PlayerPen?

[huggermugger]

Do you use Players to create music? If so, do you mainly use the 'straight' ones like DrumSequencer and Scales&Chords, or do you get into the 'weird' ones, like Evolution and QuadNote Generator?

And what's your view on Players that can create music, like BeatMap and Bassline Generator?

[WOO]

Being a heterosexual male, I mainly use the straight ones. But on occasion have been known to take some of the the weird ones out for a spin. In all seriousness, I mainly use the players as idea starters.

[dvdrtldg]

I mainly use the players as idea starters.

Same. They're great for creating quick preliminary sketches. Get some interesting stuff happening, send MIDI to track, then sort out the useful bits from the crap bits, move things around, edit etc

Evolution, Inspiral and Pattern Mutator are a good combination for coming up with reasonably convincing solo instrumental passages. Quad can do nice things with percussion (goes great with Republic). ChordLine is a fantastic chord bank but the UI is awful. Those are the ones I mostly use

For nerdy generative type music I still prefer to work with CV

[motuscott]

I don't always drink beer, but when I do, Players are cool.
The most Reasonable man in the world

[dvdrtldg]

I'd love to hear some of what other Reason users are doing with players. Overall, I find the results from using players a bit stiff and characterless - but that could be down to my lack of skill & imagination. Someone posted some stuff when Lectric Panda's Aggregate Music System appeared that was amazing and very inspiring, if several leagues beyond my own capacity to get anything good out of AMS. But apart from that, I haven't heard much that really sells the player concept. Let's hear what you've got!

[Jac459]

I integrated very easily the chord sequencer in my workflow. Just as a way to explore.
I am also a big fan of the bass line generator, it is meh 99% of the time and suddenly boom, it gives you 'the' bass line you were looking for.
Other players are more for fun. I use the RRP and chaining weirdly players is one of the fun thing you can perfectly do with RRP.

From a creativity standpoint I am a strong believer than we should use players and any other generative music tool as much as we can. That doesn't replace your own creativity, it complements it.

It is very similar to synthesis in my view. You chain different things in a creative way to find new sounds, here you can chain players in a different way also and get very surprising stuffs pushing your creativity.

I am a bitwig user and bitwig has also some very nice and crazy powerful player stuffs, some very funny (you can even do ricochet!

, but my preference still goes to the simple and efficient reason ones...

[Bes]

I'd love to hear some of what other Reason users are doing with players. Overall, I find the results from using players a bit stiff and characterless - but that could be down to my lack of skill & imagination. Someone posted some stuff when Lectric Panda's Aggregate Music System appeared that was amazing and very inspiring, if several leagues beyond my own capacity to get anything good out of AMS. But apart from that, I haven't heard much that really sells the player concept. Let's hear what you've got!

do you have AMS? i'm keen to do more stuff with it publicly i really love it, been thinking about a youtube or a twitch but i dunno
https://www.dropbox.com/s/decha93qdj5v9 ... e.cmb?dl=0

[dvdrtldg]

do you have AMS? i'm keen to do more stuff with it publicly i really love it, been thinking about a youtube or a twitch but i dunno
https://www.dropbox.com/s/decha93qdj5v9 ... e.cmb?dl=0

No I trialled it and spend quite a bit of time trying to figure it out, but in the end I couldn't get to grips with it. If it ever goes on crazy sale I might pick it up and give it another go. But life is short

[Bes]

don't bother following that link then cos its just a combinator patch
i hope to do something on youtube soon

[stratatonic]

Do you use Players to create music?

Not really.
I'd create the guts of the project first, and then use a Player to complement that. Usually the Arp.

And what's your view on Players that can create music, like BeatMap and Bassline Generator?

No problem with that. There are a couple of iOS apps that trigger cool riffs that I like.
In the end, it's the composer who hears something new and goes "Whoa! I like that. Gonna expand on that!".
And that can come from an app, or hearing a friend or yourself play something while jamming.

That said, the Players are grossly overpriced, imo.

[arnigretar]

Since the players got introduced to Reason I have used them a lot. Mostly Reason players and then from Panda. But some others too like Delta, Robotic Beans and from Retouch Control. They are good addition to the toolbox. They go smoothly with the cv music writings as well (since my productions are mostly done from the back of the rack).

[Jagwah]

I find the lack of CV connections on Players not only annoying but also uninspiring. I used scales and chords a bit until I found it better to not use it so I don't use them at all now, each to their own though!

[RobC]

The truth is, that I don't use them at the moment, but I will often make use of the straight players, to speed up certain tasks.

Edit: Scales and Chords; Drum Sequencer are the ones I used. The rest, I might revisit, but didn't find them all that useful for me, personally.

[RobC]

No Reason 5 users? : D

[TritoneAddiction]

I'd love to hear some of what other Reason users are doing with players. Overall, I find the results from using players a bit stiff and characterless - but that could be down to my lack of skill & imagination. Someone posted some stuff when Lectric Panda's Aggregate Music System appeared that was amazing and very inspiring, if several leagues beyond my own capacity to get anything good out of AMS. But apart from that, I haven't heard much that really sells the player concept. Let's hear what you've got!

The times I use players, it's mainly Evolution or Beatmap. I typically change a couple of notes/rhythms out or keep the initial idea and make my own variations to it, so it doesn't sound as repetitive and computerized.

Here's a song example where I've used Evolution. It's a pretty experimental track in its nature, both mixing/production and composition wise, so part of it was playing around with player ideas.
The melody at 0:15-0:33. As you can hear, I've made some variations to the melodic riff at the end of the phrase to make it more interesting.
Also the part at 2:21-2:57. During that part I've automated the generated pattern rate between 1/16, 1/16T and 1/32. Otherwise it would get too repetitive. But there are also all the changes in the background to make it more engaging.
These kind of melodic lines are hard to come up with yourself imo. But for a more singable straight forward melody like the one starting at 1:45 you would have to come up with it the normal/human way. Evolution isn't good for that.
That's how I see it. Player generated ideas typically doesn't sound as melodic/catchy/singable/natural. They're better suited for rhythmic lines imo.

[MuttReason]

Use most of the players some of the time and some of them a lot of the time. Chord Sequencer in particular is a good song starter. TBH I’m not sure any of them are that weird as such. There is a lot more weirdness in some of the new Ableton Live 11 generative devices (the fractal tree branch one and the bouncing balls thing) although TBF they can be pretty cool weird sometimes.

[dvdrtldg]

I'd love to hear some of what other Reason users are doing with players. Overall, I find the results from using players a bit stiff and characterless - but that could be down to my lack of skill & imagination. Someone posted some stuff when Lectric Panda's Aggregate Music System appeared that was amazing and very inspiring, if several leagues beyond my own capacity to get anything good out of AMS. But apart from that, I haven't heard much that really sells the player concept. Let's hear what you've got!

The times I use players, it's mainly Evolution or Beatmap. I typically change a couple of notes/rhythms out or keep the initial idea and make my own variations to it, so it doesn't sound as repetitive and computerized.

Here's a song example where I've used Evolution. It's a pretty experimental track in its nature, both mixing/production and composition wise, so part of it was playing around with player ideas.
The melody at 0:15-0:33. As you can hear, I've made some variations to the melodic riff at the end of the phrase to make it more interesting.
Also the part at 2:21-2:57. During that part I've automated the generated pattern rate between 1/16, 1/16T and 1/32. Otherwise it would get too repetitive. But there are also all the changes in the background to make it more engaging.
These kind of melodic lines are hard to come up with yourself imo. But for a more singable straight forward melody like the one starting at 1:45 you would have to come up with it the normal/human way. Evolution isn't good for that.
That's how I see it. Player generated ideas typically doesn't sound as melodic/catchy/singable/natural. They're better suited for rhythmic lines imo.

I like it!

This is the best thing I've managed to come up with using Evolution (on the bass guitar). Lots of automation of the density, rate and X/Y/Z parameters, notes printed to track, then edited. It's pretty obvious which bits are Evolution and which bits are me, but I think it hangs together pretty well and sounds reasonably "human" (if a bit eccentric)



I was also reasonably happy with this one - the synth solo starting at 1.16 is Evolution going thru Inspiral. I like setting Inspiral to about 40% probability on Single, Dual, Chord and Arp modes (with Strum, Repeat and Ratchet set to 0). Again, the resulting MIDI notes are heavily edited & supplemented by my own additions, but there are some nice chords & progressions there that I probably wouldn't have come up with (the annoying disco synth going berserk from 2.13 is Evolution on its own and sounds pretty crap, I haven't bothered yet going in there & fixing it)

[moneykube]

No Reason 5 users? : D

there ya go
one 5 vote on cue

[challism]

I've got just about every player in the shop (and those which have been discontinued). The only players I don't have are those which are pretty much doing the same thing other players in my rack are already doing (ie, LoveOne MIDI Compressor vs Andrew Russell Velocity Curve). I don't have the latest RS player (CS) because of this reason (I've got CS via R+ but I've already got plenty of -better- chord player REs - CS seems pretty half-baked to me; missing features are enough to make me want to delete it). I think I'm unlikely to ever buy the CS license. And I don't have any of the Retouch Control Grid64 players (I've got the rest of their players, though... great stuff), I dont have the hardware to go with the 64 players; maybe in the future I will.

Anyway, I'm definitely a hardcore player enthusiast and tend to use them in some capacity in every project.
My favorite/must used players are probably Sequences, