After a few hours with the new (to me) Players....

[david1806]

Hi all.....

As some of you may know, I am a huge Reason fan, and a couple of days ago subscribed to Reason+, after already owning Reason Intro - and being around Reason since day 1 (although for many years not being around Reason...).

So just thought I would make a post about this evenings feck abouts. I decided to play about with the new (and old) players for a few hours.

And my opinion is pretty much the same about them (let me stress, this is just my opinion, and like most of my opinions, are open to change and I am always ready to listen to any new ideas/thoughts....). I just don't get the point of a lot of what they do. Are they geared towards non-players (by that, I mean people who don't really play an instrument). Like a lot of software/plug-ins we see advertised now that give us ready made songs almost - pre-made chord sequences, drum patterns, even song melodies now. I feel this type of thing must really take away the whole process of composing and creating a track. I remember many, many years ago when I first got into electronic music, back in the 80s, the criticism that would often be thrown at fans of electronic music was "ahh, you just have to push a button and out comes a tune, does it all for you". Of course, we laughed in their faces, knowing that creating a tune made with synths was the same as creating a tune with any instrument. Depeche Mode still had to play all those parts, programme all the sequences and sounds. In some ways, it was more difficult, or should I say, there was more to do, than being in a traditional guitar/bass/drums band. It took some real skill - listen to the Computer World album by Kraftwerk and tell me that all they did was "push a button".

But.....I am beginning to think if that attitude was thrown in my direction these days - I would have to kinda agree. Some of the software I see advertised now, really does seem that it is all there for you. Chuck a few things together and viola - you have a new tune. Which is absolutely fine, however you roll, go for it. Well....do I really mean that, or is there a tiny bit of me that thinks the skills going on there are, mmm, minimum at best. It is not something I like to say, because I should just think, however a good tune gets made, shouldn't really matter......but does it? I would love to hear some thoughts on that.....

Which brings me back to Reasons Players.....to a degree, some of them seem to fall into this category. And I just don't really get them. Some of them seem to do the same thing. Take the Drum Sequencer that I have just been playing about with for example. When you break it all down, what is it fundamentally doing that I can't just do using Redrum and the sequencer? Make the notes a bit random here and there. (Something I would personally never do anyway - I would rather just program every bar and create my "random" parts (so, of course, they wouldn't be random!). And the Pattern Mutator - what is that all about? Again, bung some notes in and just "see what happens". I guess it is just me, but the "see what happens" approach just does not appeal to me in the slightest. Sure, I have created many a part in many a track that was a happy accident, happens to all musicians playing all instruments. But to build your song-writing around that kind of principle....?

I had a few hours with the Beat Map too - again, what is that all about? And yet from looking online, it seems to be a popular tool. Don't get me wrong, I am sure every now and then I might play with one of them and hit on something I like. But here's the thing - would I spend my time in a Player, fiddling around hoping to "get something", or traditionally programme what I have in mind and want to create. I would rather be doing the latter, any day of the week.

Of course, there are the presets they all come with, but that takes me back to the other thing - press a button and viola.

I feel like I have droned on enough, as I tend to (then don't read 'em folks!! ) but in summary I think I still have the same opinion of Players as I have always had....Reason is incredible, I couldn't live without it, but there is so much more in it I would rather be spending my time learning about and using.

Again, let me stress, these are just my thoughts - I make absolutely no judgement on how others create their music. If someone is enjoying themselves and creating good music, then I suppose the method is irrelevant. Although I would be more impressed if someone had...ah, I'll stop there...! LOL!!

Of course, if I have it all wrong, and there are some awesome things I can do with some of these players, feel free to educate me! I forgot to say, I have used Scales & Chords quite a few times to great effect.

Anyway, the bad news is folks, this is just my post about Players - so much more for me to discover and.....post about!! Oh noooo!!

Any thoughts most welcome, but please, be nice.....

Have a great day, I am off to bed, it is 4.30 in the morning (again!!!)......

D

[QVprod]

Just think of them as tools. Things to make things easier, as well as time savers.

Advantage of something like drum sequencer over Redrum is that you can more easily trigger anything of your choice, like Kong, without having to wire up CV cables. Plus you can trigger all 16 pads whereas Redrum only has 10 channels. Beat map can be very useful auxiliary percussion sounds.

Even with player like scales and chords though, you still have to skill to make these things sound good together.

[joeyluck]

For me, they are for inspiration and habit breakers. I play keyboards, but a gravitate towards many of the same keys and scales. I enjoy programming my own drums, but I have a couple handful of rhythms that I find myself playing just out of habit. It's nice to mix things up and they make things convenient.

[zoidkirb]

Not everything was 'played by hand' in the 80's or even 70's though, some people had access to sequencers, while some had to make do with arpegiators and such. Players and Midi Vst's are just the next evolution of that and I think the attitude of 'not music, the machine does is all' is almost as wrong now as it was then. Such devices have democratized music making to an extent, but it's still up to the human writer to create that emotive phrase or groove, to compete to be heard apart from your fellow music makers.

As far as the randomization thing goes, I find them a great head start to inject a lot of variation into my writing. Once I'm fairly happy with what I've got going on, I print that part out as new midi in the sequencer and the Players get switched off and I manually edit the rest of the way. Boom, no more randomization.

[Jackjackdaw]

I think if you were a non musician trying to make music solely relying on what Players put out , the music you ended up with would be total sh*T so I don't think the argument of them 'doing it for you' holds any water.

Drum sequencer excels at Polymeters (drag the bars in from the right hand side of the lane to adjust how many beats per lane) . This kind of thing would be a bloody nightmare to peck in to the main sequencer.

Also try programming a steady beat on one pattern and a busy fill in the next and you can jam out glitchy beats by flipping patterns live. You can map this to a knob that cycles left and right through patterns for tactile jamming

I do a fair bit of sequencing on a Beatstep Pro, a monophonic hardware sequecer. Scales and Chords lets me play chord tracks with it from just programming the root notes.

Quad note generator is a total mare for anything melodic but I use it often as a pulse generator

Delta midi computer can do a vast array of things but I commonly use it on a Roland D50 refill I dug up on the internet that has an annoying velocity curve on every patch, I can use DMC to flatten that curve.

Here is a link to a little ditty I did with Note echo, the piece was played live on keys. https://1drv.ms/u/s!Avm2cOH1pNFwh-QLncQ ... ?e=tqxMBj

I mostly use Players along with live performance rather than as a replacement, they create an interplay between myself and the synths and between different voices in a patch. They are really flexible utilties!

[DaveyG]

Don't think of the players as things that will write whole tunes. Think of them as inspiration and also as "punctuators". Suppose you are writing a "standard" pop/rock song: verse - chorus - verse - chorus - middle 8 - chorus - end

To keep it interesting the second verse and chorus need to be a little different from the first. The players are really good at coming up with some interesting extra percussion or jangly twinkles (apologies for the technical terminology...)

And the same applies to EDM. Much EDM is based around a strong beat and very repetitive hook/riff/sample but there is plenty of scope for interesting stuff in the background. Players give you that. They are like having a slightly oddball musical collaborator sitting next to you but without the stress!

[Quarmat]

Hi!

I see Reason's Players as... well.. players! Just like some blokes in the rehearsal room with you as the band leader and main composer.

I just tell my bass player (Mr. QuadGenerator) "Hey the chords in this B section are this this and this, can you play a line anchored to the root but with some octave and fifth punctuation here and there?" And the guys begin to play. I hear a dozen of measures and I say: "Cool, homie, let's keep the first 2 quarters of the measure on your 9th take as fixed and for the rest of the measure you can go as you want, while I figure out some counterpoint with the keys.

Keyboard guy is Mr. PolyStep. So it is me going like "Ok, just do this riff and modulate it 3 times and on the 4th measure do this variation" And so he goes.

Miss Beatmap is on drums. I ask her to stay on this 4/4 with 4 on the floor while going crazy with the hats and polyrythmic with the snare and the rimshot. And my girl is performing nicer dicer.

With all the band doing their part I can focus on my job: changing what I think must be tweaked, figuring out more sections, adding/removing stuff, writing "my" parts, the one I will actually play.

In no time (compared to my early days with Reason ~ circa 2001 -2005) I come out with a song almost finished and with LOTS of mental energy and ear comfort left that would have been consumed to zero trying to achieve what I got with the help of players.

Then I polish the full stuff, editing the single notes of my players, rewriting by hand some stuff "my band" played and that I think it should be different and so on.

I have so much energy left for mixing and mastering, that, without players, I would have empoyed otherwise.

Also, like good old bandmates, they come up with ideas, tricks and unexpected stuff I could never figure out by myself, sometimes not even by accident.

To me they are friendly, reliable and faithful companions.

And they do not smoke!

[Jackjackdaw]

To me they are friendly, reliable and faithful companions.

And they do not smoke!

Like no real life band mates ever!

[lowtom]

I personally love player devices which are made for generating random sequences. It takes away boring decision making about which of the notes, in which combination at which point in time to play or draw by hand in sequencer.
I choose the generated output I like and process it further.

It is good ear and taste that matters in the end. If I tell any one who is not musician, how certain music was made, they simply do not care.

TBH, if any one is bothered by how easy is to make music using computer these days, then there is always Max, SuperCollider, TidalCycles or any other challenging tool

[Ottostrom]

For me, they are for inspiration and habit breakers. I play keyboards, but a gravitate towards many of the same keys and scales. I enjoy programming my own drums, but I have a couple handful of rhythms that I find myself playing just out of habit. It's nice to mix things up and they make things convenient.

I was trying to think of a way to explain why I like/use them even though I also love playing my instruments and this is spot on!
I put the most weight on my role as a producer and songwriter, which means I don't really have time to perfect my skills on individual instruments (even though I should practise more than I do lol). Things like players can really help you break out of those patterns you get too reliant on

[david1806]

Some great replies here, many thanks - haven't really got time this very mo to go through them properly.....but this is exactly what I was hoping for. Believe me, I really want to like and use Players, probably just need a few pointers. I'm just relieved that my posts were taken the right way, as I wasn't trying to say one is better than the other. It is all about learning and being open to new ideas......

[kuhliloach]

While I understand them I just don't see Players as a big deal or something I care about very much. The meat and potatoes of a DAW is not the synths or enhancements like the Players. As a musician and producer my main interests are the live recording of audio and MIDI performance, then editing, mixing, and mastering.

[selig]

How fantastic it would be if songs came to all of us fully formed, or at least as fast as you can play them. Sometimes they do, and to that end I keep my chops up by practicing and playing sessions and live gigs when possible. But writing songs is more a creative task, less so a technical one. That is why some song writers can’t play an instrument, or play well. The skill required for writing is not just coming up with great ideas, but learning to recognize them when you hear them. To that end tools like Players are great - you STILL have to recognize which ideas work, and figure out HOW to integrate/adapt them into your compositions.
Meaning, these tools don’t write songs (yet!), you still have to do the bulk of the work yourself. But sometimes we can all use a little kick starter.

[Mataya]

Put a Note Humanizer by Enlightenspeed Ltd after Beat Map and you'll get far more useful drum patterns from it.
Using it also as a note sequencer is cool. Select a few notes you like and shuffle them around with the map. Again, note humanizer makes a sequence less robotic when adjusted properly.

M

[david1806]

OK so stuck a Beat Map on Umpf Club Drums...nice!!! Starting to get my head around it.....

This really helped:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... map-player

Now I understand that the pretty graphics on the map are just eye candy, there is actually form and logic to it (that appeals to me)
To quote:
"The position is indicated by a crosshair, and you can click and drag directly within the display or adjust the co-ordinate read-outs. There are 16 steps in each direction, for a total of 256 pre-defined patterns.
I was initially confused by what the contour map represented. In fact the graphical backgrounds have no relevance to the results, they are window dressing. But the patterns are not scattered at random. Towards the bottom-left corner you will get simple, straight patterns. As you move to the right the kicks will become more syncopated and moving upwards results in more complex syncopated snare performances."

Although still a long way to go before I really do understand that map......

The worm is turning....whatever next, Note Echo??!! LOL!!

[StephenHutchinson]

Hi!

I see Reason's Players as... well.. players! Just like some blokes in the rehearsal room with you as the band leader and main composer.

I just tell my bass player (Mr. QuadGenerator) "Hey the chords in this B section are this this and this, can you play a line anchored to the root but with some octave and fifth punctuation here and there?" And the guys begin to play. I hear a dozen of measures and I say: "Cool, homie, let's keep the first 2 quarters of the measure on your 9th take as fixed and for the rest of the measure you can go as you want, while I figure out some counterpoint with the keys.

Keyboard guy is Mr. PolyStep. So it is me going like "Ok, just do this riff and modulate it 3 times and on the 4th measure do this variation" And so he goes.

Miss Beatmap is on drums. I ask her to stay on this 4/4 with 4 on the floor while going crazy with the hats and polyrythmic with the snare and the rimshot. And my girl is performing nicer dicer.

With all the band doing their part I can focus on my job: changing what I think must be tweaked, figuring out more sections, adding/removing stuff, writing "my" parts, the one I will actually play.

In no time (compared to my early days with Reason ~ circa 2001 -2005) I come out with a song almost finished and with LOTS of mental energy and ear comfort left that would have been consumed to zero trying to achieve what I got with the help of players.

Then I polish the full stuff, editing the single notes of my players, rewriting by hand some stuff "my band" played and that I think it should be different and so on.

I have so much energy left for mixing and mastering, that, without players, I would have empoyed otherwise.

Also, like good old bandmates, they come up with ideas, tricks and unexpected stuff I could never figure out by myself, sometimes not even by accident.

To me they are friendly, reliable and faithful companions.

And they do not smoke!

I couldn't have expressed it any better.

[loopeydoug]

When that first round dropped(scales and chords, dual arppegiator, and note echo) I had the same initial reaction.

My opinion has changed since other developers chimed in with their own Players(Delta, Kompulsion, Negate, MIDI Compressor). I now see these and others as third party developers giving us much needed MIDI functionality that we would've seen introduced into the Tool Window's processes, traditionally.

At first I was upset that, under this "re-branding" of the Tool Windows functions, they would now be "each sold separately". Now I accept that Props have basically gone all-in on their "Apple" path of simplified, lifestyle boxes(beat map) for the most part, and have left the serious tools to the other developers. They were never going to offer us something as plain-jane simple and utterly useful as MIDI-CV Converter, or as full-featured as Kompulsion, or as "big picture" as Delta. Plus the one true benefit of the "Tool Window 2.0" is that most of them allow for some amount of automation, which is very useful.