The Reason thread (share tips, tricks and methods)

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Peace!
 
can anyone send me a reason patch theyve made similiar to the sound spor/noisia use cos im struggiling big time! i've conquered writing dubstep bt i just cannot get the drum stucture for dnb!
 
dj sc said:
i use a seperate redrum for each of my drum hits to eq em proper dunno if this is the way it shud be done but it works for me.
Click to expand...



mate have you ever pressed tab and looked at the back of the redrum??

you dont need a seperate one for seperate hits as redrum as an output for every drum channel on the back!!!

wack the redrum and loads of seperate equalizers in a combinator and save it that will save you lots and lots of time my friend



edit: people have already covered this apologies
 
got any screenshots/care to show how to wire up the seperate eq's to the redrum?.. whats the benefit of wacking it in a combi? I havent dared look at programming combinators yet.. :(
 
yeah mate i will take sum screen shots to show you bare with me....


the benefit of putting it in a combinater:

1. put a 6:2 mixer in the combi and link all your tracks into that. then output the 6:2 into the combi. output the combi to your mixer and all your hits will be EQd seperately but still only take up one channel on your main mixer..

2. you can save this combi patch so that you have a preset patch with a redrum that already has a load of seperate EQs chained up to all of its channels, saves you ALOT of time
 
presumably that means using the EQ on the 6:2 mixer>? :(
How about if you want an MCLASS eq for each instead?

screenshots would be ace. Thanks in advance :)
 



this is an example with just 1 equalizer, but you can add as many as you can fit.

hold shift when you create the equalizer OTHERWISE itll will automatically link it to the main output of the redrum

then link the EQ up to whatever channel u want, then output that into the mini mixer...

have the 6:2 mixer plugged into the combi input and everything thats plugged into it will be one ONE channel.

it looks like this from the from the front




dont forget to hold shift when you create the devices or they will link up automatically...

i hope this helps !!
 
Lucidproduction said:
mate have you ever pressed tab and looked at the back of the redrum??

you dont need a seperate one for seperate hits as redrum as an output for every drum channel on the back!!!

wack the redrum and loads of seperate equalizers in a combinator and save it that will save you lots and lots of time my friend



edit: people have already covered this apologies
Click to expand...

i no u can do that ive tried it but i have a seperate one for snares kicks hi hats etc one redrum isnt usually enuff for evrything
 
Last edited:
in that combi I made, theres slots for two kicks, two snares, two hats, two rides, two percusion. with EQ' s for each.
Give it a try, that should do you to start with, and you could always create a second combi using the same patch for more elements if yo uneed them. :)
 
chromey said:
Is there any way to extract a WAV file from a refill?
I want to work on it in recycle and save it out as a rex.
Click to expand...

You could open the wav in an nnxt or nn19, render it and then process with recycle.

As far as tips on reason go, one of the greatest things i've found is the regroove facility. Particularly the control it seems to afford you concerning the 'live-ness' of sequenced midi.

I'm sorry it's a bit long-winded, but....

If i'm making a tune with a 'real' kinda sound to it - real instruments, guitars, pianos etc - then quite often the militantly quantised output from redrum sounds far too static and synthetic to fit with the vibe. Most people know that real drummers don't play perfectly in time and although one of the great things (for me) about d&b is that it isn't limited by the restraints of real-world drumming, I find it sometimes helps for the drums to have a looser quality, particularly in live-sounding tunes.

I put all the drum elements on seperate tracks and treat each one in turn. Usually start with the bass drum, then snare, hats then percussion etc. Firstly on regroove I use the 'slide' dial to adjust how much the bass drum precedes or lags behind the rest of the music. Usually i have the bass drum preceeding, to the extent that it is usually the earliest-heard part of the rhythmic sequence. This seems to give the bass drum a more driving quality.

I then do a similar thing with the snare, moving it forward to (nearly) match the bass drum. Again, if the snare precedes it's quantised place in relation to the bassdrum, it has a profound effect on the vibe. Snares placed earlier make the beat seem as though it's playing quicker than it actually is. Likewise, snares placed in a lagging position have the opposite effect - something i've not found a great deal of use for in d&b tunes.

This is a simplified version dealing with a simple beat. If you've got chronically syncopated bass drum and snare assaults then you'll find generally that the snares which are on-beat are to be drawn forwards, whilst off-beat hits are to be lagged.

Note, there's only so much preceeding and lagging you can do before the perceived rhythm is altered.

Once i've got it set up so that the various elements are doing what they're supposed to be, bass drum leading, hats creating tension etc I then open the tools window (F8 if I remember correctly). So I open the tab which concerns the groove settings and at the bottom there is a slide which controls how much random-ness you can apply to each regroove channel. This is where the magic occurs - adding a small level of chance into the rhythm has a tremendous affect on how real or synthetic it sounds.

Typically, the faster the rhythmic part the less the randomisation has to be, the crucial thing though is to pay attention to the precise number of clicks you're working too.

Example: if 10 clicks forward (left on the slide dial) was the setting you found most suitable for the bass drum, if you then added a randomisation value of 10 clicks, your bass drum is going to be potentially anywhere from 0 clicks to 20 clicks ahead of the rest of the music. 20 clicks might be too much though. So, you adjust the intial slide setting of 10 clicks to perhaps 5, still with a random of 20 clicks, giving you potential a bass drum range of 15 clicks ahead to 5 clicks behind the rest of the music. This might be suitable, or on the other hand 5 clicks behind might ruin it, in which case you'll then have to adjust the randomisation figure again.

By a process of gradual adjustments you can use the slide and randomisation facilities on regroove to define time-regions within which the different rhythmic elements play at random. I find this is a very powerful thing because it incorporates the naturally emotive human 'out of time' feel, yet with a much higher degree of precision than a human could manage.

It seems to make beats more memorable, seems to bring them alive if they're sounding deflated, the random elements encourage the ear to pay more attention to it, the result has greater rhythmic detail and nuance. It's not always suitable and even a small number of clicks can have a big impact, though it is particular useful if you don't have access to a midi keyboard.

The process can obviously be applied to all elements of a track - in particular I like to have the bass drum leading, with the actual bass itself not too far behind. rhythm section dragging the track by the scruff of it's neck kinda vibe.

Hope that's useful to at least 1 outta 7 billion humans on the planet.
 
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A very similar thing can be done with the velocity. You can define a velocity-range in which hits will occur with randomized velocity values. This is to be used in conjunction with the above for increased emotive-capacity of rhythms. General rule of thumb: the earlier a hit occurs relative to it's quantized place, the more velocity you want it to have.
 
even using the redrum like that, you are still cutting out the benefits that using a sampler for each drum hit can give you. There is so much more on the samplers that can help to give you a lot cleaner and snappier drums.

Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release, various filters and such these of which i use very often to help get my drums punchy


Each to their own and all that but using a sampler for each hit is better
 
Lucidproduction said:



this is an example with just 1 equalizer, but you can add as many as you can fit.

hold shift when you create the equalizer OTHERWISE itll will automatically link it to the main output of the redrum

then link the EQ up to whatever channel u want, then output that into the mini mixer...

have the 6:2 mixer plugged into the combi input and everything thats plugged into it will be one ONE channel.

it looks like this from the from the front




dont forget to hold shift when you create the devices or they will link up automatically...

i hope this helps !!
Click to expand...

Hi Lucid,

I see you've renamed some drum inserts there.. Did you bounce some wav files out and then process them elsewhere? Then used them in your redrum?

What exactly did you do there?
 

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