Exploring Reason Video Series

[jimmyklane]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

[Southgate]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

Nice...! Well done. There were a few things that I hadn't thought of there with the FM and Pulse Width...

Thanks

S

[selig]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

Looking good - noticed the audio was right heavy by 6 dB, but maybe more importantly the overall levels are quite low (hitting only -18dBFS when you play the various waveforms). The image looks top notch (though probably no need to go 60p?). Is it the audio you're referring to when you say "youtube trashed my video"?
Looks like a great series, looking forward to the rest!

[jimmyklane]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

Looking good - noticed the audio was right heavy by 6 dB, but maybe more importantly the overall levels are quite low (hitting only -18dBFS when you play the various waveforms). The image looks top notch (though probably no need to go 60p?). Is it the audio you're referring to when you say "youtube trashed my video"?
Looks like a great series, looking forward to the rest!

Correct, in the original encoding my voice is dead center and of course Subtractor is mono, and so is it. Levels were pretty conservative....I didn’t edit this video, and so the mic and Subtractor were ran right into the encoder live....ever heard a clipped MP3/MP4? Ugly!

I’ve got Sony Vegas, so in the future I’m planning on making it a little more produced and of course I’ll have a separate mic channel and audio channel(s) for when I get into pretty much every other video since they all have some possible stereo content.

[jimmyklane]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

Nice...! Well done. There were a few things that I hadn't thought of there with the FM and Pulse Width...

Thanks

S

Thank you! I’m glad that you got something out of it. I’m thinking that the other devices are going to have to be put into parts (think Marc Doty) because how the hell do you cover something like Thor in 20-25 minutes? You don’t....not if you want to really show it off. The goal is to show both power users as well as folks brand new to Reason WHY they might want (say) Thor over something new and shiny like Europa. Even Subtractor still has something to offer, which I hope I showed to good effect.

[amcjen]

I’m really looking forward to this series too! Just subscribed on YouTube. [emoji122]

[selig]

Looking good - noticed the audio was right heavy by 6 dB, but maybe more importantly the overall levels are quite low (hitting only -18dBFS when you play the various waveforms). The image looks top notch (though probably no need to go 60p?). Is it the audio you're referring to when you say "youtube trashed my video"?
Looks like a great series, looking forward to the rest!

Correct, in the original encoding my voice is dead center and of course Subtractor is mono, and so is it. Levels were pretty conservative....I didn’t edit this video, and so the mic and Subtractor were ran right into the encoder live....ever heard a clipped MP3/MP4? Ugly!

I’ve not seen YouTube do this - what file format did you upload, or do you upload straight from the screen recorder? What screen recorder do you use? I’d try getting the levels decent and trying another upload, if just to try to learn what’s going on, so you don’t have this problem again.

-18 dBFS seems a long way off from what you’re probably intending to hit, right?

Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, I’ve not had this problem with any YouTube videos and am willing to share my workflow if you think it would be helpful.



Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk

[Wook]

Nice, a bunch of information I never had the patience to discover myself. Thanks!

[jimmyklane]

Correct, in the original encoding my voice is dead center and of course Subtractor is mono, and so is it. Levels were pretty conservative....I didn’t edit this video, and so the mic and Subtractor were ran right into the encoder live....ever heard a clipped MP3/MP4? Ugly!

I’ve not seen YouTube do this - what file format did you upload, or do you upload straight from the screen recorder? What screen recorder do you use? I’d try getting the levels decent and trying another upload, if just to try to learn what’s going on, so you don’t have this problem again.

-18 dBFS seems a long way off from what you’re probably intending to hit, right?

Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help, I’ve not had this problem with any YouTube videos and am willing to share my workflow if you think it would be helpful.



Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk

Totally missed this, thank you so much for helping.

I’m using a freeware program called Flashback Express recorded (OBS Studio was recommended via google, but despite many efforts I got inferior results). I’m recording into MP4, and have no idea what the “raw” format in the encoder is. In this particular video I actually recorded into the encoder itself with a physical loopback via the patchbay sources from live monitoring via Reason (in other words I’m record-ready, but not recording in Reason.) That way I’m recording my voice with the HP, compression and gate applied from the SSL, and Subtractor is vanilla of course.

What I HAD been doing is simply recording the main output into the encoder (as a reference for sync) and recording the vocal and the synth as audio in Reason itself. Export those files and mate them up visually in Sony Vegas 12. The problem I was having was insanely long render times....like 3 hours for a 25 minute video, when the screen recorder exports in 15 minutes as MP4.

-18dbFS is nowhere close to where I’d like to hit, more like -6 for my peaks. I was conservative because the encoder actually showed me traveling up “into the red” part of its meter, and my reference level is set for -18=+4dBu, +10dBu=85dB SPL, but my headphones are intentionally set (and while not locked I don’t mess with them) to a significantly higher volume to hear reverb tails and edit points, etc.....so I sounded plenty loud in my own head!!! I’ll use a pair of much less sensitive headphones and note the current setting so I get a louder level. I’ll also toss an LA2A( well, a WA2A, I don’t have the real one anymore) on the vocal before the gate so I’ve got a nice consistent level going in to Reason, if an ‘2A can do anything it’s even out any vocal! Worried about the room noise, as I’m no longer a commercial facility and really dont (can’t!) sing... so I’m not set up to record any type of really nice, dry VO track.

