Let’s just say Reason and Record together constitute one of the best all-in-one music creation and sequencing packages. I’ve tried out most all of the major DAWs out there, and I keep coming back to Reason and Record because of a few things: a) it’s easy and intuitive. This is the biggest draw for me. b) it allows me a wide latitude in sound creation. Sure some of the FX are a little lacking, but nowhere else can I create my own setups in such a simplistic way without having to know any programming or high level math. c) It’s instant and quick. Yes, I’m a little ADD, and I just love the fact that Reason and Record caters to me. I can jump in and add midi and audio tracks in a snap. I can go with an idea and get sidetracked into all kinds of wonderful tangents. It’s great. d) Finally, it’s stable and light-weight. My computer isn’t struggling unless I have an insane amount of Thors packed into a project. Sure I’d love access to VSTs but not at the expense of stability. Besides, I could spend a lifetime alone exploring the factory soundbank alone (not to mention all the great refill packages out there). So why go further.
All that being said, here is my wishlist of items I’d like to see in future versions of the software, in no particular order. I’m sure there are lots more that could be added, and this list is not meant to be exhaustive. It’s just a few of the major things I’d like to see in future versions.
For Record:
- Automatic Routing of the Reason mixer channels to the Record Main Mixer. Right now you can bring Reason songs into Record, but there is no mixer routings set up. You have two options: delete the mixer in Reason and then open the song in Record so that all devices get their own channels, or you can manually reroute in Record once your song is brought in. A user preference or dialog which opens and allows you to select the mixer you want to automatically route to separate channels should be available so that bringing a completed Reason song into Record maps all the Reason channels to new channels on the Record main mixer. Maybe in the next version PLEEEEEEZE!
- Comping for Midi as well. The new Comping Feature is great. Love it. However, it is reserved for Audio Lanes. If you want to do something similar in Note Lanes you have to use the New Dub / New Alt features. Overall, these two concepts are very similar. I’m wondering if there is a way to be more consistent with implementation. Why can’t we implement comps, for example, in note, and even in parameter automation lanes, and then do away with the new dub/new alt features altogether. This would make recording in loop mode in a Note Lane so much easier and workable. When you’ve laid down 4 or 5 takes in a note lane, you go into comp mode where you can have all the note lanes right there automatically waiting for you. The only real difference would be that in note lanes, you can have overlapping takes (audio and parameter automation can’t do this). But everything else would be pretty much identical for all types of track lanes. Seems a little clunky to have different methods which essentially do the same thing.
- Split Performance Controller Data into Separate Lanes. Would be nice to have the ability to split performance controller/note data from each other into two different clips on two different lanes. Right now it’s a tedious process of copying clips, deleting notes out of one clip and then deleting performance automation out of the other.
- Record Performance Controllers as automation. Would be nice if you can elect to record the “Performance Controllers” (Pitch Bend/Mod/etc) as automation instead of performance. Currently you have to record once for the notes, and once for the performance to get them on separate lanes OR you have to draw in the performance controller data. There is no way to click a button to record performance controllers as automation lanes (opposite to the “Automation as perf ctrl” button).
- Tempo automation/changes on a per-track basis. In the documentation on Page 161, it says “Automating tempo is done much in the same way as with other parameter automation. You record the tempo changes by changing the Tempo value on the Transport Panel. When you later play back, audio clips will automatically be stretched to follow the tempo changes (unless you have disabled stretch for the clips – see “About disabling Stretch for audio clips”). Note clips and automation clips will always follow tempo changes.” It woud be nice if you could opt to leave note lanes at the current tempo, thereby being able to change some note lanes or clips to a different tempo, and leaving other note clips / lanes as they are. This would be a nice advance in both Reason and Record.
