Jamstix in Reason?

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househoppin09
Posts: 536
Joined: 03 Aug 2016

05 Mar 2018

Search hasn't turned up much of anything on here for this. Has anyone attempted to use Rayzoon's Jamstix in Reason? I'm thinking about buying it and would like to know what caveats to watch out for. In particular, I'm guessing it's totally impossible to use Jamstix to drive other drum VSTs, as this would probably require Reason to support VST MIDI out, right? Would love to get some firm confirmation about that from someone who's tried it, and if there are any tricks or workarounds that do allow Jamstix to be used that way in Reason that would be great! Other than that, I'd at least hope that it should work fine with the internal drum sounds that come built into Jamstix, but again, would like to hear from someone who's actually tried using it in Reason. Thanks!

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EnochLight
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Posts: 8405
Joined: 17 Jan 2015
Location: Imladris

06 Mar 2018

househoppin09 wrote:
05 Mar 2018
Search hasn't turned up much of anything on here for this. Has anyone attempted to use Rayzoon's Jamstix in Reason? I'm thinking about buying it and would like to know what caveats to watch out for. In particular, I'm guessing it's totally impossible to use Jamstix to drive other drum VSTs, as this would probably require Reason to support VST MIDI out, right? Would love to get some firm confirmation about that from someone who's tried it, and if there are any tricks or workarounds that do allow Jamstix to be used that way in Reason that would be great! Other than that, I'd at least hope that it should work fine with the internal drum sounds that come built into Jamstix, but again, would like to hear from someone who's actually tried using it in Reason. Thanks!
There's a free (demo) version you can download and try. Have you gave it a spin to see for yourself?

http://www.rayzoon.com/jamstix4_free.html
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

househoppin09
Posts: 536
Joined: 03 Aug 2016

06 Mar 2018

The free version is missing a lot of MIDI features, which kind of defeats the purpose of checking to see if those features work in Reason. For example, I'd love to know whether the MIDI drag and drop works and, if it does, whether there's any way to cobble together a workflow using that feature that can compensate for the inability(??) to drive other drum VSTs directly from Jamstix.

Come on, someone out there must have it! Anyone? :)

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guitfnky
Posts: 4408
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

14 Jul 2019

late bump...I’m wondering how/if Jamstix might be made usable in Reason’s workflow, and the demo doesn’t seem to be doing the trick, for me.

anyone using this successfully in Reason?
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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NekujaK
Posts: 631
Joined: 09 Oct 2016
Location: USA

06 Dec 2019

I've had my eye on Jamstix for many many years, but could never quite justify buying it, especially since I had invested heavily in EZdrummer + expansions, and was very happy with it. But Rayzoon is running a huge sale this December, and the prices are just way too tempting, so I took the plunge.

I just finished exploring Jamstix for about an hour in Reason, and these are my initial impressions:

- When I first tried to load Jamstix in the Reason rack (10.4 on Windows 7), an error message appeared and Reason disabled the plugin. Great :( Then I tried loading it into Reaper, and an interesting thing happened: a message appeared saying there was a configuration problem on my system and Jamstix corrected it, please restart Reaper. So I did, and now Jamstix loaded fine. I went back to Reason, and much to my delight, Jamstix now loaded fine. Phew! :P I have no idea what the "configuration problem" was - I've never seen that before, and I don't know if the "correction" made inside Reaper ultimately enabled Jamstix to work in Reason.

- Jamstix seems like a pretty deep product, but without reading the manual, I was able to quickly load a kit, style, and drummer, generate a song arrangement, and tweak a couple of simple parameters. There are quite a few things I don't understand on the song building screen in particular, that will require cracking open the manual. But the basics are pretty easy to figure out.

- Good news: MIDI export works in Reason! I was able to drag-and-drop an entire song arrangement onto Reason's timeline. To test it, I simply loaded an ID8 device, and it worked great! Jamstix allows you to configure the MIDI output to conform to a fairly large list of 3rd party drum libraries, so for example, exporting a MIDI file that is geared to EZdrummer2 is totally possible.

