Good evening, fellow Lowdowners. If you don't want to read a big steaming pile of text about me, you may want to click the back button and choose another topic, because there's quite a bit of "intro" and "vamp" before we get to the "chorus".

As many of you already know, keyboards are my main instrument and I make part of my living doing sound design, music composition and audio production for evil empires (including the one that frustrates you at the airport, the one that lost all of your data, and the one that empties your bank account everytime you need to drive across town). I emphasize "part" because it's not the primary focus of my present job. One of my previous jobs, however, was teaching electronic music at Columbia College in Chicago...I noticed that they've started advertising to the right lately. I only mention it as a point of reference.

I've been getting a lot of questions in the past two months from bass players (some of you included) about various synth, MIDI, sequencing, and DAW topics.

I've tried to personalize my responses, but I realized that I've been repeating the same information over and over. I also realized today that some of you may not even know what questions to ask. So this will be the first in a set of MIDI, synth, sampling, and DAW posts that I will periodically place here in my favorite bass forum. I will also be posting these at my website for easier perusal. Maybe Mr. Leigh will give me a column.

If you don't like these posts, please PM me or email me anonymously at zeroATchemistDOTcom

One more disclaimer: I don't work for any software or musical instrument manufacturer or retailer. Any recommendations I make should not be construed as dissing any other competitive product unless I explicitly do so.

So without further ado:

Dear 09,
Could you recommend a simple way to create backing tracks for practice?

Dear 09,
My band wants me to play some bass synth, but I need to get a huge variety of sounds, and I wouldn't mind being able to play the synth flute solo in "The Trees". I don't want to spend a lot of money, and I don't know how to decide what to get. Help!

Dear 09,
I want to do music production on my computer, but it's not the latest and greatest. What do you recommend? I don't want to spend a lot of money.

Believe it or not, there is a single answer to all three questions: Propellerheads' Reason.

First, let me describe what it is. Reason is a software synthesizer and sequencer. That's it. It sits inside your computer and acts like a few synthesizers, effects devices, a mixer and a sequencer. Period. It does not record audio in any way and you cannot control hardware MIDI devices with it. It's about as self-contained and as closed a system it gets. That's both the biggest complaint and most innovative feature of Reason. Reason is cross platform and is OSX and Vista saavy.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

User Interface
Reason consists of two windows at the most: The rack and the sequence grid. The rack looks like the typical 19" rack you'd see in any studio. Each Reason device looks like the piece of gear it's emulating:



In this screenshot, you can see a mixer, a simple but extremely powerful drum machine called Redrum, a sampler and some signal processors whose front panels have been minimized to save space, and the awesome granular synth, Maelstrom. You can have as many of any device, be it mixer, synth, or signal processor, as your CPU can handle. Here is a screenshot of one of each available module: WARNING - 3.5 Megs

You'll notice that just above the transport controls at the bottom is the sequencing grid. This is detachable, hence the two windows. This is recommended because rarely will you need to view the rack and the grid simultaneously.

Technically, there is a third screen:

When you hit the tab key, the rack will flip around, showing you all the routing. It's extremely simple to figure out, and most of it is done automatically.

So that's it. You call up a module, choose a sound, create a track for it and play. Your performance gets recorded as MIDI data and plays back faithfully. Pick another module and do it again. Add some effects, automate your mix, edit notes, etc. etc. It's no more or less powerful a sequencer than other ones out there.

But it's very simple to use. And it's wicked powerful.

Operation
There are literally dozens of articles about what Reason can and can't do. Google and go if you want to learn more about it. Propellerheads' site is also a vast resource of info. More on that later.

What I want to do here, though, is to just answer the bass player-specific questions above.
Practice Tracks
There are several compelling advantages to using Reason for creating practice tracks.
First, it comes with two DVDs of sounds and patches. Literally thousands of usable, high quality sounds. You will NEVER find an off the shelf synth with an included library like this. So if want to create a sparse drum/piano arrangement to practice the Friedland books, you can use drum loops (actual drums that were played by a human) and at least 20 different piano, Rhodes, and B3 sounds to get a specific flavor without having to buy another sample library. The audio drum loops (in ReCycle format) can be sped up or slowed down without changing the pitch of the drum sound.

