For Shem or anyone else who uses Reason!

[Lotus]

Hey shem..i noticed in another post that you mentioned that your starting to use Reason 2.5?? I have been using Reason since the 1.0 version...its such a revolutionary program...keep going with it! i just use it to mess around on at the moment and I have a MIDI keyboard for it too..great sounds...a whole studio on your desktop! :wink:

[Shem]

It sure is a great program. After sth. like a month of getting familiar with it I can honestly say It's the one I'll be using as my main producing software. It's really incredible what you can do with it. I mainly mean the orchestral sound bank, with plenty of great samples, strings, percussion, just whatever you want. At the moment I tried it out on a nu skool breaks track, which you can find HERE (http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=411887&T=4362). Now I'm working under a new track which is not supposed to sound electronic, and I must say, that Reason 2.5 is the one wich deals with it very well. Nothing sounds artifficial if you put some effort into it.

Lotus, I think you know that Prodigy's "Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned" was produced mainly in Reason 2.5? The sad thing is that you can clearly hear it. If only Liam (frontman of the Prodigy), spent more time experimenting, he would use the full potential of the software. Or maybe his goal was to keep the track simple?? I dunno.

Lotus, I hope U have your own account on some music producers website, or you have a website of your own, where we could listen to your tracks.
Everyone interested can check my work at :

www.acidplanet.com/taipan (http://www.acidplanet.com/taipan)

[Hybrid Divide]

I've FINALLY started making new tunes again.

I would use Reason, since I hear it's great, but at the moment I lack a MIDI keyboard to do more complex stuff. (I can't even play one either.)

Anyway, check out my music at:
www.acidplanet.com/vagrant_logic

PS: Most of that music was produced long before I knew what I was doing with audio, so ignore some of the badness on tracks like "Curly says GO!" :D

[yuusen]

–
that's a pounding piece of music you've written there, shem. you deserve a lot of respect.

in my opinion, you haven't given yourself anywhere near enough credit. the arrangement is familiar but is certainly compensated for with your attention to detail within the actual components of the track. it is not often that an artist is able to project themselves through their music, but you have succeeded with your bass twists and grinding riffs; they are so varied i can almost imagine you in the room, moving knobs and sliders on an analog board - all that from software! the general arrangement may seem predictable to you but what lies within that arrangement is laid out in powerfully mastered strokes.

it fits my top rock well, too. :hyper

the movement of the track switches from light to heavy, with a sense of inertia being orchestrated at times. are you experimenting with this effect? i can hear a few influences in the track. i recognise the shakers from part of 'sound off' towards the end of the track and the final section contains a disctinctly aphex set of noises. im very impressed at the accuracy with which you have emulated these sounds and at your implementation of them. there is so much more i want to say about the track but i cannot easily do so in words. i can however, tell you that it got me dancing with a serious passion from the word go. good work.

im gonna check out more of your work this week and have made an account with ACIDplanet so i can download the hires versions.
–
¥

[Lotus]

Shem: I dont see why you dont like the track you linked to...I think its pretty good and certainly not as bad as you make out...its not time to retire dude!! :wink: ...
as for arrangement i have problems with it too sometimes..

I would love to let you hear some of my stuff but at the beginning of the year i spent about 2 months writing 4 tracks for a demo only to lose them all cause of stupid computer problems including a "back up" cd of the RSN files which didnt burn properly...2 months down the toilet!! so as you can imagine it has put me off music creation for a while...but i will let you know if i get something going again...at the moment i only have a couple of riffs on top of beats, nothing special..

yes, i knew about prodigy..i like the album although it doesnt sound like a "prodigy" album...i suppose nothing stays the same forever anyway..

I will definetly give more of your tracks a listen..havent checked yet.. :robot

[Lotus]

I would use Reason, since I hear it's great, but at the moment I lack a MIDI keyboard to do more complex stuff. (I can't even play one either.)

Hey vagrant logic!! dont let not having a midi keyboard stop you from getting reason...there is tons of stuff to keep you busy for quite a while (depending on how much you know already)...I cant play keyboard either, although I have been playing guitar for quite a few years so i use my knowledge of chords, harmonies etc to create pads and stuff..just as a reference at first then I paste in the notes and let the sequencer do the work..