- Display Masked Audio portion in the Audio Clip. In the documentation on page 169: Nice touch showing whether or not a clip has masked notes/areas! Nice improvement (Having this same feature added to audio clips would be nice as well). What would be even nicer is if masked areas were displayed the same way muted clips are displayed in the Arrange view, as there is really very little difference between the two. In fact, if you take this idea a step further, when you resize a clip (making it smaller) so that a masked area is created, it should automatically create the masked area as a new muted clip separate from the “active/visible” clip. When you resize back, it should automatically join the clips again. I think that would make sense, but I’m not sure if this would have undesired consequences in other places? But off the top of my head, it’s a suggestion. The benefit is that you would then be able to visualize how far the masked area goes in a given direction. Right now, there’s no visual indicator to show how far and wide the masked area is. It’s worthwhile to note that this is already pretty much implemented in the audio comp tracks. Now if we could bring that into the main arrange view, we’d be golden.
- Synch Reason / Record Favorites. I wish there was a way to automatically import your reason favorites into the Record Favorites and synch them together. I don’t like having to recreate all my favorites over again. It’s one of those time-wasters.
- Cut Note Events in the Clips. It might be nice to have the option when cutting clips, to cut the note events in the clip as well (if the note goes between split clips). This should be a toggle button on every track. Sometimes you DO want to split the notes, and it’s easier than going into edit mode for each clip and cutting them manually one by one (especially over several tracks). By doing this, you could select which tracks split notes and which don’t. Would be ideal if you are cutting several clips along multiple lanes, or inserting bars between locators.
- Scale Transposition of Notes. This is imminently more useful than chromatic transposition of the notes. Having both in the software would be a wonderful addition.
- Multiple Left and Right locators. When using Record to master a series of tracks, it would be nice if you could set things up with L/R locators and bounce all the tracks at once instead of bouncing them one at a time.
- More Training/Tutorials and videos included in the user documentation. At 850+ pages, the manual is getting absurd. Time to start moving with the times. More creative and advanced documentation please!
For Reason:
- Adding some new Effects, especially a glitch box such as “Glitch“
- Having the ability to Randomize the entire Matrix or Redrum device with one click of a button. Currently you have to create random patterns in each and every slot in all the banks, and then (if you want), you need to randomize the Steps AND Resolution. Having a button, which when clicked, allows you to select what you want to randomize on the matrix or redrum (steps / resolution / how many patterns, notes, curves, both notes and curves) AND also providing the ability to randomize percentage-wise (for example, randomize 10% gives you less randomization than 90%). This would turn a very tedious process into a simple one. Same thing in the automation lanes. How about random automation? This would be a godsend for glitch music.
- Combinator updates: In the Programmer, subdivide the right-click context menus into submenus (a la Thor modulation matrix menus). Also, adding an option for step increments for the Rotaries would be welcome. In cases where steps are needed, you could switch the Rotary to use steps. If you need the rotary as it is, you could switch it back. Also, give the user the ability to choose how many steps are required (up to 16 or 32 would be nice).
- Integrate ReCycle into Reason (or Record). Yes, Reason and Record are not considered DAWs, but when most other DAWs have slicing capability built in, it makes for a good justification to integrate this capability into the software.
- The ability to reverse midi and audio for backward playback. You can reverse a small sample in the NN-XT, but it would be nice if you could reverse the midi notes (and in record if you could reverse the audio) within the sequencer.
- Tap Tempo. This is important on so many levels.
- When in edit mode in the sequencer, providing the ability to move notes from one clip into another. Right now you need to combine the two clips, then move the notes around, then cut them up again. It’s very finicky to do this. Further to this, having the ability to see all the tracks while in edit mode is important if you’re trying to line up one set of notes or automation with another track. You can get around this somewhat by using the L/R markers, but it’s limiting.
Do you agree with these points? Is there anything in your wishlist that isn’t here? Anything else you want to see improved in Reason?
@Triple,
but still…) You have total control over every aspect of every sample inside the NN-XT. It’s just “static” – for lack of a better word.
