Reason Loops/Sequencing

Alexi

Drench Audio
VIP Junglist
Joined
May 21, 2007
Location
Bristol/Southampton
Alright people, I'm new to production and using reason 4.

I know that loads of people ask similar questions, but I cant get convincing drums on reason.

When starting out, I just used to create breaks from scratch with single hit samples, but even with loads of layers, they still sounded weak.

And most people suggest using and slicing loops. So I borrowed a CD off my mate with a load of loops and reason refills - (160db, 260db, Jungle Warfare and some Zerog stuff.)

But these all seem to lean towards jungle and ragga style and I cant find anything that sounds like more modern DNB.

Is there anything I'm doing wrong or is it just a case of trial and error until you get a decent beat?
 
It took me quite a while to get used to drums on reason, just keep trying and trying, you will get there soon!
 
took me a while to bro -i like to use the redrum and the rex at the same time but im sure youve tried that-trial and error unfortunately is the way of the walk
when using the rex try cutting your decay down to slim up loops
also throw the scream on your redrum and fuk wit it a bit -tis wot i do
ill shoot you a link for a reason pack i made
hope that helps
 
took me a while to bro -i like to use the redrum and the rex at the same time but im sure youve tried that-trial and error unfortunately is the way of the walk
when using the rex try cutting your decay down to slim up loops
also throw the scream on your redrum and fuk wit it a bit -tis wot i do
ill shoot you a link for a reason pack i made
hope that helps

nice one mate
 
OK, Heres what you do: I would use NN-XT For beats but thats another kettle of fish, i assume ur using redrum

!) Try and find a nice clean bass drum sample, it needs to peak at 100hz range nothing more, if you dont know what this means or how to make ur sample peak at 100hz then ask me.

2) Do the same with a snare, try and find a nice one, the "action_break" has a nice snare, try and find that. Or the pendulum kit u can get with the synthetic drums refill has a nice snare, the snare hit needs to peak at 200hz (i belive some people use 250hz) but 200hz is pretty much the standard in drum and bass. Get ur hit peaking at 200hz in wavelab or whatever. layout ur kick and snare hits in redrum and copy a few bars worth to the track.

3) Now u need to find a break with lots of rimshot or low snare sounds it it, they need to vary not just the same sound, this will be uyse to make the chickachickachik sound that sort of makes a modern jump up beat. U need to get that loop in a rex player but dont copy it to track instead just loop ur current beat and start putting in hits to make up the sound in a sort of shuffle pattern, u need to listen to other producers beats here to get it, but u will, also adjust the attack (a) and release (r) on dr rex, makes it "shuffle" a bit more

4) Now find an old amen break or something and load it into rex, copy to track, try and find one that is as least jungly as possible (waits for flaming) and copy to track, click on the hp filter on the rex and mess around til it sounds ok.

5) Now what a lot of people are doing is adding breaks from a rock tune with some big crash symbols, taking out all the low end and the mid using an eq or sometimes high passing it (play around to see what sounds best

6) Now find a loop that is ideally just hi hats, like tikatikatikatika, get that in a rex, and mess around with the filter freq and res to get it to fit, this is just a case of doing it by ear here.

6) You mite wanna add a sped up hip hop break high passed or with at least the low taken out, maybe somethign like "curtis blow - do the do" google it u should find it.

Theres a base anyway, have a go and if ur still not happy give me a shout.

Happy reasoning matey.
 
OK, Heres what you do: I would use NN-XT For beats but thats another kettle of fish, i assume ur using redrum

!) Try and find a nice clean bass drum sample, it needs to peak at 100hz range nothing more, if you dont know what this means or how to make ur sample peak at 100hz then ask me.

2) Do the same with a snare, try and find a nice one, the "action_break" has a nice snare, try and find that. Or the pendulum kit u can get with the synthetic drums refill has a nice snare, the snare hit needs to peak at 200hz (i belive some people use 250hz) but 200hz is pretty much the standard in drum and bass. Get ur hit peaking at 200hz in wavelab or whatever. layout ur kick and snare hits in redrum and copy a few bars worth to the track.

3) Now u need to find a break with lots of rimshot or low snare sounds it it, they need to vary not just the same sound, this will be uyse to make the chickachickachik sound that sort of makes a modern jump up beat. U need to get that loop in a rex player but dont copy it to track instead just loop ur current beat and start putting in hits to make up the sound in a sort of shuffle pattern, u need to listen to other producers beats here to get it, but u will, also adjust the attack (a) and release (r) on dr rex, makes it "shuffle" a bit more

4) Now find an old amen break or something and load it into rex, copy to track, try and find one that is as least jungly as possible (waits for flaming) and copy to track, click on the hp filter on the rex and mess around til it sounds ok.

