New member Seeking REASON sequencer advice

Firstly let me say hi - looks like a great forum you've got going here.

I've recently decided to have a go at making my own music after thinking about this for a long time - finally thought there was no better time than now with the fab soft synths Id been reading about.

Decided to give it a go - have purchased a 2nd hand Evolution mk249c off ebay and invested in a copy of reason 3 after hearing the quality of the tracks that this forums Mr Varaldo has put on his website - awesome too might I add.

Anyway to cut a long story short - how long did it take you lot to get the hang of reason - especially the sequencer - Ive got a bit of an idea and I must admit Ive not read all the manual yet but I seem to be having trouble getting things in time - seems although my playing seems ok its not recording exactly what Im playing - quantize doesn't seem to help and the edit options drive me crazy trying to move things around to where I actually want em to be.

Maybe Ive jumped in at the deepend too much - would there have been an easier alternative to learn sequencer skills?

cheers

Two things:

One: I wouldn't listen to Mr Varaldo. That guy doesn't know what he's talking about - he has a long way to go in learning how real music should be done.

Two: Reason's sequencer is fairly easy and standard to use, but doesn't have all the capabilities that full-blown sequencers (Digital Performer, Logic, Cubase, Sonar etc.) have. It's perfectly workable, though... what are you having problems with, specifically? Can you post a .rps file of your song, so we can see what you mean and hopefully help you out?

Mr Varaldo's tunes do seem a bit dodgy - maybe he's a beginner like me - lol

No seriously - I liked the fact that you listed the gear you used to create your songs- the fact that you created solar module using just Reason and the controller is what swung it for me to get set up in a similar way - I like that sort of stuff.

When Ive managed to get a bit more of the track together I'll try and post a .rps so that you can give some suggestions of how best to arrange such a tangled web of bum notes - lol

I suppose I need to get the manual read in more detail and get use to the editing mode bit.

This one may be easier - is there a way of changing the clicker timing pattern - Im finding it difficult to get in time with the click pattern it uses - because of this Ive been using the drum machine to set up a beat for my timing and then deleting this when I've managed to get sorted - seems long way to be doing things though

muchas

>seems although my playing seems ok its

Sounds like your latency is set high. Set it as low as it can go, while still playing back without gliches.

You should definitely read the manual thoroughly, and refer back to it when something isn't working as expected.

I think most people will find (as I did) that their playing isn't as precise as they think.

Of course, your problem could simply be that you have "quantize notes during recording" turned on and have a low quantize resolution (like quarter notes, for example). If that's the case, no matter how you play, you would just get quarter notes recorded.

/I think Paolo and Mr. Varaldo are related. It's almost as if Paolo WAS Mr. Varaldo in a past life

Mr Varaldo = Paolo Di Nicolantonio right

Yes, but you only have to do it once. You'll find it easier to start with a standard rack/setup and save that as your default file. For example, I start with a rack that includes an EQ between the mixer and the transport, a multi-band compressor setup, one of each type of sound module, and a drum machine with a simple beat. So I can just start Reason and I'm ready to go.

I don't have 3.0 yet, but I think the combinator gives you much more power in this regard to save and reuse configurations that include multiple devices and routings. So once you find a sound you like, you can easily reuse it.

Reason's sequencer is one of the simplest there is IMHO. Maybe try the propellerhead forums at http://www.propellerheads.se.

Reading the manual will help too - but if you having trouble with that sequencer, then I would guess you might need a more general source of basic information about sequencers, editing etc.

An obvious question comes to mind - have you ever recorded with a sequencer before? Do you naturally know the subtle difference in timing between for eg a straight 16ths grid and a lazy swing, or would you know that you may be quite tight on the first coupld of beats and then be lazy on the last couple because of the goove your playing with?

If not - then dont quantise anything, instead grab all of what you played, line it up so that the notes that should start at the beginning of a bar do, then look at where the rest fall - is there a repeating pattern of deviations from the grid lines through the rest of the bar? - yes? thats your groove - select a good representative bar - and grab it as a groove template (read manual to understand this). Whenever you record something - pay close attension to those deviations rather than just quantising them away - they can make the difference between a hot dance track and something to snooze to

the manual(s) that come with Reason isnt that great, imo. Try to acquire this book if you can, and use that as your "manual".

Cheers guys some food for thought there - I know what I should do but the thought of reading those 200+ pages is pretty frightening - last reading I did was Fantastic Mr Fox for heavens sake and thats some time ago I can tell you - lol AND i just want to play!!!

I did have a bash at this stuff in another life - about 15 years ago where I had a copy of cubase and used to run it on an atari st - used to have one of those casio keyboards with the orange rubber drum pads - you can imagine how overwhelmed I am with how the technology has moved forward - however, the sequencer in cubase seemed a lot easier to use back then - maybe cos it wasn't capable of what reason's sequencer can do - I dont know?

Either way - although its proper twisting my melon I'm still having fun - Im determined to get my head around it. Your right filtern - I never thought of actually using a basic rack set up as a template - simple common sense - Im gonna have to take a back step - im tryng to take too much on board I think

Once again, cheers for your response.