330

Slaving Reason to an external MIDI application or

instrument 330

Slaving Reason to another program on the same

computer 331

Synchronization considerations 331

Advanced MIDI - The External Control

Bus inputs 333

About the External Control Bus inputs 333

Routing MIDI to devices 334

Sending Controller data via MIDI 334

About recording Pattern Changes 334

Optimizing Performance 335

Introduction 336

Checking Processing Power 336

Optimization and Latency reduction 336

About Latency Compensation 337

Optimizing your computer system 338

Optimizing Songs 339

RAM requirements 341

Reason Hardware

Interface 343

Introduction 344

About using ReWire 345

Sampling Input section 345

Advanced MIDI Device 346

More Audio 346

The Big Meter 347

The Combinator 349

Introduction 350

Creating Combinator devices 351

Combinator elements 352

About internal and external

connections 353

About External Routing 353

Adding devices to a Combi 355

About the Insertion line 355

Creating new devices in a Combi 355

Adding devices using drag and drop 356

Adding devices using copy/paste 357

Adding a Combi to a Combi 357

Combining two Combis 357

Combining devices in a Combi with devices in the

rack 357

Combi handling 357

Moving the entire Combi 357

Moving devices within a Combi 358

Moving devices out of a Combi 358

Deleting devices in a Combi 358

Uncombining devices 358

Sequencer tracks and playing

Combis 358

The Controller panel 359

Select backdrop... 360

11

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Using the Programmer 361

Key Mapping instrument devices 362

Setting Velocity Ranges for instrument devices 363

Using Modulation Routing 364

CV Connections 367

Mixer 14:2 369

Introduction 370

The Channel Strip 370

Channel Strip Controls 371

The Mixer signal flow 372

About the EQ modes 372

The Auxiliary Return Section 373

The Master Fader 373

Connections 373

Chaining several Mixer 14:2 devices 375

The Line Mixer 6:2 377

Introduction 378

Channel parameters 378

The Auxiliary Return section 378

Master level 378

Connections 379

Subtractor Synthesizer 381

Introduction 382

Loading and Saving Patches 382

The Oscillator Section 383

Oscillator 1 Waveform 383

Setting Oscillator 1 Frequency - Octave/Semitone/

Cent 385

Oscillator Keyboard Tracking 385

Using Oscillator 2 385

Oscillator 2 Waveform 386

Noise Generator 386

Phase Offset Modulation 387

Frequency Modulation (FM) 389

Ring Modulation 390

The Filter Section 391

Filter 1 Type 391

Filter 1 Frequency 394

Resonance 394

Filter Keyboard Track (Kbd) 394

Filter 2 395

Envelopes - General 396

Amplitude Envelope 397

Filter Envelope 397

Mod Envelope 398

LFO Section 399

LFO 1 Parameters 399

LFO 2 Parameters 400

Play Parameters 401

Velocity Control 401

Pitch Bend and Modulation Wheels 402

Legato 403

Retrig 403

Portamento (Time) 403

Setting Number of Voices - Polyphony 404

About the Low Bandwidth button 404

External Modulation 404

Connections 405

Audio Output 405

Sequencer Control 405

Modulation Inputs 406

Modulation Outputs 406

Gate Inputs 406

12

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Thor Polysonic

Synthesizer 407

Introduction 408

Loading and Saving Patches 408

Thor elements 409

The Controller panel 410

Using the Programmer 412

Basic connections - a tutorial 413

The Oscillator section 416

Mix section 423

Filter slots 423

Shaper 427

Amp section 427

LFO 1 428

Envelope sections 429

Global section 430

Modulation bus routing section 432

Step Sequencer 441

Basic operation 441

Connections 445

Malström Synthesizer 447

Introduction 448

Features 448

Theory of operation 449

Loading and Saving Patches 449

The Oscillator section 450

Setting oscillator frequency 451

Controlling playback of the graintable 451

The amplitude envelopes 452

The Modulator section 453

Modulator parameters 453

Destinations 454

The Filter section 455

The Filters 456

The Filter Envelope 458

The Shaper 459

Routing 461

Routing examples 462

The output controls 465

The play controls 465

Polyphony - setting the number of voices 466

Porta (portamento) 466

Legato 466

The Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels 467

The Velocity controls 467

The Modulation wheel controls 468

Connections 469

Audio Output 469

Audio Input 469

Sequencer Control 469

Gate Input 470

Modulation Input 470

Modulation Output 470

