Recording with Reason
For a few years now I’ve been using Reason by PropellerHead and its by far one of the best pieces of music software out there and the sound quality you get is stunning.
Before I go any further I think I should point out that Reason is aimed at professionals as some of the features are quite complex and if you want to set it up to get that perfect sound then you’ll need to be a professional either that or mull over the manual for hours, even then you will struggle to understand some of the lingo or even what each setting means. Personally though I just play it by ear until I get the sound/effect I want.
There are several synthesizers & samplers built-in to reason such as Malstrom, NN-XT and Subtractor, each in their own right would make a good stand-alone program however Reason allows these to be used together allowing you to combine sounds, add effects and even make completely new sounds (with enough editing).
NN-XT Advanced Sampler:
Malstrom Graintable Synthesizer:
If your just looking for a quick fix sound though I suggest you use the Combinator there are loads of sounds and instruments to choose from, such as Piano and Strings. Provided with reason are two soundbanks if you like, one called Orkesta Soundbank which contains high quality orchestra instruments as the name suggests and the other contains all the patches, sounds an effects for the other samplers and synthesizers.
You can also buy or download additional Re-Fills for free. These Re-Fills can add new sounds, loops, drum kits pretty much anything really, but quality can vary as some are made by third party users some can also vary in file size depending on what’s in it, so always check the size before you download and it’s also a good idea to scan it for viruses too once you download it, well you can never be to sure.
The most important thing you will need for Reason is a keyboard doesn’t matter about the make or model just as long as it has a MIDI in and MIDI out port most keyboards do, however a lot of computers do not. Just look for a MIDI port at the back of your computer it will look exactly the same as your keyboards MIDI ports. The MIDI ports are quite big so if your PC has them you should see them easily but if your computer doesn’t have them then don’t worry it’s not the end of the world, there is a solution.
A device which I have been using for a long time now is a MIDI to USB hub. This device allows users who don’t have MIDI ports to connect their keyboards to their computers via USB as the device has a MIDI in and a MIDI out port allowing you to connect your keyboard as normal, all you do then is just plug the device into a USB port. You can pick one of these up for around £10-20 you will also need MIDI in & MIDI out leads if you don’t already have them. The hub will work with any keyboard which has MIDI ports so compatibility is not an issue here it’s just plug’n'play. Using it with reason isn’t a problem either as you just select the hub as a chanel on the mixer.
As I said earlier Reason is not for the novice but if you do have at least some musical experience you should be able to pick it up as you go along as Reason includes a sampler called Combinator (which I mentioned which make it fairly easy to get a nice sound with just a couple of clicks, you can either choose pre-made combinations which are located in the Combinator folder or you can combine your own sounds by adding sounds from other samplers or synthesizers to the combinator but this is a bit tricky to get the hang of.
After using Reason for a few years I think it’s unrivaled both in sound quality and functionality there is however one tiny setback, the price which will no doubt put a lot of you off at 400+ Euros it’s not cheap by any means but this is after all professional software, which I highly recommend to anyone fanatical about music.
Tags: Reason, Software, track recording, trackrecording
