Gear Setup Advice Req'd

[epichouse]

Hi. I used to use Reason 5, I didn't make any music for years then bought Reason 10, but ended up not doing much with it, so I'm now very rusty in all matters audio.

I recently got myself a TD-3 acid clone in the sales as I love the acid sound and I wanted to try and regenerate some interest in making music.

I've been trying to link all my gear back together and I'm struggling to know what to do.

I've had some minor success linking the TD-3 to Reason, but I can't seem to get what I was hoping out of it. I don't know if it is me or if the product just doesn't do it and I've wasted my money.

This is my gear:
Quasimidi Sirius Synth (has midi in/out/thru, 1/4" 'carrier in' and 'analyse in').
Behringer TD-3 (midi in, midi out, USB)
DJ mixer, 4 channel, USB connected.
2 Technics turntables.
Laptop Core i9, 32gb ram, 1tb sshd.

I'm not sure how to get it all working together.

I'd ideally want to:

1) Play the Reason instruments with my keyboard.
2) Have a two way system with the TD3, so I can record patterns into Reason as notes, adjust the cut off etc and record it, then play it back to the device.

At the moment, I've stolen the MIDI-To-USB cable from my Sirius keyboard and I've been trying to hook up the TD3 to get it going.

I managed to get it working as a slave, so I can draw notes in the Reason piano roll and play it back through the TD-3, but I cannot seem to record back into reason any data from the knobs on the TD3 or alter any parameters drawn in on the track.

As this is a new instrument I was kind of expecting that this would be possible, so that you can play a pattern, record cut-off data into the same lane by using the TD3 knobs, then that arrangement is stored in Reason and can be opened and played back through the TD3 at any time.

(Surely they don't expect people to just play patterns and manually express the resonance and cut off filters by hand every time the song is played? Or to record it through as an audio take, but not be able to tweak or edit it in the future?)

Am I doing something wrong? Do I need more equipment to join the keyboard to everything and get that going in Reason at the same time?

Can you specify more than one input channel at once and I just need another Midi-To-USB cable? Or do I need some intermediate audio interface like a Focusrite or something more expensive like that?

Have I just wasted £100 on a TD3 where you can't output any of the filter knobs or send data back to it to adjust these parameters on playback?

Would I have just been better off with some kind of controller knob unit and using software clones? I'm assuming it is going to be bad news....

Cheers.

[jam-s]

I managed to get it working as a slave, so I can draw notes in the Reason piano roll and play it back through the TD-3, but I cannot seem to record back into reason any data from the knobs on the TD3 or alter any parameters drawn in on the track.

As this is a new instrument I was kind of expecting that this would be possible, so that you can play a pattern, record cut-off data into the same lane by using the TD3 knobs, then that arrangement is stored in Reason and can be opened and played back through the TD3 at any time.

I think the TD3 is an analogue synth and the knobs only control the analogue circuits and don't generate any MIDI data. While the MIDI is used for note input and clock sync only as can be seen from this MIDI implementation documentation).

(Surely they don't expect people to just play patterns and manually express the resonance and cut off filters by hand every time the song is played? Or to record it through as an audio take, but not be able to tweak or edit it in the future?)

I think that's exactly the way they intend the device to be used.

Am I doing something wrong? Do I need more equipment to join the keyboard to everything and get that going in Reason at the same time?

Can you specify more than one input channel at once and I just need another Midi-To-USB cable? Or do I need some intermediate audio interface like a Focusrite or something more expensive like that?

Have I just wasted £100 on a TD3 where you can't output any of the filter knobs or send data back to it to adjust these parameters on playback?

Would I have just been better off with some kind of controller knob unit and using software clones? I'm assuming it is going to be bad news....

I suppose you've correctly assessed the situation, sorry.

[PhillipOrdonez]

The best part of hardware is the hands on control. Audio recording is your friend, jam as many takes as you want and then edit the audio recording later

[epichouse]

Thanks....although it seems to be the news I didn't want to hear.

I guess that if I keep it I will have to find a new way of working as I've never based my music on recording takes of audio - its always been a matter of controlling everything via information.

I'm disappointed that I've thrown £100 on this and not been savvy enough to know this limitation, but it could have been worse.

My old computer couldn't handle a lot of virtual instruments playing and I missed the "hands on" aspect of real synths, but now that I got my new laptop which I'm just in the process of trying to set up and establish everything, I may be better off looking for some kind of controller surface with knobs and getting some virtual 303 clones for Reason.

I'd probably keep the Td-3 to lark around on, or worst case, bang it on Ebay at some point.

Anyway, at least that seems to confirm why I can't get controls to dial into Reason or visaversa - so thanks for that, it's probably saved me a few more hours trying to sort out something that can't be done.