5) Now what a lot of people are doing is adding breaks from a rock tune with some big crash symbols, taking out all the low end and the mid using an eq or sometimes high passing it (play around to see what sounds best

6) Now find a loop that is ideally just hi hats, like tikatikatikatika, get that in a rex, and mess around with the filter freq and res to get it to fit, this is just a case of doing it by ear here.

6) You mite wanna add a sped up hip hop break high passed or with at least the low taken out, maybe somethign like "curtis blow - do the do" google it u should find it.

Theres a base anyway, have a go and if ur still not happy give me a shout.

Happy reasoning matey.

Cheers for that mate, I'd been doing the first couple of steps because I watched a chase & status tutorial of it, and I've got a spectral analyser running to check where the hits peak, but after putting together a simple beat I was lost. So this really helps, thanks!
 
i just get lost with a spectrum analyzer and the eq peak sweeping. it all sounds good to me after a while. alls i know is 44000 to 48000 hz is undesirable in most sounds i reckon
 
glad to help. If u need anything else just ask.

in regard the the spectrum analyser (s.a), you can also sort of tune ur drums to a specific frequency in reason, heres a brief guide:

1) open reason get ur kick and snare sounds in redrum

2) Now hold shift and create a two band parametric eq

3) Do the same again, hold shift and create another two band parametric eq.

4) Press tab, to switch to the back of the rack

5) wire up the kick channel to one of the eq's (click and hold in the top L socket on the channel and drag down to the input on the chosen eq.)

6) do exactly the same as step 5 but for the snare

7) now wire the outputs from eq 1 to a channel on you main reason mixer

8) do the same for eq 2

====
Note:
Now you still hear the drums when u press the play button on the redrum channel but they should each now be going through a seperate eq, dont worry about eq'ing for now, we come to that in a bit.
====

9) OK, Now go to google and download one of the many spectrum analysers that our out there, literally type "free spectrum analyser" into google, they all do the same job it doesn't matter.

10) Install it and configure it for your soundcard, the setup for different S.A's will vary, you'll have to do this bit yourself.

====
Note:
Ideally you want two screens for this next step otherwise it could be tricky (I use two one for the reason sequencer and a high resolution and then the rack on another screen in 800x600 so it fill the screen) just add another graphics card to your pc, and a monitor and configure them by right click desktop--?properties-->Settings tab. Anyway back to it.
===

11) Now you have your spectrum analyser running, go to the reason rack and play your kick drum, you should see the bars on the spectrum analyser moving, all you need to worry about is the grid line up the side of the analyser that shows the frequency in hz, if any of the bars are going over the 100hz mark you need to use the eq to bring it back in line, I quite often cut a bit of the low end of the kick, it still has mid range punch but leaves room in the frequency range for your sub bass. Its a case of trial and error here im afraid, keep eq'ing, you dont need to go mad when eq'ign as a slight tweak mite well bring it into the frequency range u desire.

12) The same process again goes for the snare, but you want this in the reigion of 200 hz (like I said some people, pendulum for example using sort of 220-250hz) again play it by ear.

maybe this will be of use to anyone struggling to get the concept of spectrum analysers and getting your beat to sit "nicely" in the tune, I know it can be a grey area as there is not a lot of info about it.

Peace out.
 
also a quick footnote, the drum hit volumes, velocity and pitch are important too, you may need to change the pitch of some or all of you hits to get them to "sit" properly in the mix without sound un-natural, same goes for velocity as you want you drums to sound natural, imagine a real drum each hit he makes on the hi hat wont be at exactly the same volume...
 
DONT use redrum, you only have control over a few of the variants on there, use the NNXT or the NN19 (my personal fav) as you then have total control over each and every hit.

Get soe nice wide hi end in there too, give it real definition

Nice booming snare, tiny boost around 200hz is great for body, but be careful how much u boost as it can get muddy there very easily.

try to aviod amens at all costs ( i noticed someone said "get an amen") thats the easiest and shitest way of filling up ur beats, if youre gonna make an amen, edit some breaks that arent amen, it will sound a lot better

hope this helps some........
 
DONT use redrum, you only have control over a few of the variants on there, use the NNXT or the NN19 (my personal fav) as you then have total control over each and every hit.

defo agree, i mean if ur just starting out Redrum is cool to program a beat together quickly but u will have sooo much more control over ur one shots (eq'in, processing each sound individually u can really focus a lot more on detail) if u use NN-XT and NN-19.

oh not sure if anyone has mentioned this but u got some nice refills there mate, i still use jungle warefare to this day, look past the jungle beats, with enough chopping they will work perfect for nu skool stuff, try taking all the shuffle elements from the loops and reprogram to fit ur own, like Vickvega said play around with the ASDR of the dr rex player make it more choppy works a treat ;)

and some nice Reason tips from all the Reasonheads on here!:D :gang_bang
 
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