REASON FRIGGIN ROCKS!!!

[ew]

gotta love those NNXT samplers

one thing that does confuse me slightly is the rewire channels, it seems only the 1st pair are stereo and each one is mono after that.

it would be nice to choose mono/stereo outs of reason.

did I miss something.

also I wish the Matrix patterns could be changed via midi notes, not cc3 ?.

No,you didn't miss anything there,Matt-that's the way it is.
While I don't use Reason as much as I used to,it's still a great scratchpad for songs.
ew

[donkey tugger]

Hmm, used to teach reason in my previous life before becoming an agent of the evil government...always found it cool as a platform for ideas but exteremely fiddly to used for a song of any great complexity. Also, Have you ever tried understanding what the f**k is going on in a song after coming back to it a few months later -err, how the f**k is that connected up then???

[DHR53]

Personally, I'm not much of a Rewire fan myself... Why chain an incredibly well optimized app onto another one... creating a bigger clunkier one?? I have a good system set up using the sequencer, so I either use Reason by itself, or create my loops and export them out... It's great for creating stuff for Live... Which speaking of, is probably the easiest and best implementation of Rewire for Reason... P.S....Don't forget Maelstrom... I think that synth has incredible possibilities!! I'm always impressed at the new sounds I hear for it!! ...add the mastering suite in 3.0, and I may get rid of everything else... and get on with my life

[defjamm]

MPC-3000 Grooves in reason is at:

http://www.peff.com/reason/index.html

look under the "Reason Effects Configurations" title for the file:

MPC-3000 Grooves.rns

RTFM to use them in a song...

/ Lex

thx!

[ccollinsmith]

I've had Reason about a week now and am more than reasonably impressed with it. Haven't played with much else, till I got to missing vst's and rewired it to cubase.

I've got Reason, too. It's a fun program, it has some great Reverb and Distortion capabilities, and the NNXT is a powerful sampler. Plus you can route the different instruments and effects to create some truly weird sounds.

However, I'm not that impressed with the Subtractor, even with its extended waveforms. And the Malstrom is nice but would be a whole lot cooler if you could load your own .wav files into it and subject them to the graintable synthesis capabilities. ReDrum is okay. I prefer Dr. Rex for beats because you can mangle and synthesize them. But for CREATING beats? It's FL5 hands down over anything in Reason.

I've seen Reason fanatics talk about not needing VST. Gotta say... Reason is a good tool to have in the arsenal, but there's just a lot of VST out there that Reason can't touch. I just got the Arturia Moog Modular V2, and there is absolutely no "Analogue Monster" sample ReFill out there that can touch the sheer power of the Modular itself (even if it's INSIDE the computer and not in a big cabinet). I mean, yesterday I heard a CRASH a few rooms away while I was playing the Moog Modular. A towel rack had come down thanks to the vibrations. You just can't get the NNXT to sound like THAT. (Maybe you don't want to, but hey, I was 13 years old in 1970!!! Needless to say, I was impressed).

There's just a lot of stuff you can do in the VST world that you can't do in Reason. Wavetable synthesis with your own Wave sequencing, for example. (Wusikstation, anyone?). And then there are all those effects plugs. Reason's compressor (in 2.5) is rather primitive, and so is its equalizer. I suppose the mastering capabilities in 3.0 will address those limitations. But I haven't gotten the chance to play with them yet.

I dunno. I think Reason is at its best when slaved to Audition, where you can run VST fx plugs on your Reason tracks. I haven't tried slaving it to Live4 yet, but that could be fun.

For me the bottom line is that I could still make lots of music if I didn't own Reason. I like having it, but I like some of my VSTs better.

[headquest]

gotta love those NNXT samplers

one thing that does confuse me slightly is the rewire channels, it seems only the 1st pair are stereo and each one is mono after that.

it would be nice to choose mono/stereo outs of reason.

did I miss something?

The 1st pair are stereo because if you are using ReMix they function as a Master Out pair. The rest depend on whether you have a stereo device (e.g. NN-XT) or a mono one
(e.g. Subtractor).

So if I wire NN-XT directly into the Hardware Interface, I can take leads from NN-XT's stereo outs and into (for example) channels 3 and 4 of the interface as a stereo pair.

