Reason still has the "wow" factor ...
Posted: 29 Jan 2022
So, this singer I've known for years signed up for R+ but needed some help with latency (she wasn't using the ASIO driver).
She also is a complete novice on the keyboard, so naturally, I showed her the Scales & Chords player.
The immediate response was a very wide-mouthed "WOW!" It all just seemed to click, and you could see the gears moving in her mind imagining the terrors she could unleash with it.
She totally flipped when I threw Beat Map on her drums! The fact I'd never used it before (beyond a little tinkering when it first came out) only added to her fascination.
It happened again the other day when I was recording this rapper. The singer he'd invited to sing the hook couldn't make it, so I said, "no problem" and proceeded to hit up the Reason Store and buy the Antares Autotune RE. I could have done it with Neptune, but whatever, I was just trialling it. He didn't even notice what I'd done.
The wow factor came a little later after I'd chained up a slew of effects to make his voice sound like what I can only describe as hypnotic.
That's not to say it couldn't have been done in any other DAW because it was only an effects chain. And maybe I've become highly accustomed to Reason effects, but he was notably please with how effortlessly I did it - as well as leveraging comp tracks so that I could just loop the recording and deal with it later.
And then he asked to listen to the track at a different tempo - not a problem.
Later in the week, I tidied up his vocal.
What's great about Reason is that I can seamlessly switch between the various time-stretching and pitch editing functions. I'd use the "Recycle thing" to adjust the timing, sometimes use APE to modify the pitch of one or two syllables (I've also used APE to alter the pitch of a few syllables in spoken word to make it flow better), and for some parts, I'd make harmonies by cutting a section of audio and transposing the odd duplicated word.
Combining APE with Neptune or Autotune gives you subtle control over the raw vocal modulations, which can make the pitch correction sound a little more smooth.
For the few parts that lacked a complete double (sometimes the double was not correct) I used Polar to give me a slightly pitched double.
For the adlibs, I used things like Audiomatic, flangers and phasers to make it slip into the background.
Oh ... and Buffre. Towards the end of the track, I used Buffre to spice up the drums and the master channel. It was all so effortless and seamless.
He was well impressed with what I did with the recording, and Reason made it uber easy to do it.
It's easy to forget how crazy some of its features can be to others when you've gotten so used to having it available. But to the outside observer, it can seem a little otherworldly.
She also is a complete novice on the keyboard, so naturally, I showed her the Scales & Chords player.
The immediate response was a very wide-mouthed "WOW!" It all just seemed to click, and you could see the gears moving in her mind imagining the terrors she could unleash with it.
She totally flipped when I threw Beat Map on her drums! The fact I'd never used it before (beyond a little tinkering when it first came out) only added to her fascination.
It happened again the other day when I was recording this rapper. The singer he'd invited to sing the hook couldn't make it, so I said, "no problem" and proceeded to hit up the Reason Store and buy the Antares Autotune RE. I could have done it with Neptune, but whatever, I was just trialling it. He didn't even notice what I'd done.
The wow factor came a little later after I'd chained up a slew of effects to make his voice sound like what I can only describe as hypnotic.
That's not to say it couldn't have been done in any other DAW because it was only an effects chain. And maybe I've become highly accustomed to Reason effects, but he was notably please with how effortlessly I did it - as well as leveraging comp tracks so that I could just loop the recording and deal with it later.
And then he asked to listen to the track at a different tempo - not a problem.
Later in the week, I tidied up his vocal.
What's great about Reason is that I can seamlessly switch between the various time-stretching and pitch editing functions. I'd use the "Recycle thing" to adjust the timing, sometimes use APE to modify the pitch of one or two syllables (I've also used APE to alter the pitch of a few syllables in spoken word to make it flow better), and for some parts, I'd make harmonies by cutting a section of audio and transposing the odd duplicated word.
Combining APE with Neptune or Autotune gives you subtle control over the raw vocal modulations, which can make the pitch correction sound a little more smooth.
For the few parts that lacked a complete double (sometimes the double was not correct) I used Polar to give me a slightly pitched double.
For the adlibs, I used things like Audiomatic, flangers and phasers to make it slip into the background.
Oh ... and Buffre. Towards the end of the track, I used Buffre to spice up the drums and the master channel. It was all so effortless and seamless.
He was well impressed with what I did with the recording, and Reason made it uber easy to do it.
It's easy to forget how crazy some of its features can be to others when you've gotten so used to having it available. But to the outside observer, it can seem a little otherworldly.
.