True, I agree, it would be nice to map those parameters. believe me! But the upside is that you have total control (yes, via mouse
However, on an upside, if you have R5, you have Kong, and I’ve tried my best to create some useful Kong features here on my blog, which gives MPC-minded people some really great control over lots of things via their pads. You can map lots of fun stuff to the pads, other than just sounds, like an octave shift up or down, various FX, and even turn your Pads into a mini scene/clip selector (a la Ableton Live). So hopefully your Reason/Record purchase has not been wasted.
Feel free to ask any other questions. I’m always happy to help out where I can.
All my best,
Rob
yeah I thought about using the combinator and trying to assign some of those params to combi knobs to accomplish it.
And Im actually not trying to AUTOMATE anything. I just want the ability to trim my sample start and end points with the knobs on my controller rather than having to do it all with a mouse. which can get quite tedious. I just finally got a controller with knobs and faders, so that is how the question came about. But I am from the school of MPC, and have been using an MPC since 1996, and most recently an MPC2500 with JJOSXL loaded in it, which is extremely powerful.
Only now has the proposition of using reason via the NNXT and DR. Rex for sample trimming and chop playback come about. But one of the main reasons I purchased a controller with knobs and faders was because like a dumby I assumed I would be able to trim my samples in the NNXT with my controllers knobs. I assumed I could re-assign the knobs to any controller pot I wanted to by overriding the auto-mapped feature for a specific knob. Just didn’t realize that start, end, etc wasn’t able to do that.
Even more Naive, was me thinking that not only would I be able to control those function via my new controller, but more over, that they would be AUTOMAPPED!! haha. Foolish me.
I can see why its that way after your explanation with automation in mind. But it still seems silly to not let those knobs be assignable. Or to limit how many can be assigned at once, at the users choice to minimize automation events.
@Triple,
While I agree that it would be nice to be able to apply automation to every parameter in the NN-XT, this is just not a simple proposition. The NN-XT can load multiple samples per key, which means that automation parameter tracks in the non-global section of the device could number in the thousands. That’s the reason why you can only automate “global” parameters in the top part of the NN-XT.
One workaround is to use the NN-19 to load your samples. Since the NN-19 is one sample per key, you have the ability to automate more sample parameters here; “Sample Start” being one of them. However, you still can’t automate the rotary controls under the sample window (root, tune, lo key, hi key, etc.), but then again, I can’t really see a reason why you would want to change these parameters on the fly.
Even with this limitation, if you created multiple NN-19s loaded with the same samples, and then put them in a Combinator, you could give them each different root, tune, lo key, etc. values). Then you can decide which device is playing with the Combinator, break them across your keyboard, etc. — So there are workarounds. For that matter, you could combine two different NN-XTs in the same way, and then make your automation changes through the Combinator. This can get very bulky though and I admit it’s a very cumbersome workaround.
But the long and short of it is that you don’t have automation control over anything inside the non-global section of the NN-XT because there’s way too many parameters to automate. That’s a limitation you have to work within, unfortunately.
Rob
YES I have one.. I know this is a thread is way old now.. like a year old in fact.. since this is a great site, maybe this will get seen..
Anyway, I can’t understand for the life of me why I am unable to map specific controls on some of the Reason devices, for instance the NNXT, to my midi controller.
Namely In the NNXT the ability to assign the root, start, end, loop start, loop end, play mode, etc..
to any knob or fader on my Midi Controller. I have searched all over regarding this feature, and have been able to find only one person that has posted about it, and was told that those parameters are just not assignable. The main controls are, and get mapped automatically to my M-Audio Oxygen V3 no problem.
I can even re-assign those main controls (Freq, Res, Attack, Decay, Release, etc, to any button, knob or fader on my controller. So WHAT GIVES with some of the main sample trimming parameters not being assignable AT ALL?
I would LOVE some feedback on this.
thanks
Triple
MIDI OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DrNo,
The only thing you can do is bounce your reason track to audio (File > Bounce Mixer Channels). and then import the audio back into Record. This way you are essentially “Freezing” the audio.
If you were to do this method, you could essentially make your track modular (especially if you have cpu issues). For example, you could create all the devices that make up your drum track in one “record” song, then all the bass devices in another record song, then all the pads, strings, etc. — so in the end you might have 10 record songs (for example), each having their own part. Then you can bounce each part to audio and bring it together in a “Mixdown” record session with all the different audio parts.
It’s tedious I know, and finicky because you don’t get to hear all the parts together perfectly. But if you are willing to invest the time, this method can be used to create a track successfully.
I hope that helps. Let us know how you make out.
Rob
Rob, is it possible to use reason 4 with record in a way where you can ‘freeze’ tracks to audio. Say like a Thor or combinator synth part, any any sequenced part. I’m being held back by cpu issues with reason.
Drno,
I agree that multi-core processing was a great leap for Record. My old computer couldn’t do very well with too many Thors. I couldn’t even play the cool demo song that was on the Prop site when they launched Reason 4. Anyone remember that? It was a great song to hear. But too many Thors would choke my system. Too many Thors still choke if there’s lots going on in them (3 oscillators with 3 filters, etc). That’s the price of trying to sculpt your sound. I’ve been much more judicious in my use of the features of Thor and now I try to create patches that aren’t going to kill my CPU. Of course, for some things there are no workarounds. But with Record, it’s much easier to bounce parts to audio and save CPU resources, and that’s a huge help. Can’t wait to see what Reason 5.0 or Record 2.0 bring us.
The most important addition for reason is the ability to take advantage of multi core processors. Combinators and a few instances of THOR can kill workflow.
+1,000,000 for tap tempo!!!
Yes, it works perfectly – excellent! I look forward to your tutorial on this subject to see what other nifty tricks you come up with. I’ve been using Reason since 2.5, and I still feel I’ve barely scratched the surface of its capabilities.
Thanks again.
Outback,
no problem. Like I said, I’ll delve into this a little more deeply in a fully developed tutorial. And thanks for the comments on the other Vocoder Arp Machine tutorial. I’ll try to make all those adjustments to the typos. I think it was 1am when I was working on that one.
One thing you can also do if you want to control the shift knob (and I haven’t tried this out, and I haven’t thought it completely through, but it should be doable), is if you use the Thor as a CV pass-through. So turn everything off in thor, then connect the CV from the Subtractor into the Thor CV in 1 (for example). Then Connect the CV 1 out from Thor into the Shift parameter of the Malstrom. On the Thor Mod bus, you program the CV 1 in to go to the CV 1 out. Then setup the combi rotary as I did in the original patch I sent you. So you can control the CV level with the rotary knob, and the CV is passing through the Thor in the following way: Subtractor LFO > Thor CV in > Thor CV out > Malstrom Shift Parameter. See if that works out for you. As I said, I haven’t tried it, but it should work just fine.
Magic – that is exactly what I wanted to be able to do! There’s ample scope for interesting effects just using the fantastic Thor filters, and I can send it through the voice section (in mono) for further variation. Thank you so much!
And by coincidence you’ve picked a drone sound for the Malstrom which is a lot like one I’m using in a current piece – it was a bit of a shock when I hit play and heard “my” sound :LOL:.
Of course, it would still be nice if the CV merger splitter knobs could be automated – then you could target other synth parameters directly like the Malstrom Shift knob (which sounds really interesting when you’ve got these sort of pulsing LFOs going), but your Combinator patch will keep me happy for the foreseeable future.
Thanks again!
Outback,
I’m going to actually put an article together on doing something like this for you. That way we benefit everyone. So it is in the works. I’m also going to send you a combinator I put together which essentially should do what you want. I did find an easier way to do this than using a cross-fader. Stupid me. I didn’t think that you have all this capability in Thor to do just that. And also to merge the CV signals as you wish. So check your email. And everyone else who’s interested in this, please hold tight. I’ll be putting something together for you all as well shortly.
Cheers!
And further to my last post – using the 4 rotaries wouldn’t have worked anyway, because changing the rotary wouldn’t change the level of the LFO, it would change the frequency of the Subtractor’s filter. I feel really dumb now!
Cheers!