Routing external audio to the filters 471

NN-19 Sampler 473

Introduction 474

General sampling principles 474

Background 474

Multisampling vs. single samples 474

About audio file formats 475

Loading a Sample Patch 475

Loading REX Files as Patches 476

Sampling in NN-19 476

About Key Zones and samples 477

Loading a Sample into an empty NN-19 477

Loading SoundFont samples 478

Loading REX slices as samples 478

Creating Key Zones 478

13

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Selecting Key Zones 479

Setting the Key Zone Range 479

Deleting a Key Zone 479

About Key zones, assigned and unassigned

samples 480

Adding sample(s) to a Key Map 480

Setting the Root Key 480

Removing sample(s) from a Key Map 481

Removing all unassigned samples 481

Rearranging samples in a Key Map 481

Setting Sample Level 481

Tuning samples 481

Looping Samples 482

About the Solo Sample function 482

Automap Samples 483

Mapping samples without Root Key or Tuning

information 483

How Mapping Information is saved 483

NN-19 synth parameters 484

The Oscillator Section 484

The Filter Section 485

Envelope Section 486

LFO Section 487

Play Parameters 489

Velocity Control 489

Pitch Bend and Modulation Wheels 490

Legato 490

Retrig 490

Portamento (Time) 491

Setting Number of Voices - Polyphony 491

Voice Spread 491

Low Bandwidth 491

Controller Section 491

Connections 492

Audio Outputs 492

Mono Sequencer Control 492

Modulation Inputs 492

Modulation Outputs 492

Gate Inputs 493

NN-XT Sampler 495

Introduction 496

Sampling in NN-XT 496

Panel overview 497

The main panel 497

The Remote Editor panel 497

Loading complete Patches and REX

files 498

Loading NN-XT Patches 498

Loading NN-19 Patches 498

Loading SoundFonts 498

Loading complete REX files as Patches 499

Using the main panel 500

The Pitch and Modulation wheels 500

The External Control wheel 500

High Quality Interpolation 501

Global Controls 501

Overview of the Remote Editor panel 503

The Key Map display 503

Sample parameters 504

Group parameters 504

Synth Parameters 505

About Samples and Zones 505

Selections and Edit Focus 506

Selecting Zones 507

Moving Edit Focus 509

Adjusting parameters 509

Adjusting Synth parameters 509

Adjusting Group parameters 509

Sample parameters 510

Managing Zones and Samples 511

Creating a Key Map 511

About file formats and REX slices 512

Adding more samples to the Key Map 512

Replacing a sample 512

Quick browsing through samples 513

Removing samples 513

Auditioning samples 513

Adding empty Zones 513

Duplicating Zones 513

Removing Zones 514

Rearranging Zones in the List 514

14

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Working with Grouping 514

About Groups 514

Creating a Group 514

Moving a Group to another position in the List 515

Moving a Zone from one Group to another 515

Selecting a Group and/or Zones in a Group 516

The Group Parameters 516

Working with Key Ranges 516

About Key Ranges 516

Setting up Key Ranges 516

About the Lock Root Keys function 520

About the Solo Sample function 521

Sorting Zones by Note 522

Setting Root Notes and Tuning 523

About the Root Key 523

Setting the Root Note manually 523

Tuning samples manually 523

Setting the Root Note and Tuning using pitch

detection 524

About changing the pitch of samples 524

Using Automap 524

Layered, crossfaded and velocity

switched sounds 525

Creating layered sounds 525

About velocity ranges 525

Setting velocity range for a Zone 527

About Crossfading Between Zones 527

Setting crossfading for a Zone 529

Using Alternate 529

About the Alternate function 529

Sample parameters 530

Root Note and Tune 530

Sample Start and End 530

Loop Start and End 530

Play Mode 531

Lo Key and Hi Key 531

Lo Vel and Hi Vel 531

Fade In and Fade Out 531

Alt 531

Out 531

Group parameters 532

Key Poly 532

Legato and Retrig 533

LFO 1 Rate 533

Portamento 533

Synth parameters 534

The Modulation controls 534

The Velocity controls 536

The Pitch section 537

The Filter section 538

The Modulation Envelope 539

The Amplitude Envelope 541

The LFOs 542

Connections 544

Sequencer Control 544

Modulation Input 544

Gate Input 545

Audio Output 545

Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player 547

Introduction 548

ReCycled Loops 548

About REX file formats 549

Loading and saving Dr. Octo Rex

patches 549

