Is Reason good for House/electro?

[UnworthyJobba]

Maybe it's just me, but I can't seem to make anything decent with it...

[sureno]

Reason made one of the biggest electro tracks when electro was getting big

i myself just use it for the instruments via rewire as i dont get on too well programming in it

[UnworthyJobba]

Originally Posted by sureno

Reason made one of the biggest electro tracks when electro was getting big

i myself just use it for the instruments via rewire as i dont get on too well programming in it

What software do you use?

[tehlord]

Originally Posted by UnworthyJobba

What software do you use?

He uses literally everything.

[sureno]

Originally Posted by tehlord

He uses literally everything.

i actually float between logic 9 and ableton live 8, rewiring reason when desired.
what are you finding difficult about reason, may be we can try to help?

[EdRyan]

It is. But most people use it as a giant VSTi.

Whenever people ask me this question, I refer them to my facebook page. The first track 'Welcome To Jamrock' was done mostly in an old version of Reason a few years ago.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Edward...4795077?ref=ts

Ive gotta say Reason 4 confuses the testicles out of me. It looks odd and I struggle comapred to my old 2.5. Sadly, that is no longer working under Rewire to Logic due to me having an Intel mac. Intel support started at v3..

[UnworthyJobba]

Originally Posted by sureno

i actually float between logic 9 and ableton live 8, rewiring reason when desired.
what are you finding difficult about reason, may be we can try to help?

Well, for starters, I can't make the typical "noise" that is present in almost all house/electro songs (the "build-up noise"). But I think the biggest problem is that I can't make good synth sounds. I can create the melody easily, but the sound is either too cheap or too annoying. Here's a sample of what I consider the best I've done with this genre:


http://soundcloud.com/joaovalerio/fail-house

As you can see, it just sounds cheap and not "powerful" enough.

[sureno]

i think your issue lies in mixing, that track has the potential to be a great minimal type track, the bass IS thin, so try layering it with another bass, learn a bit about synthesis too, learn what each fundamental wave sounds like etc, just keep at it mate, it takes fooking years, believe me, i know

[tehlord]

Originally Posted by sureno

i think your issue lies in mixing, that track has the potential to be a great minimal type track, the bass IS thin, so try layering it with another bass, learn a bit about synthesis too, learn what each fundamental wave sounds like etc, just keep at it mate, it takes fooking years, believe me, i know

This is true.

Don't forget to low cut all the non kick/bass parts - this isn't too obvious in Reason from memory

[UnworthyJobba]

Yeah, I know it takes years, it took me a year and a half to produce a decent hiphop beat, but now I'm more into "danceable" music. Thanks for the advice!

[Khazul]

I find reason was very good *if* thats what you actually want to entirely work in, though v4 seems to have lost alot of the workflow simplicity somehow.

Perhaps if I had two audio computers (at at least a much faster one with two big screens), I might be tempted to try and run it on a second PC slaved to the first via midi and treat it lkike a hardware workstation.

I find that if you are not doing obvious type procesing in it, then you do often have to apply alot of lateral thinking when it comes to acheiving certain effects and processing techniques and TBH this is where it starts to p*** me off.

The one saviour perhaps is that record does add alot of features that in my mind have the potential to make it a useable tool again.

Of course the thing I hate most about it - I cant load it directly as a VST, nor host VSTs within it.

Rewire is just the best illustration of what a complete pain in the ackside working with two applications at the same time can be - each fighting over your midi controllers etc, not to mentioned its a complete CPU hog in rewire mode and with the exception of Ableton live, most DAWs dont dont rewire any favours either.

In the end it either works for you or it doesnt. Use the tools that support the way you like to work and the gear you like to work with.

Just dont stanard around waiting for propellerheads to add the feature your begging for - they wont - ever!

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by UnworthyJobba

Well, for starters, I can't make the typical "noise" that is present in almost all house/electro songs (the "build-up noise"). But I think the biggest problem is that I can't make good synth sounds. I can create the melody easily, but the sound is either too cheap or too annoying. Here's a sample of what I consider the best I've done with this genre:


http://soundcloud.com/joaovalerio/fail-house

As you can see, it just sounds cheap and not "powerful" enough.

Sounds are too clean and not enough impact IMHO. Stick a scream inline with the synths, try different mangling from subtle character to well cooked - tape and tube modes being very useful.

Use EQ to give each sound its own space - dont be afriad to completely gut the mid of a sound leaving just bass and treble.

Layer sounds, but not just simple layering in the middle, leave your main lead/bass sound center and augment with different high passed timbres panned left and right etc and processed with reverb/delay/flanger/vocoders etc or whatever works.

R4 has a great groove engine - very subtle swing 8 mixed with a much stronger swing 16 can yield really nice grooves.

4 mastering compressor in sidechain mode sux for kick pumping IMHO - however you can acheive the same thing using the scream as a level to control signal generator (have a look at the back of it), have it trigger an envelope on a subtractor to use as an automated volume control etc. Even better- control the vocoder in this way and you can use it as a keyable multiband EQ - excel;lent from making one sound dip certain frequencies of another sound automatcially.

A kick is basicaly two things - an attack and its weight, or the boom part - very subtle layering of a hi hat with a kick can add a whole load more impact.

If you use the kick to drive key input to compressors (or even better in reason), use something like the matrix as an LFO to simulate kick pumping, then you can give the kick more room in the mix automatically.

Simple things like using two reverbs, one panned slighly left, the other panned slightly right and both with the low end cut out of them can be great for adding loads of space to a mix - you dont need to crank the reverb level up much to acheive this, so you can do it yet keep a fairly dry sounding mix.

The comp 01 on extreme settings can be a very brutal compressor - also great for adding impact to sounds.

[UnworthyJobba]

Thanks for the advice Khazul! But I think that I can't understand half the things you wrote, I'm really a newbie with this For instance, how do I cut the highs, mids and lows? I can do it in Live, but I can't in Reason.

[Khazul]

Originally Posted by UnworthyJobba

Thanks for the advice Khazul! But I think that I can't understand half the things you wrote, I'm really a newbie with this For instance, how do I cut the highs, mids and lows? I can do it in Live, but I can't in Reason.

For EQ - in Live 8 you're probably using an EQ8, in reason use either a mastering EQ or one of the old PEQ units. The mastering EQ is probbaly the closest to EQ8 - controls are fairly similar.

If you can manage EQ8 in Live, then you can definately find your way around reason's mastering EQ.

BTW - do you have a hard time dealing with all the wiring up etc in reason, or are you OK with that?

[EdRyan]

I never had an issue working with older versions of Reason. But the changes in Reason 4/ Record in regard to wiring and layout are confusing me.

For example. I will show you what is annoying me. When Record automatically routes a device for you, it doesn't actually show how the signal gets to the output. I'm used to seeing how everything was routed in older versions.... meaning I have to then go reconnect everything so that I don't get confused. I know that the device created above the instrument that allows editing of the programmer acts as an input to the desk...but I'm not used to seeing it go into the programmer device and not out to somewhere tangible again. And the master section device...that is confusing me now as well. What's the point if the desk has a master output anyway ?