Scales & chords Master control

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Fusion
Posts: 128
Joined: 24 Mar 2017
Location: UK

05 Dec 2021

Would be nice to be able to have a master scales and chords that could control all instruments.

at the moment I have to manually set each instrument to the same key, or if I want to play with scales and chords bypassed , I have to go to each instrument to bypass.

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visheshl
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05 Dec 2021

Well thats just the way reason is built isn't it.
I agree if they could figure out a way to add midi players after the midi keyboard and before the signal reaches the instrument section, that would be possible.
Or they could just work with the developer of scales and chords to integrate it into the master midi section. And always have it on the top of the rack. Which could by bypassed and is bypassed by default.
But you could enable a master scale if you need to.
However this would only be useful for standalone version as each vst plugin instance is separate and it would be needed to add the scales and chords player in every instance anyway. For now though, why don't you save a patch and just quickly drag the player at each instrument and load the patch.

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visheshl
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05 Dec 2021

They could actually have a midi controller device on top of the rack, and each midi controller you enable shows up inside that midi controllers device as a seperate hardware device, and each midi controller device has a player's section, just like all other instruments.
Wher you could drag any midi player and the signal would go from that particular midi controller thru the players in the player section and then to whatever instrument.
So for example if you add a pattern mutator to your master keyboard, that would affect all the instruments in the rack.
However that pattern mutator or any other will be before the instrument, so once the midi data is recorded, it will be hard coded into the track.

Fusion
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Joined: 24 Mar 2017
Location: UK

05 Dec 2021

yeah, something like that would be a good idea

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Benedict
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05 Dec 2021

I made a design for a cascading Player that could be driven from a Master Player to handle per-Song Key/Scale and showed it to a few Devs but sadly no takers.

:-)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

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challism
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05 Dec 2021

A global Sc&Ch would be a great feature (of course, giving users the option to opt each instrument in/out of the global setting).

A messy way to do this is by wiring a bunch of master/slave LoveOne MIDI-CV Converters (or Panda CVPTs) all over your rack. Messy, but it works.
Players are to MIDI what synthesizers are to waveforms.

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visheshl
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05 Dec 2021

Benedict wrote:
05 Dec 2021
I made a design for a cascading Player that could be driven from a Master Player to handle per-Song Key/Scale and showed it to a few Devs but sadly no takers.

:-)
That's sad 😔

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selig
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06 Dec 2021

I really wish Reason had a "global" built in way of controlling all sorts of things, with key/scale being a big one. Additionally, song structure control for drum and bass modules would be nice. And why not revisit a global tape/saturation option while we're at it...
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dioxide
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06 Dec 2021

I agree a global scale control would be a great idea.

Regards the global tape solution you could do this with CV control, although it is a workaround. So for instance 16 instances of Audiomatic controlled via CV by single slider (eg Selig Gain) or by something like Aftermath Audio's CV8X4 that has more controls. It's a bit fiddly to set up but if you build a template then it makes it easier.

EDIT: I had a quick go at this. I think you did something very similar way back Giles?
viewtopic.php?f=69&t=7525940

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selig
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06 Dec 2021

dioxide wrote:
06 Dec 2021
I agree a global scale control would be a great idea.

Regards the global tape solution you could do this with CV control, although it is a workaround. So for instance 16 instances of Audiomatic controlled via CV by single slider (eg Selig Gain) or by something like Aftermath Audio's CV8X4 that has more controls. It's a bit fiddly to set up but if you build a template then it makes it easier.

EDIT: I had a quick go at this. I think you did something very similar way back Giles?
viewtopic.php?f=69&t=7525940
Yes, was just going to say the same. It’s based on the way HEAT worked in Pro Tools, a global control of individual channels much like a multitrack tape machine.
Selig Audio, LLC

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Billy+
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06 Dec 2021

I'm not so convinced that a global key & scale would be as useful as you might first think.

being able to swap a major chords for minor or using tones outside the scale can also be useful in some situations plus Reason doesn't have players that are able to fully utilise the scales you may inadvertently be using.

Only last we I had written something without first thinking about key or scale and later I wanted to find the scale which turned out to be an 8 tone Spanish scale which is not something that the current system is able to function around without additional work.

The better solution would be for RS to acknowledge that the tools already on the market have a vital role for this and to implement a solution to allow them to function within Reason.

There really is no value in RS keep reinventing the wheel.

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selig
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06 Dec 2021

Billy+ wrote:
06 Dec 2021
I'm not so convinced that a global key & scale would be as useful as you might first think.

being able to swap a major chords for minor or using tones outside the scale can also be useful in some situations plus Reason doesn't have players that are able to fully utilise the scales you may inadvertently be using.

Only last we I had written something without first thinking about key or scale and later I wanted to find the scale which turned out to be an 8 tone Spanish scale which is not something that the current system is able to function around without additional work.

The better solution would be for RS to acknowledge that the tools already on the market have a vital role for this and to implement a solution to allow them to function within Reason.