About the Dr. Octo Rex patch format 549

About opening songs that previously used Dr. Rex

devices 549

Playing Loops 550

Switching playback between Loop Slots 550

Adding Loops 551

Loading Loops “On the Fly” 552

Removing Loops 552

Cut/Copy and Paste Loops between Loop Slots 552

Playing individual Loop Slices 552

Creating sequencer notes 553

15

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Slice handling 556

Selecting Slices 556

Editing individual Slices 556

Editing in the Waveform Display 557

The Slice Edit Mode 558

Dr. Octo Rex panel parameters 559

Pitch and Mod wheels 559

Trig Next Loop 559

Note To Slot 559

Loop Slot buttons 560

Enable Loop Playback and Run 561

Volume 561

Global Transpose 561

Dr. Octo Rex synth parameters 562

Select Loop & Load Slot 562

Loop Transpose 562

Loop Level 563

Oscillator section 563

Mod. Wheel 564

Velocity section 564

The Filter Section 565

Envelope section 566

LFO section 567

Pitch Bend Range 568

Setting number of voices - polyphony 569

Audio Quality settings 569

Connections 570

Modulation Inputs 570

Modulation Outputs 570

Gate Inputs 570

Gate Output 570

Slice Outputs 571

Main Outputs 571

Redrum Drum Computer 573

Introduction 574

Sampling in Redrum 574

About file formats 575

Using patches 576

Loading a patch 576

Checking the sounds in a patch 576

Creating a new patch 576

Creating an empty patch 577

Programming patterns 577

Pattern basics 577

Pattern tutorial 579

Setting pattern length 580

Setting pattern resolution 581

Step dynamics 581

Pattern Shuffle 582

Flam 582

The Pattern Enable switch 583

The Enable Pattern Section switch 583

Pattern functions 584

Chaining patterns 584

Converting Pattern data to notes in the main

sequencer 584

Redrum parameters 586

Drum sound settings 586

Global settings 589

Using Redrum as a sound module 590

Connections 591

Kong Drum Designer 593

Introduction 594

Overview 594

The Pad Section 594

The Drum Control Panel 595

The Drum and FX Section 595

About using custom backdrops 595

About file formats 595

Using patches 596

Loading a Kit Patch 596

Checking the sounds in a Kit Patch 597

Creating a new Kit Patch 597

Creating an empty Kit Patch 598

Saving Kit Patches 598

16

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Pad Settings 599

Assigning Drums to Pads 599

Renaming Pads 600

Copying & Pasting Drums between Pads 600

Assigning Hit Type to Pads 600

Muting and Soloing Pads 601

Working with Pad Groups 602

The Drum and FX section 603

Signal flow 604

The Drum Control Panel 606

Sampling in Kong 608

The Drum Module slot 608

The FX slots 609

The Drum modules 610

NN-Nano Sampler 610

Nurse Rex Loop Player 614

Physical Bass Drum, Snare Drum and Tom Tom 619

Synth Bass Drum, Snare Drum and Tom Tom 621

Synth Hi-hat 622

The Support Generator modules 623

Noise Generator 623

Tone Generator 624

The FX modules 625

Using CV modulation of Bus FX and Master FX

parameters 625

Drum Room Reverb 626

Transient Shaper 626

Compressor 627

Filter 628

Parametric EQ 628

Ring Modulator 629

Rattler 630

Tape Echo 630

Overdrive/Resonator 631

Connections 632

Sequencer Control 632

Modulation Input 632

Aux Send Out 632

Gate In and Out 633

Audio Out 3-16 633

Main Audio Out 633

Using Kong as an effect device 633

Using external effects with Kong 634

The MClass Effects 635

The MClass effects 636

The MClass Mastering Suite Combi 636

The MClass Equalizer 637

The MClass Stereo Imager 638

The MClass Compressor 639

The MClass Maximizer 642

RV7000 Advanced Reverb 643

The RV7000 Advanced Reverb 644

Reverb algorithms and parameters 646

The EQ section 652

The Gate section 653

CV Inputs 654

Scream 4 Sound Destruction

Unit 655

Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit 656

Parameters 656

CV inputs and outputs 660

Screamy tips and tricks 661

17

TABLE OF CONTENTS

BV512 Vocoder 663

Introduction 664

How does a vocoder work? 664

Setting up for basic vocoding 665

Vocoding vocals in real-time 665

Using the BV512 as an equalizer 667

BV512 parameters 668

Connections 670

Automation 671

Tips and tricks 672

Choosing a carrier sound 672

Choosing a modulator sound 673

Using the modulator as carrier 674

Controlling the Hold function 675

Using the individual band level connections 675

“Playing” the vocoder from a MIDI keyboard 677

Using the BV512 as a reverb 677

Half-Rack Effects 681