From there it's a question of how your ReWire host is set up. The ReWire hosts I have (Tracktion, Audition and Live 4) will ALL allow you to bring in two inputs as a stereo pair. Indeed, they expect you to do that.

So perhaps I'm missing something but I don't understand your problem. What host are you using, and isn't it set up to receive stereo pairs in this way?

[ew]

gotta love those NNXT samplers

one thing that does confuse me slightly is the rewire channels, it seems only the 1st pair are stereo and each one is mono after that.

it would be nice to choose mono/stereo outs of reason.

did I miss something?

The 1st pair are stereo because if you are using ReMix they function as a Master Out pair. The rest depend on whether you have a stereo device (e.g. NN-XT) or a mono one
(e.g. Subtractor).

So if I wire NN-XT directly into the Hardware Interface, I can take leads from NN-XT's stereo outs and into (for example) channels 3 and 4 of the interface as a stereo pair.

From there it's a question of how your ReWire host is set up. The ReWire hosts I have (Tracktion, Audition and Live 4) will ALL allow you to bring in two inputs as a stereo pair. Indeed, they expect you to do that.

So perhaps I'm missing something but I don't understand your problem. What host are you using, and isn't it set up to receive stereo pairs in this way?

Sonar isn't set up that way-you have a stereo in and 62 mono ins from Reason if you choose more than a stereo in from Reason.
ew

[nuffink]

So perhaps I'm missing something but I don't understand your problem. What host are you using, and isn't it set up to receive stereo pairs in this way?

Cubase is a bit f**ked up here. You have to manually route the mono rewire tracks to a group channel. It's a pain.

[headquest]

I have heard that raised before, but basically it's a Sonar issue, and not a ReWire or a Reason issue.

I know that a number of Sonar users are unhappy with this ReWire implementation, and I'm surprised that such an excellent program has this problem

...but it is a Sonar issue and as I explained other hosts don't share the problem

[topaz]

also an issue in SX, and thats what I use.

I have heard that raised before, but basically it's a Sonar issue, and not a ReWire or a Reason issue.

I know that a number of Sonar users are unhappy with this ReWire implementation, and I'm surprised that such an excellent program has this problem

...but it is a Sonar issue and as I explained other hosts don't share the problem

[wrench45us]

Also, Have you ever tried understanding what the f**k is going on in a song after coming back to it a few months later -err, how the f**k is that connected up then???

i don't know how often this may actually happen, but I do think this is a very valid measure of an application's interface.

modeling hardware and cables in software seems kind of wrong-headed to me, but I'd also agree it's helpful in acquiring some basic understanding of signal routing (probably more than i have)

so there's the tradeoff of great efficiency and stabilty vs. an open system. nothing new. money flows to refills, not new vst.
there could be some production efficiency in learning one set of interfaces and methods vs. continually picking up something new and learning how it works, but why when Reason set the Rewire standard to overcome its limits are there fanatics for Reason- only production.
It's a tool. There are lots of tools. There must be more than one reason why there are so many different tools.

[Notron User]

Since Guitar Center has it for $199 in their latest flyer...I'm getting sorta tempted...

[headquest]

also an issue in SX, and thats what I use.

Perhaps some of these bigger, older sequencers it proved difficult to implement the ReWire protocol into the architecture in a straight-forawrd way? I had thought that Steinberg solved this when they moved from VST5 to SX1, but obviously not.

I can see why you would be frustrated, and why you may have attributed this problem to Reason. Hopefully my comments at least cleared up how it's meant to work in terms of Reason's architecture.

Of the three hosts I have, Tracktion has the clearest and easiest ReWire implementation, followed by Audition's which is powerful but hidden away.

Live 4 complicates matters more than the others by requiring seperate channels for MIDI out information to the Reason devices, and for Audio return (where you can drop VST effects, etc). This is obviously logical, and some love it, but I prefer it that in Tracktion one track in the arrange page can handle both opperations, allowing you to automate VST effects directly over the MIDI sequence

[VitaminD]

congrats, theo.. glad you found a host that works for you

[nuffink]

I can see why you would be frustrated, and why you may have attributed this problem to Reason.

He didn't. Nor did I. Nor has anyone who has so far posted. Have you been defending reason for too long?