Still a newbie, need lots of help

[TAeala]

Hello....
I feel like I'm in the dark, aside from being partially blind... lol
I'm using Reason 6.5.3, I've tried the later versions when I was having computer problems so I was not able to use them successfully.
I'm still very new to MIDI although I've had the hardware for many years. I've just not been able to get everything to click. (make sense, not the click noise lol) I have tried Reason Tutorials several years ago and I wasn't able to understand some stuff. I can't get my music to work on a time signature, beats, anything like that. I took a midi class MANY MANY years ago (about 30 ish years back) and I screwed up on my final project... when I thought I had 4 instruments playing together it all played the same instrument. Can someone recommend any FREE tutorials for the ABSOLUTE COMPLETE beginner? Can someone hold my hand and please help me make sense of things? Also is there a section that will show actual editable music notes? Please be gentle with me and thank you so much in advance. It's intimidating but I LOVE playing around with it. I started playing the piano by ear when I was 2, I took piano lessons off and on for 12 years. I have a hard time reading sheet music so I can do a lot by ear. I want this to be fun, not frustrating....
Thank You....
Diane PS how can I change my display name? I made a typo when I created it.

[Billy]

Do you have any pitcular genre you're looking to create.
Reason 6 is pretty old now, what's the latest version you are licensed for.
Not sure how to change your screen name without creating a new account.

The main tutorial section is here :- viewforum.php?f=5

[joeyluck]

Moderators can change your username. What should it be?

[TAeala]

@Billy: My tastes are all over the map, I just don't know what I'm doing. Because of my vision issues, I don't have the patience to do a lot of sifting through reading.
@Joeyluck, lol thanks... It should be Teala.... fumble fingers on the loose!

[Billy]

@Billy: My tastes are all over the map, I just don't know what I'm doing. Because of my vision issues, I don't have the patience to do a lot of sifting through reading.
@Joeyluck, lol thanks... It should be Teala.... fumble fingers on the loose!

If you're more interested in video based learning then you could always give Adam a watch, he did quite a few streams last year on twitch, with archived content going on YouTube.

His RT thread is here:- viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7493605

And includes links to most of his content.

[bxbrkrz]

Hello. Just an idea. Do you have a microphone?

You could activate the metronome option in Reason and sing, or beatbox to a new audio track. Stop. Then listen to your timing. Keep it or delete it, until you are satisfied with the result. Reason gives you the option to quantize (to correct) your timing on your recorded audio too, if you want. Save your project. Then listen to the notes of your bass line, the beat made with your voice, melody, arrangements, etc. Create a new instrument track and try to play your melody, bass, etc. Replace everything with the instruments. Keep or delete your audio tracks with your voice on them.

Instead of trying to find a sound in a sea of sounds that may or may not work, "sometimes you just gotta flip the script"

Good luck, and welcome

[PhillipOrdonez]

I'm not entirely sure what it is that your trying to learn.

[Mint]

Hello Teala
Try this Reason beginners Vid. It's pretty basic...

-Mint

[antic604]

Can someone recommend any FREE tutorials for the ABSOLUTE COMPLETE beginner? Can someone hold my hand and please help me make sense of things? Also is there a section that will show actual editable music notes?

I know you said "free", but below is the best Reason tutorial I ever saw (frankly, best DAW tutorial *period*) and it's just $15 for a full month access to stream this & countless others videos (or $35 for a download). It guides you through the whole process from setup to recording, editing, arranging and automating MIDI & audio. It's awesome:

https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Reason-10-Explained


Here's the review of it I posted:

This one's simply brilliant! Super well organised and perfectly paced, brief but jam-packed with all the important info and presented clearly with illustrative audio examples. Reason is often viewed as a pretty backwards, limited and complex DAW but Paul shows that it's actually very well thought out and focused / distilled to provide just the right tool-set to get the job done. One of the best tutors I came accross here or elsewhere!!! Frankly, Reason Studios should buy the rights to this tutorial and have it added to Reason and posted on their YT channel, because it'd sell lots of copies of the DAW

P.S. I only rated quality of video at 4 because of Reason's inherent low-res GUI that doesn't lend itself well to zooming. That's not on Paul or Groove3's video player!