There really is no value in RS keep reinventing the wheel.
I don’t see this as reinventing the wheel, its simply the idea that some things are useful and shouldn’t be left out. It’s more like implementing an existing wheel as all cars currently do, not reinventing one.
Are you assuming EVERYTHING would be forced to the global scale, or that there would be no overrides, or that you wouldn’t be able to automate changes? Drum tracks, for one, would need to be excluded from any global control, so any track would need to be able to ignore the master scale (just like global shuffle or not global shuffle). And even in music based on scales you have “accidentals”, so all of these would need to be able to be handled IMO.

Thing is, there are no third party solutions for global control, so it’s not really an option. Unless Im misunderstanding you and there already is a global solution from a third party?
Selig Audio, LLC

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Billy+
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06 Dec 2021

selig wrote:
06 Dec 2021
Thing is, there are no third party solutions for global control, so it’s not really an option. Unless Im misunderstanding you and there already is a global solution from a third party?
I don't believe that you are misunderstanding what I've said as you are clearly stating what usage I implied and including the possibility of overrides and automation so you definitely understand and no there isn't any way for a 3rd party vst to provide global control within Reason standalone but global control wasn't my point.

I purchased the captain bundle by mixed in key and it allows me to produce drums chords melodies and bass lines all within a system that interacts well within the framework it's only when using it in Reason standalone that things don't work as expected required because of the reluctance of RS to complete midi pass through.

I've discussed this previously and although I understand that the solution can quickly become complicated if you let it there is actually a simple solution that is continually ignored, if players stack can perform midi pass through why can't a simple player device that accepts midi pass through from vst's into rack extensions be implemented?

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Timmy Crowne
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06 Dec 2021

I do think more Global parameters should be added to the infrastructure of Reason. We already have the obvious things like tempo and song position. But I think the real telling thing is the Global Shuffle and ReGroove mixer. Automation-capable control information is being passed to tracks and devices without wires. If more parameters could be added to whatever internal “channel” is carrying that information, Reason would gain A LOT of power natively IMO. Then it wouldn’t be just a loose collection of devices, it would be more akin to a producer or orchestrator who tells the band how to play. In addition to key/scale, I’d like to see:

Intensity: the average velocity of instruments. Automating this over time creates crescendo and diminuendos.

Dynamics: the relative velocities between beats (e.g. downbeats are stronger than upbeats.) Editable groove maps to emphasize different parts of the rhythm, syncopation.

Volatility: the amount of variance the players (or Players) are allowed in their velocities.

Asynchrony: the amount of timing elasticity in the performances. (sidenote: studies have shown that timing variation isn’t sporadic; it more resembles smoothed random LFO over multiple bars.)

Probability: the likelihood of notes sounding. Could be weighted to increase chances on strong beats, and decrease between beats.

This kind of stuff would allow composers in Reason to paint with broad strokes, shifting the time spent from technical minutiae to judgement and taste.

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Benedict
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06 Dec 2021

Opcode Vision back in the late 90s had a system that allowed to change the Transpose, Key & Scale of everything in the Sequencer. it even had options to make things like Drums Tracks to stop them from transposing wrong hits.

I would clearly like such a thing seeing Reason is now one of the few DAWs not managing something similar globally.
I also think some sort of global Saturation would be nice - I saw that in Studio One. Easy to overdo but clever and wise.

:-)
Benedict Roff-Marsh
Completely burned and gone

Fusion
Posts: 128
Joined: 24 Mar 2017
Location: UK

22 Jul 2022

Have recently been turning certain features in Rack Extensions off , such as the spectrum on the GQ7 to save CPU.

Would be nice to have developers add an option to sync the same plugins and apply to all or just one. I mostly use the GQ7 on most tracks, so doing this one by one is tedious.

Show and hiding rack interments/effects at the same time could be useful.

Fusion
Posts: 128
Joined: 24 Mar 2017
Location: UK

22 Jul 2022

Timmy Crowne wrote:
06 Dec 2021
I do think more Global parameters should be added to the infrastructure of Reason. We already have the obvious things like tempo and song position. But I think the real telling thing is the Global Shuffle and ReGroove mixer. Automation-capable control information is being passed to tracks and devices without wires. If more parameters could be added to whatever internal “channel” is carrying that information, Reason would gain A LOT of power natively IMO. Then it wouldn’t be just a loose collection of devices, it would be more akin to a producer or orchestrator who tells the band how to play. In addition to key/scale, I’d like to see:

Intensity: the average velocity of instruments. Automating this over time creates crescendo and diminuendos.

Dynamics: the relative velocities between beats (e.g. downbeats are stronger than upbeats.) Editable groove maps to emphasize different parts of the rhythm, syncopation.

Volatility: the amount of variance the players (or Players) are allowed in their velocities.

Asynchrony: the amount of timing elasticity in the performances. (sidenote: studies have shown that timing variation isn’t sporadic; it more resembles smoothed random LFO over multiple bars.)

Probability: the likelihood of notes sounding. Could be weighted to increase chances on strong beats, and decrease between beats.

This kind of stuff would allow composers in Reason to paint with broad strokes, shifting the time spent from technical minutiae to judgement and taste.

This sounds good

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