And i forgot to say thats its cool to have some fellow reasoners here on the wipeout boards!!! :hyper

[Shem]

Thanks for the kind words Yuusen, but still, I don't like that track much. Basicly becouse I was struggling with it for a long time. The only way to make the track attactive to the one who listens to it houndreds of times is to put these little accents here and there. And that's what I do when I don't know what to do next if creating a track. I try not to let this happen, but sometimes it just happens anyway. That's when I'm starting to hate the songs I create. I hope the arrangement problems will dissapear as soon as I feel more confident in producing music. And I tell ya, I'll get to it sooner or later. And one more thing : creating music is not a party :) You don't burst in energy as soon as you create a beat. Only when you fool around with the music, create something that sounds good, and makes you wanna dance, then you can say the tune is good :). As for your question Yuusen - If orchestrating was on your mind (my english ain't perfect, the only places I use this language is here and AP) :I don't experiment with it, it's just in me. I am aware of this. I like to compose film scores. I like the dramatic feel of music, but this time It seems I didn't do it on purpose. But it occured anyway. Check my new track I just finished, you'll hear what I'm talking about.

Lotus:
Damn, I feel sorry for you. There's nothing worse than to loose the things you worked on hard, for a long time. It's just like you buy a Ferrari, and someone steels it the next day. Freakin' the worst feeling. BTW, you made me backup everything I got on my HD :)
Of course I look forward to hearing your tracks!

[science]

I've had Reason for awhile now, but I haven't taken the time to really learn how to use it. I feel like I'm stretching myself thin enough right now without learning to produce my own tracks. I've been trying to get a mixtape, err, mixcd together for literally years now, but with all that I have going on I barely get the chance to even listen to the music that I have collected. I was very excited about getting my hands on the program, but I just can't find the time to use it. One day I'll take the time to sit down and get the hang of Reason, but right now I have too many things going on.
And btw, if the new Prodigy cd sounds cheaply produced, then there is noone to blame but Liam. The cd was written with Reason, but produced mainly with ProTools. Reason was basically the scratchpad for the album. :mr-t (I love the new icons!)

[Lotus]

SHEM: he he...well im glad some good came out of it if i made you back your stuff up. good move!! :wink:
As for those lost tracks I didnt care so much about the actual music as I usually have tunes coming out of my ears so composing new stuff is never a problem, so for me it was the waste of 2 months that got me! (i can remember most of the stuff anyway so i could recreate the same tracks if i really wanted, (which i dont want right now!!)Anyway, every Reason session teaches you something new so in that regard i learnt a lot in those 2 months... :mrgreen:

[Shem]

True, true Lotus.
A few days ago I just discovered that by moving the velocity knob on NN-XT, you can use the veolcity in sequencing window :idea: ... I still don't know how the send effects work, and how to use one effect on multiple channels. I'm sure there was sth in the manual about it :D
Science:
I wish you plenty of free time. Reason is worth it.

[Lotus]

Have any of you guys ever visited www.reasonstation.net?...they have some tutorials and lots of members uploading tracks everyday...You will need to register to upload your own tracks...

BTW...what do you guys do when it comes to the final mix or rough mix of your tracks? Any handy tips?...this for me (and most people i suppose) can sometimes be the most difficult part of music creation...i have tried using a separate EQ on everything and it can get good results if you are willing to put in the extra time..i also add a compressor to the whole mix to even it out but somehow it never seems quite right..know what I mean?

This is me after a few hours of trying to get a mix sounding good!!... :brickwall

[Shem]

There's no rule for that Lotus.
Personally I try to eq things while producing the stuff, try to stay away from final mastering. Sometimes I don't even bother trying to mix the track right, becouse the track sounds different on each stereo. However one of the tips would be not to master the track on your headphones. It's obvious of course, but I tell ya just in case you wanted to try. Don't do it. All you can do at that time is to mess the things up. I did that last time, I bought new headphones, which were "so great, and the sound is so clear you'll piss your pants being lucky you own them". Well, I paid a LOT, and I bought CRAP. Hi frequencies collided with sub-basses, and it really pissed me off. I got back to my cheap Philips headphones.
My strategy on mastering tracks is simple. I rely on the sounds I'm provided with, assuming they sound best just as they are. Any interference will result in massive equalizing, compressing, volume fitting, and that just sucks. Of course you can play with all the knobs again, if you want the track to sound best on any stereo available.
If you will to do that, use Cubase.
Convert everything you want to eq into .wav, and throw it into Cubase ( I use Cubase SX). Cubase has nice eq table, you can do plenty of things there, so consider this one a tip.
Mastering is - just as you said Lotus - the tricky part of producing. Either you can screw everything up, or pump up the whole track.