In any case, I would love to hear about your workflow in creating videos, I’ve seen your coloring EQ vid and it was done very well with slick production values, etc. Obviously I have a handle on my music, but the truth is that I’ve got very little experience with real video production, having only created simple 2-camera movies for hardware reviews to post on YT.

[EnochLight]

I’ve got Sony Vegas

What I HAD been doing is simply recording the main output into the encoder (as a reference for sync) and recording the vocal and the synth as audio in Reason itself. Export those files and mate them up visually in Sony Vegas 12. The problem I was having was insanely long render times....like 3 hours for a 25 minute video, when the screen recorder exports in 15 minutes as MP4.

Not sure if it's within your budget right now, but (as you probably know) Sony sold Vegas to Magix, but they've released a few updates since the acquisition that improves performance and render times. I'm on Vegas 15 and the difference between 12 and 15 is like night and day on my system (specs in signature).

If you've got a modern graphics card, you'll even get hardware acceleration (I'm still CPU dependent on my renders, as my GPU is over a decade old).

I do screen caps in Bandicam in MP4 (which boils down to h.264 files). If my captures are large (say, over 500 MB), I'll re-render them using Handbrake for free to get the file size down for YouTube. I like keeping my file sizes down, even for 1080p content, just to keep the experience smooth for the viewers. Large files uploaded to YouTube can buffer on slower internet connections or mobile devices trying to view over cellular networks.

[jimmyklane]

I’ve got Sony Vegas

What I HAD been doing is simply recording the main output into the encoder (as a reference for sync) and recording the vocal and the synth as audio in Reason itself. Export those files and mate them up visually in Sony Vegas 12. The problem I was having was insanely long render times....like 3 hours for a 25 minute video, when the screen recorder exports in 15 minutes as MP4.

Not sure if it's within your budget right now, but (as you probably know) Sony sold Vegas to Magix, but they've released a few updates since the acquisition that improves performance and render times. I'm on Vegas 15 and the difference between 12 and 15 is like night and day on my system (specs in signature).

If you've got a modern graphics card, you'll even get hardware acceleration (I'm still CPU dependent on my renders, as my GPU is over a decade old).

I do screen caps in Bandicam in MP4 (which boils down to h.264 files). If my captures are large (say, over 500 MB), I'll re-render them using Handbrake for free to get the file size down for YouTube. I like keeping my file sizes down, even for 1080p content, just to keep the experience smooth for the viewers. Large files uploaded to YouTube can buffer on slower internet connections or mobile devices trying to view over cellular networks.

I’ve got a very similar computer to yours, with 32GB of RAM, and 12TB of storage (each of my film scans is almost 2GB). I’ll look in to Bandicam. This upload was 400MB, but I still lost the crisp edge of the video. In addition I recorded at 60p, which is probably completely unnecessary! My video card renders with CUDA, which is why I think I’m either experiencing the bugs of Vegas 12 (which I bought for a music video I was hired to shoot alongside engineering the single) or I’ve got some setting that I’m missing. Thanks for the tips!!!

[jimmyklane]

My idea with this series is to work my way “up the chain” so to speak. If you started back with Version 1 (was it 2???), then you’ll remember the NN-19 Sampler. The advantage, as I’ll show in the next video is that EVERYTHING is able to be modulated and automated, which of course cannot be done with it’s big brother the NN- XT. So we will turn our hands and minds to sampling....and beating the hell out of those samples....with the next Exploring Reason installment, “The NN-19”.

Working on it today, hope to have it out by next Wednesday.

[EnochLight]

In addition I recorded at 60p, which is probably completely unnecessary!

Yeah, that might be the crux of your issue right there. Absolutely no need for that in tutorial videos! I stick to 30 fps at about a 60% quality setting (h.264) in Bandicam, with audio at 192 kbps and 44.1 Khz under an AAC codec. That boils down to less than 8 MB per minute, and still looks great at 1080p (at least for YouTube tutorials). Renders fast in Vegas 15, too.

[Rony2jim]

Here is the first installment....Subtractor Polyphonic Synthesizer.

These will get better and better as I get a little more practice with handling screen recording, playing a synthesizer, and speaking into a youtube microphone and doing it all in one take.... As it stands, there are some mistakes and pauses, but I believe that this shows the functionality and architecture of the device quite well. If you've been using Reason for many years, perhaps you already know all of this, but I'm shooting for a deeper version of what James Bernard did some years back on the old Props site.

I'll be working through every single synth and sampler, showing off what they do well, and why you'd perhaps want to use that synth over the other options.

Enjoy! Subscribe and Like if this is something you dig!

PS: looks like YouTube trashed my video....I'll work to make these clearer and better as time goes on!

Thank you, this was excellent. The thing I struggle with the most is finding my "natural" voice. I tend to mimic different singers and don't know what register or key I naturally sing in. Is my singing voice the same as my speaking voice?