[LarsK]

I took a midi class MANY MANY years ago (about 30 ish years back) and I screwed up on my final project... when I thought I had 4 instruments playing together it all played the same instrument.

Hello.

If I read you correctly, based on your “final project”-comment, what you want to do, is to use your external hardware via MIDI with your DAW (in this case, Reason 6.5). IIRC MIDI Out wasn’t implemented in Reason until version 7.
MIDI means a lot of different things to different people, but in it’s very basic form, it’s a communications protocol.

I’ve used external hardware on and off for the past 25 years, with various DAWs (Reason, Logic and even Pro Tools, although the latter was a very short “love” affair). My preferred DAW for implementing my hardware synths these days, is Logic.
I’m not saying Reason can’t/doesn’t get the job done. I came from Notator to Logic, before going all ITB with Reason around 2001, so a few years back, as I started to implement hardware in my setup again, it seemed natural for me to run a parallel setup with Logic as my “hardware-based” DAW, as Logic historically has served me best with hardware synths.

What I think you could benefit from, is a general tutorial on connecting hardware synths with a DAW.
You probably know this, but if your synths does not have a USB/FireWire connection, you need a dedicated MIDI-interface to connect it to your DAW. If you have multiple hardware synths, you can connect them via a MIDI-interface with multiple ports, or chain them to a single port, which will generate more latency, the further “down the line” you have your gear connected.
Hardware synths need to be utilised via different ports and/or different channels. So a bit of reading is necessary, as MIDI-setup is different from hardware synth to hardware synth; the synth manual is your friend.

Although reading has it’s complications for your, there’s an article here on how to use midi hardware with Reason:
https://ask.audio/articles/how-to-contr ... -in-reason


Best,
Lars

[Bewlay]

Music making via Midi has come a long way in 30 years so you may not need as much knowledge as you think you do!
Once you have your hardware set up in Reason*, that's all you need. After that, as long as you're using the Reason devices, you don't need to worry about midi.
It's basically automatic, going on behind the scenes for the most part.
You can dive in deeper if you wish but it sounds like that might not be your thing.
If you ask a more specific question with details of your gear, I'm sure folks around here will know the answer.

* This can be as simple as plugging in a USB cable into the computer or more complicated, depending on your gear.

[FrankJaeger]

Can someone recommend any FREE tutorials for the ABSOLUTE COMPLETE beginner? Can someone hold my hand and please help me make sense of things? Also is there a section that will show actual editable music notes?

I know you said "free", but below is the best Reason tutorial I ever saw (frankly, best DAW tutorial *period*) and it's just $15 for a full month access to stream this & countless others videos (or $35 for a download). It guides you through the whole process from setup to recording, editing, arranging and automating MIDI & audio. It's awesome:

https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/Reason-10-Explained


Here's the review of it I posted:

This one's simply brilliant! Super well organised and perfectly paced, brief but jam-packed with all the important info and presented clearly with illustrative audio examples. Reason is often viewed as a pretty backwards, limited and complex DAW but Paul shows that it's actually very well thought out and focused / distilled to provide just the right tool-set to get the job done. One of the best tutors I came accross here or elsewhere!!! Frankly, Reason Studios should buy the rights to this tutorial and have it added to Reason and posted on their YT channel, because it'd sell lots of copies of the DAW

P.S. I only rated quality of video at 4 because of Reason's inherent low-res GUI that doesn't lend itself well to zooming. That's not on Paul or Groove3's video player!

I second this. Groove 3 has tons of music producing courses that have short run times for its videos yet are jam packed full of useful information. It has everything from full daw explanations/tutorials to more specific things like compression and eq. All the courses are very detailed and will likely take multiple views to fully digest everything but you definitely get your money's worth.
They have a course called Reason 6 Explained that will most certainly get you up and running and at the time that I'm posting this they're running a deal of 33% off store wide (the all access pass remains $15 a month though) so you can just get that and start studying.