Common effect device features 682

DDL-1 Digital Delay Line 684

CF-101 Chorus/Flanger 685

Spider Audio Merger & Splitter 687

Spider CV Merger & Splitter 689

RV-7 Digital Reverb 693

D-11 Foldback Distortion 695

ECF-42 Envelope Controlled Filter 696

PH-90 Phaser 700

UN-16 Unison 702

COMP-01 Auto Make-up Gain

Compressor 703

PEQ-2 Two Band Parametric EQ 704

Matrix Pattern Sequencer 705

Introduction 706

About the three Output types 706

Programming patterns 707

Pattern basics 707

Tutorial 710

Using Curve Patterns 712

Setting Pattern Length 713

Using Tied Notes 713

Setting Pattern Resolution 714

Pattern Shuffle 714

Pattern Mute 714

Pattern Functions 715

Chaining Patterns 715

Converting Pattern data to notes in the main

sequencer 716

Example usage 717

Using the Matrix for modulation 717

Programming “Acid Style” lead lines 718

Triggering samples 718

RPG-8 Arpeggiator 719

Introduction 720

Using the RPG-8 721

Setting up 721

Recording MIDI note data for the RPG-8 - simple

tutorial 723

Rendering arpeggio notes to track 725

18

TABLE OF CONTENTS

RPG-8 Parameters 726

MIDI-CV Converter parameters 726

Arpeggiator parameters 727

Pattern editor 729

CV connections 732

Tips and tricks 734

ReBirth Input Machine

(Windows Only) 735

Introduction 736

Preparations 736

Launching 736

Quitting 736

Routing 737

What signals are on the Outputs? 737

Menu and Dialog

Reference 739

Reason menu (Mac OS X) 740

File menu 741

Edit menu 744

Preferences – General 760

Preferences – Audio 763

Preferences – Keyboards and Control Surfaces 766

Preferences – Advanced Control 769

Preferences - Language and Computer Keyboard 770

Create menu 771

Options menu 772

Window menu (Windows version) 776

Window menu (Mac OS X version) 777

Help menu 778

Index 779

Chapter

1

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

20

Welcome!

This is the Operation Manual for Propellerhead’s Reason music production software. The information in this manual

is also available as html files in the on-line Reason Help system.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to check out the Video Tutorials, available in the Reason Help system.

Also, be sure to regularly check out the Propellerhead web site at www.propellerheads.se for the latest news!

About this chapter

The Introduction chapter describes some of the general conventions used throughout the Reason reference manual.

About this manual

In this Operation Manual, all aspects of the Reason program are described in detail. The first chapters deal with gen-

eral methods and techniques, e.g. how to connect audio sources, mix and record. Then follow descriptions of all rack

devices in Reason.

! The PDF version of the manual requires Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0 or later to display correctly on Windows

computers.

On Mac OS X systems, you don't need Acrobat Reader - you can use Preview. For Windows, Acrobat Reader is in-

cluded on the Reason DVD. However, if you downloaded Reason from the Propellerhead web site and don’t have

Acrobat Reader on your computer, you can download it free of charge from the Adobe web site at

www.adobe.com.

About the Reason operating system versions

Propellerhead Reason comes in two versions: one for Windows (XP, Vista or Windows 7) and one for Mac OS X 10.4

or later. The screenshots in this manual were taken from both versions of Reason. Since the program layout is more

or less identical in the two versions, there shouldn’t be any problem following the instructions, regardless of which

platform you use.

Conventions in the manual

This manual describes both the Windows and Mac OS X versions of Reason; wherever the versions differ this is

clearly stated in the text.

Text conventions

The text conventions are pretty straightforward. The examples below describe when certain text styles are used:

D This style instructs the user to perform the task(s) described in the sentence.

! This text style means IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Read carefully to avoid problems!

q This text style is used for tips and additional info.

Key command conventions

In the manual, computer keyboard commands are indicated with brackets. For example:

D Hold down [Shift] and press [C].

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Propellerhead Reason 5.0 User manual

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