Recording song automations?

[Aosta]

I'm a exclusive Reason user but I saw an Ableton video a while ago where someone was recording an arrangement on the fly using an external midi controller and then cleaning it up after. It seemed like a really fast way to get the backbone of track down. I had the idea of doing something similar in Reason by creating a long song (a huge block) and then just messing around with mutes, channels, automated pans etc but I can't seem to find a way to select all the tracks at once to automate them?
Am I missing something really simple?

[antic604]

I'm a exclusive Reason user but I saw an Ableton video a while ago where someone was recording an arrangement on the fly using an external midi controller and then cleaning it up after. It seemed like a really fast way to get the backbone of track down. I had the idea of doing something similar in Reason by creating a long song (a huge block) and then just messing around with mutes, channels, automated pans etc but I can't seem to find a way to select all the tracks at once to automate them?
Am I missing something really simple?

Not really, not how Ableton's session view works at least

The closest thing - if you insist on doing it live - is to use this RE, but it requires you to bounce everything into Rex files:

https://www.reasonstudios.com/shop/rack ... er-module/

The other approach, although not for live tweaking, is to use Blocks mode, with each block corresponding to song part (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, etc.), where you can arrange them however you want and then - within each Block - mute certain parts or overlay them with alternate versions:

[selig]

…I can't seem to find a way to select all the tracks at once to automate them?
Am I missing something really simple?

Arm each track for automation recording, I don't think there's a global way to do this (someone please correct me if I'm wrong, it's early and I'm "pre coffee" as I write this!), so you'll have to click on each track individually. Once they are all armed for automation you can hit record and everything on the channel will be recorded and can be "cleaned up" after recording.

[guitfnky]

…I can't seem to find a way to select all the tracks at once to automate them?
Am I missing something really simple?

Arm each track for automation recording, I don't think there's a global way to do this (someone please correct me if I'm wrong, it's early and I'm "pre coffee" as I write this!), so you'll have to click on each track individually. Once they are all armed for automation you can hit record and everything on the channel will be recorded and can be "cleaned up" after recording.

this was driving me bonkers recording drums for my band this past weekend—add the lack of a group arm/disarm to the Reason bucket list.

[selig]

this was driving me bonkers recording drums for my band this past weekend—add the lack of a group arm/disarm to the Reason bucket list.

Yea, it's weird what you miss with other software, often not the "big" features. In this case it's a feature in Pro Tools which allows you to select channels and use a modifier so that what you do to one is done to all. Mute/solo are obvious choices but it can be anything from add a send to adding a plugin. You can also add a modifier that applies the changes to all channels regardless of selection, or to assign things sequentially. This last feature is handy for assigning inputs sequentially to a selection of channels, for example. And all of this comes in ADDITION to a robust group feature for channels and/or tracks. But the "do to selected/all" command was probably one of the most used "utility" command I used in PT, if just because it could be applied to so many parameters. Simple and elegant always floats my boat...

[Aosta]

Thanks for the replies guys!
Bit crazy that you can't 'select all' in the rack/mixer window, hit record and jam away live and have it recorded as automation in the arrangement window, seems like a kind of natural way to get stuff down then overdub where needed and clean it up with the edit tools.
It seems, as selig said that you can only do this per channel and not globally and I can't think why this can't be done but then again I have no idea what is behind the curtain in Reason so maybe there is a programmer reason it can't be done.
Would be a great feature to have.