Second, Reason comes with a very comprehensive set of mastering tools. You can create a very polished track. Burn it to CD and you won't need to computer to practice.

Third, because it's MIDI, you can change keys with a few keystrokes. Right now, I'm getting my ass kicked by "Satin Doll" in all 12 keys. (How lame am I?)

Fourth, it's platform agnostic. Mac, PC, whatever. You'll be able to share files with your cohorts.

Let me just put it this way: There are many ways to achieve the exact same result that you can in Reason. But not with one program. And not for 300 and change.

As a standalone sound module
If you can get over the understandable phobia of putting a laptop on stage, Reason will blow everything else out of the water, pound for pound, dollar for dollar. First, let's lay out how this would work. Joey Fourstring is in a Genesis/Rush/Phillip Glass tribute band. He has a set of MIDI bass pedals and a MIDI controller keyboard both hooked up to a USB MIDI interface that is running into the laptop. The outputs of the laptop's audio card are going to the FOH. For each song, he just wants to use one sound. If that's the case, he's done. All he has to do is call up the "open patch" dialog box and stay there. That's because Reason will load up any patch as soon as you highlight it. You just have to click or scroll to the right patch and it instantly loads up. Of course, large samples may take a few seconds, but they'd do the same thing on a hardware sampler.

From this point, you can get as complex as you like. Do you want Reason to play the backing percussion and backing vocals to "Sympathy for the Devil" while your drummer wants to play vocalist for a set? No problem...and you can play the piano part at the same time. Want to send the drummer a click while Reason plays all the arpeggiated lines in "Rio"? Why not? Program the bass line, too, and go hit on a bridesmaid.

With a nifty little device called the Combinator, you can even set up layers of synths and effects and call them up like they were single synth patches. This is an insane concept and yet, it's surprisingly easy ti use.

I will point out that if you are just playing pad sounds on a one octave pedalboard, I'd recommend going with a hardware synth...the Alesis Micron is good for that task. But if you need or want to do a bit more, you can use Reason very effectively for this purpose.

Overall Music Production
So we've now seen that Reason is great for beginners and pros to get a comprehensive set of devices and sounds coupled with a powerful sequencer. As long as you are not recording actual audio, this is a soup to nuts program.

And for live bass players, Reason is the cheapest and nearly the most convenient way to get a half dozen synths on stage (or more) along with all the mixers, effects, cables and sequencers.

But what if you DO need to record audio? What if I want to use Cubase? Or Pro Tools? Or Logic? Or Sonar?

Propellerheads came up with a niftly little thing called ReWire, and it's truly a thing of beauty. Again, there are a million articles about ReWire, but here's one way to integrate reason into a digital audio workstation (that's what DAW stands for, by the way...sorry if that wasn't more clear earlier). If you've fleshed out a song in Reason, it can connect to any of the abovementioned recording software almost automatically. Depending on how the software is configured, Reason's instruments will show up as possible inputs in the DAW, and the two transport controls will lock together with sample-accurate precision. If you have 14 tracks of a song done in Reason, it will transfer onto 14 tracks of ProTools in one pass. This is just one way to do it...on many DAW's you can pass MIDI back to Reason so it becomes a giant sound module. The best thing about it? It just works

I haven't even mentioned the incredible community of Reason users, the thousands of free downloadable sounds (including Elektromechanical, one of the best "Misty Mountain Hop" Wurlitzers ever emulated), the really excellent and affordable commercial sound libraries...

But don't take my word for it. Propellerheads.se has a downloadable demo that maybe slightly crippled, but you'll get the idea.

And In Conclusion
There are downsides, and one of them was nearly a dealbreaker for me. There is no easy way to do countoffs for recording, but I'm hoping that they'll consider it for the next release, which is imminent.

Another thing...many people view this program as solely for electronica. This is simply not the case. If you listen to the demos, of course, many of them are house, drum and bass, glitch, etc, but there are plenty of Latin, rock, and even classical/soundtrack pieces as well. In fact, one of the included library discs is 100% orchestral sounds.

