Music Monday Notes May 12dd

Music Monday: May 12, 2014

Software that we will use: Reason

The following is a short tutorial on the parts of the Reason interface, how to record, and how to create a loop.

Parts of the Reason Interface:

Transport controller: Plays and stops track.

Time/tempo settings:

beats per minute. Change by using arrows or double click on the number and type in tempo. Different genres of music generally fall in different ranges of bpm.

Click (so you can hear the metronome). Blue means it is on.

Tap: If you don’t know exactly what number of bpm that you want, you can ‘tap’ out the bpm by ‘hand’. The software will calculate the bpm for you.

Arrange window: where everything will go when you start to record.

In the arrange window, every instrument will have a different lane (the horizontal rows in the arrange window).

Timeline: Click anywhere on the timeline to play that part of the track.

Note: Reason is a loop based workstation (i.e. you create a loop and you can take the loop and copy it again and again). To make the looping cleaner, when you click on the timeline, it will automatically snap to the beginning of a particular bar (instead of exactly where you have clicked).

Play Head: Move the play head to navigate through your track/song. Click stop button twice to automatically move the playhead to the beginning of the track.

Rack System: you can see all your instruments here and tweak them here to no end!

Creating a new track:

Create menu > o Create audio track (where you can record live audio)o Create instrument track (creates a midi instrument)

Create new instrument track This window pops up:

Click on an instrument, should populate in the rack. How to play the instrument:

o Only a computer keyboard? Window > Show on Screen piano keys

Steps to creating a loop track:

Create a melody by playing around on the keys. Tap out the bpm using the tap button. Let the computer identify the bpm

Turn on the precount: (PRE). This function, when you press the red record button, gives you a bar of clicks to hear the tempo before recording actually starts.

Press the record button, play your melody, then press stop when you want to stop recording. HINT: holding shift sustains the note you press (like the pedal of a piano).

Cleaning up your loop:

Listen to your track and trim it so that it will loop cleanly.

Use the razor tool or the arrows at the ends of the track How do you split a track? (e.g. I like the first part of my track, but want to get rid of the second part)

o Use the tools: o Pencil: can draw a note o Eraser: deleteo Razor: cut a track at a specific point

o M: mute tool (the track will look like this: )

Make your loop:

Use the left and right locators Drag the locators so they sit at the beginning and end of your loop. See below.

Press the loop button. Press play. It’s a loop!

Master Volume Control:

In the top right corner of the screen is a master volume and effects control. By default, it is hidden and needs to be dragged into view. Once you’ve created an instrument track, you can apply the sliders to it to change the sound. Note the bank of green knobs that control the effects in the “rack.” Hitting the numbers that correspond to the layout of the rack (by default: reverb, reverb, tape delay, digital delay) applies them to the instrument.

Dr. OctoRex Looper

The Dr. OctoRex looper allows the user to insert pre-recorded loops into the song. The folder (the icon can be found at the top of the machine) is used to select different loops. There is an arrow below the roller control on the left that opens up the second part of the rack.

To use:

-Click on the folder icon to select a loop.

-Press the “run” icon to enable the loop.

-If the loop works with the song, turn “run” off, click the “enable loop playback” button (immediately above the “run” button) and then press the “copy loop to track” button (located in the “Select Loop and Load Slot”

*To find more loops, use the Reason Factory Soundbank in the patch browser (the clickable folder icon).

With a MIDI controller, the user is able to rearrange a loop. The different parts of the loop are mapped to different keys on the controller. With something like a piano loop, the key mapping will correspond to what the original player would have pressed to create the loop. With this feature a loop can be repurposed and used to create original music.