Tip: Post-roll (tails) on a Sequences track

[lotharyx]

Hiyo! I'm a Reason newbie; as of this writing I've got about 4 days left on my trial edition. I'm feeling a bit clever because I figured out something that might be useful to others (and PLEASE chime in if there's an easier/better approach!). Also please forgive me as I stumble around with some of the terminology.

The situation is I have a Sequences instrument track that has free-running sequences inside it (that is, not only does it sequence based on MIDI notes, it also plays a programmed sequence independent of MIDI notes. The patch in question is "Australia"). The patch has a nice application of delay, the tails of which I'd like to capture for a few seconds after the "Stop" button is pressed. Only problem is, during an Export (mixdown, "Export Song as Audio File"), the "Stop" button is the same as the Song End marker (the "E"), and the export stops dead at that point. If I could get the Sequences instrument to stop its sequence ahead of the Song End, that would be perfect, but none of the "Run" buttons (neither Sequences' own "Run Pattern Devices" nor the individual step sequencers' Run buttons [in this particular patch, two instances of Thor]) can be automated (the "Edit Automation" option is grayed out on them).

While I was in the middle of writing an earlier post asking how to solve this very problem, I discovered an approach that works! Although the "Run" buttons on Thor's step sequencer can't be automated, the "Run Mode" control can! And that Run Mode has an "Off" setting! So hey presto, I added an automation lane for each of the two Thor instances' Run Mode switch, and added events to set them to "Off" for the last two measures of my song, and hey presto! The sequence stops before the End marker is reached. Now I can also add automation on the track level and have it fade out a bit faster than the delays' natural decay. Awesome!

So that's my little success story. If there's a better approach, I'm all ears!