One anecdote before I sign off. I am presently working on an album and I am collaborating with 3 or 4 people on this forum. In other words, I've bullied them into playing basslines for me. I purposely wrote the scratch tracks all in Reason using the sample and patch sets that came with the program. I then did two mixes - one with a suggested bassline, and a second version with the bass completely missing. They were mixed down as stereo .wav files. I also sent the Reason file, since he had Reason, in case he wanted to do a percussion-only mix or whatever.

The .wav files were 64 megs each. The Reason file? 95kilobytes.

It's hugely powerful, ubiquitous, simple, and cheap. I highly recommend it.

Any questions?

As far as countoffs for recording, don't Reason and CuBase go together?
Jonathan

Okay... so I'm a little confused on how this works. We need a midi device to input data (ie music) to this right? A regular bass won't do this. Do we need either a midi controller (keyboard type) or a midi equipped bass (ala Peavey G Bass)?

Or, we can just sequence things like drums, bass and keyboards using the computer keyboard and mouse to select the right sounds, rhythms and notes and put them in the correct place?

Please excuse my ignorance on the topic, I've never really played with midi.

Yes, but even when you're laying down a drum pattern in real time, you need a countoff to get, let's say, a kick drum on the first beat. The workaround is to set up a little loop and play as it comes back around to the first beat, but if you are used to using any other sequencer, it's a royal pain in the ass.

This is a great question, and I apologize for glossing over it. You are dead on, Nutt. You can record your performance in two ways, real time with a MIDI controller and step time with a MIDI controller or even just a mouse. Your best bet for a MIDI controller, of course is some sort of controller keyboard. They are dirt cheap these days, and they usually have a complement of knobs and sliders that Reason will automatically configure to control faders, synth knobs, etc.

I've done a lot of songs in Reason with just loops and a mouse, but life sure gets easier with a MIDI keyboard. You can find a decent one for $100.00, and a GREAT one for $200.00+

Testify? Okay.

I am one of the gentlemen that asked such a question. I was looking to do some synth-stuff live, and was considering hardware sound modules. Mr. 09 pushed me in the Reason direction last year.

I purchased Hammond XPK100 organ pedal, I had a M-Audio MIDI Uno, and loaded Reason 3.0 on to my tiny Dell X1. Combined that with a Whirlwind PCDI direct box, and you have a relatively portable tool that can really expand live performances. It is more than just synths, you can play samples and the Combinator is really easy to set up and use.

I still have not found a project to use it live, but rehearsals have been very promising.

I have just started to use ReWire with Protools LE 7.x and it is insanely simple to do.

The only thing I will suggest, as I have done before, is that if you consider going this route for live use, you should properly set up your computer. I currently use Windows, and on the Dell laptop, I am using XP Pro SP2. It only takes about 15 minutes to strip an OS down to the bare essentials for audio use, and the performance can be outstanding even with somewhat dated hardware.

Thanks, Mr. Getz.

I forgot to mention that Line6 is the US distributor of Reason, and they give away free sounds every month.

There is also a conversion tool that lets you use Akai (industry standard) samples as well.

This is a world that I have not yet entered (and don't see it anytime soon). Like many new and technical pursuits, it's easy to be confused and overwhelmed. I think zeronyne's descriptions and writing is first rate - I was able to read and understand.

Zeronyne - thanks for contributing this. I am impressed. I look forward to further contributions!

Of course I understand the thread title, but I was expecting an electronica album review

Tom

That he should! Very understandable and well structured. This might make my 3 piece instrument group into 4 or 5 or 7!!

Thanks 09!

Thanks for the article 09, top notch stuff!

Yes, most excellent 09, thanks for taking the time to write this up. I've been messing around with Reason for a few years now. I also use ReWire to sync it up with Cubase and record live audio too. But most of the time I just make little drum grooves and synth noises to jam with on bass.

yeah...for a technical guy...a lot of this technical bass stuff goes right over my head. I guess it's because (similar to tomcap) I don't see any practical applications for it in my life just yet.

thanks for the post, 09.

jason

Thanks for the kind words, folks. The reason that I chose..uh..Reason as my first subject is because I truly believe that every bass player can find a use for it without stretching too far.

I'm considering doing video clips...would anyone be interested?

Yes, I want videos.

Once you get past the "Computer as an Instrument?" phase, Reason can be very, very useful for any musician.