[Lotus]

Thanks for that Shem!!...every bit of advice helps...I mostly use headphones when i compose but when i mix i use speakers, Its funny I use cheap phillips headphones too!! Silver with black lining and very comfortable, sound familiar?...
Thats good advice about using the EQ in cubase SX..I have SX too so i will try it.. :mrgreen:

[Shem]

It seems Phillips headphones are the best :).
I use the good 'ol fashion Phillips SBC HP140 (black, simple, left-sided wire). The ones I bought (and which started to buzz in the right headphone, and now being repaired) are Technics RP-F350. Beware of these one, it's a waste of money. Hi frequency is pumped up in these, so it creates an illusion of perfectly clear sound. If you have the occasion to test them in a shop, ask the guy why the Hi frequency is crushed by the "Low frequency bass boost". If he hears nothing, he's an idiot. So much for the sound quality.

[G'Kyl]

Just for the kick of doing some fun music experimenting, I 'd like to try reason. Is there a demo around? And how much disk space do I need for the program? Also, am I right to assume that apart form the main program itself, in order use Reason to its full potential I am gonna need a lot of sound databanks?

Ben

By the way: I still like how you called this thread, Lotus. *g*

[Lance]

.
indeed. to capitalise 'Reason' as though it were an embodied entity shows how important analytic and synthesising rationality is in philosophy and human life. Bravo, Lotus.
[or if this were the Megadeth forum, reason rocks, dude!]
.

[Lotus]

Ha ha Guys!! :lol:
I wasnt sure what you were both talking about for a second but then it clicked...."who uses Reason"!..Its so obvious but I have been using this program so long now that I dont even think about the title anymore...but yes the heading has a good double meaning none the less...
Maybe i should have kept my mouth shut and took the credit!! :wink:

G'Kyl: Go here http://www.propellerheads.se/ and download a demo of reason...you dont need a super fast computer to run it but the better your soundcard the better it will run..there should be a slimmed down version of the soundbank included..the full one is 500mb.. let me know how it goes!! :hyper

[Dimension]

I've been using Reason for about 6 or seven months now and I have to say it's really quite impressive, I mostly use it for just the basic sound design before sequencing the track in ACID and mastering in Soundforge as i don't particularly like the Reason built in sequencer, each to their own though, eh? :D I used to use Fruityloops and this is a big step up when it comes to the quality of pieces, given the choice I wouldn't go back to fruity, who here has used something else in past before or since using reason? How does it rate against other programs? Cheers, Dim

[Shem]

I used Fruity long before Reason. Fruity looks so easy right now, when I look back, and if it's easy to handle, it should be a good program to create music. Only if you have tons of samples. If you run out of samples, there's not much you can do with it, some generators don't work properly, automation live recording is completley f**ked up (well, sometimes it works well), and the sequencing window....one of the biggest flaws of FL. FL is a loop based sequencer, so based out like this, you cannot do much about the loops. Example : you create a loop, you start to add more and more layers to it, creating some new patters, supporting the main loop. The sequencer gets messy with all the automation patterns, and all the other junk there is. And now, after 4;00 min of the soung you've created, you wish to change the melody. What does it mean? YOU HAVE TO COPY ALL THE AUTOMATION, ALL THE PATTERNS, YOU HAVE TO MODIFY THE "COPIES", INSERT THE MODIFIED PATTERNS INTO THE SEQUENCIG WINDOW THUS, CREATE A TOTAL MESS. That's what I hate about FL. In Reason, you just modify what you want, and that's it. It's all nice and clean in Reason. But there are some good things about FL. Tons of VST Plugins, which means, unique effects. I also appreciate the Mix/Dry sound knobs in the FX window. Such a simple thing, but very useful. Reason ain't got that much effects (i especially miss mda Leslie, Fruity Stereo Enhancer, Granulizer, Fuzz Distortion, and many others). On the other hand, Reason has got the orchestral samples, and plenty of refills ready to dl from the net.
I also use Cubase SX (for mastering, great EQ Table, and quite nice sequencing window, but that's all, you cannot do much more apart that). Ableton Live - very good FX, but used only for sequencing. Acid - I used it once or twice, and I think it had a good time stretch algorythm (I don't remember if it offered creating loops from scratch, of even playing simple notes...). Of course, I've ran thru some monkey-music generators (E Jay, and similar), but they're so crappy I won't even mention. I succesfully used MTV Music Generator 2000 [before I got my PC], which is still a simple, yet very intuitive program (that counts the most in my book). I started off with Protracker. It's hard to compare it to modern music producing software, but It sure was a good playground for me to learn the basics of music. And now, after all the time i've been through, things are only getting better. One thing I'm sure of is when U're not inspired, change the software.
If you are [inspired], then it's just a matter of time before you push the software to the limits (usually signaled by hanging up the computer).