- The big deal with Jamstix is that it doesn't just play static loops. Depending on the drummer persona you select, the engine will vary how the basic patterns and fills are played throughout a song, which is very cool, and infuses life into the drum part. Some of the alterations are quite subtle, but nonetheless, they all contribute to the overall aliveness of the drums. This feature alone, is worth the price of admission for me.

- The UI and drum graphics are completely unspectacular - it looks like an old Windows 98 application. But you're just going to have to look past that and appreciate all the awesome musical functionality the plugin provides.

- The drum sounds are minimally functional at best. You'll definitely want to export the MIDI as soon as you've figured out the drum part, and use it to drive a more elegant collection of drum samples. And you don't always have to export an entire song - you can just export a bar if you like. So you can work incrementally through a song, if you prefer.

- I couldn't figure out how to route the individual drums to different output channels. The multi-output channels are enabled on the back of the VST device, but I could only get sound to come out of the stereo outs. Will need to read the manual. However, this is pretty much a moot point, since I would never use the Jamstix drum sounds in a final mix.

- I didn't try any live jamming with Jamstix.

So that's pretty much my initial take. I have yet to use Jamstix in a song, so I don't know how smooth the workflow will be, but based on what I've seen so far, it should be fine. For me, the big selling point is the drumming characteristics and variability of the different virtual drummers. If Jamstix didn't have this, it would just be another unspectacular drum VST with bad drum sounds and an outdated UI. But the different drummer personas and variable performances make this a very useful and musical drum package. And thank goodness it works with Reason :P (except for live MIDI output, of course).

The current sale prices are really a great deal, so be sure to check it out!
wreaking havoc with :reason: since 2.5
:arrow: https://soundcloud.com/nekujak-donnay/sets

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guitfnky
Posts: 4408
Joined: 19 Jan 2015

06 Dec 2019

NekujaK wrote:
06 Dec 2019
I've had my eye on Jamstix for many many years, but could never quite justify buying it, especially since I had invested heavily in EZdrummer + expansions, and was very happy with it. But Rayzoon is running a huge sale this December, and the prices are just way too tempting, so I took the plunge.

I just finished exploring Jamstix for about an hour in Reason, and these are my initial impressions:

- When I first tried to load Jamstix in the Reason rack (10.4 on Windows 7), an error message appeared and Reason disabled the plugin. Great :( Then I tried loading it into Reaper, and an interesting thing happened: a message appeared saying there was a configuration problem on my system and Jamstix corrected it, please restart Reaper. So I did, and now Jamstix loaded fine. I went back to Reason, and much to my delight, Jamstix now loaded fine. Phew! :P I have no idea what the "configuration problem" was - I've never seen that before, and I don't know if the "correction" made inside Reaper ultimately enabled Jamstix to work in Reason.

- Jamstix seems like a pretty deep product, but without reading the manual, I was able to quickly load a kit, style, and drummer, generate a song arrangement, and tweak a couple of simple parameters. There are quite a few things I don't understand on the song building screen in particular, that will require cracking open the manual. But the basics are pretty easy to figure out.

- Good news: MIDI export works in Reason! I was able to drag-and-drop an entire song arrangement onto Reason's timeline. To test it, I simply loaded an ID8 device, and it worked great! Jamstix allows you to configure the MIDI output to conform to a fairly large list of 3rd party drum libraries, so for example, exporting a MIDI file that is geared to EZdrummer2 is totally possible.

- The big deal with Jamstix is that it doesn't just play static loops. Depending on the drummer persona you select, the engine will vary how the basic patterns and fills are played throughout a song, which is very cool, and infuses life into the drum part. Some of the alterations are quite subtle, but nonetheless, they all contribute to the overall aliveness of the drums. This feature alone, is worth the price of admission for me.

- The UI and drum graphics are completely unspectacular - it looks like an old Windows 98 application. But you're just going to have to look past that and appreciate all the awesome musical functionality the plugin provides.

- The drum sounds are minimally functional at best. You'll definitely want to export the MIDI as soon as you've figured out the drum part, and use it to drive a more elegant collection of drum samples. And you don't always have to export an entire song - you can just export a bar if you like. So you can work incrementally through a song, if you prefer.

- I couldn't figure out how to route the individual drums to different output channels. The multi-output channels are enabled on the back of the VST device, but I could only get sound to come out of the stereo outs. Will need to read the manual. However, this is pretty much a moot point, since I would never use the Jamstix drum sounds in a final mix.

- I didn't try any live jamming with Jamstix.

So that's pretty much my initial take. I have yet to use Jamstix in a song, so I don't know how smooth the workflow will be, but based on what I've seen so far, it should be fine. For me, the big selling point is the drumming characteristics and variability of the different virtual drummers. If Jamstix didn't have this, it would just be another unspectacular drum VST with bad drum sounds and an outdated UI. But the different drummer personas and variable performances make this a very useful and musical drum package. And thank goodness it works with Reason :P (except for live MIDI output, of course).

The current sale prices are really a great deal, so be sure to check it out!
I picked it up for this month's sale too. such a great deal on an incredible piece of software. you're right...it's UGLY, but damn is it deep. there's a little bit of irony here that Jamstix version 3 looked (at least to me) much better than version 4 does.

I'd been fiddling around with the demo here and there for a few months now and my initial criticism (aside from the UI) is just that it's not that intuitive. it's VERY powerful, and they put all of that power right up front, which makes it seem cluttered and intimidating.

but if you play around with it a bit, it starts to make sense fairly quickly. you pick a style (which determines the type of groove you want to play), and a drummer (which determines the humanness of the style). if you think about it like a real live situation, it makes a lot of sense. say you show up to a jam session with Lars Ulrich on drums (I think he's one of the modeled drummers), and you tell him you want him to play a Bossa Nova style beat. that's what you'll get. it's pretty cool.

as you say, the big benefit is that it's totally customizable. it's not like the static MIDI clips you get with your other drum sample libraries like Addictive Drums, BFD, etc. you have full control of the pattern. you can let the drum brain (style and drummer) compose the whole thing for you, or you can program every individual hit, and just use Jamstix to apply the selected drummer's feel.

one thing that confused me was all the options that appear in the brain window, but those make sense too when you dig in a little. when you add a style, you get options that are specific to that style added to the brain window. one style will have different options than another style. the same goes with the drummer. add a drummer, and you get options specific to that drummer. the two sets of options are different colors (I forget which color corresponds to which), so you can pretty easily distinguish which side of things you're tweaking. they also allow you to customize these options--you can add and remove options as needed.

the workflow does seem like that's going to be the tough part for me to figure out, but that's mostly due to my own preferred nonlinear workflow, using Blocks. if you've got a song already laid out start to finish, Jamstix makes that super easy. you just define your parts, and the style and drummer, and it does the rest. I'm less sure how forgiving it will be if I need to insert parts, add transitions, time signature or tempo changes, etc.

and the jamming feature is really a f@#$ing incredible tool--especially the velocity mapping features. I was able to pull up Jamstix, add the Audio M8 analyzer plugin to a guitar track (which comes with Jamstix), and turn on audio jam in Jamstix...hit play, and I'm jamming around with my guitar, nice and low on verses, and start playing harder in the choruses, and the Audio M8 plugin picks up my increased intensity, and Jamstix starts to play louder as a result. and it sounds really natural/convincing. I was working in Harrison Mixbus (because it actually allows MIDI from the plugin to be recorded directly into the sequencer), and was able to record the resulting MIDI into the DAW without having to manually automate or edit the intensity throughout the song. once I figure out a good workflow, I think this will be a game changer for me. it also works following MIDI input instead of audio input, but I haven't tried that yet.

I'm really glad to hear the drag-and-drop works in Reason. that may be a good (hopefully temporary) workaround until they get MIDI out from VSTs into Reason. as you say, its in-app sounds are mediocre at best, and TBH, I don't think they expect too many people to use them most of the time.

oh, and the manual is really good too. lots of really great info in there, including an overview of many of the style/drummer options.

so glad I picked it up. now to just use it until I get down a good workflow... :D
I write good music for good people

https://slowrobot.bandcamp.com/

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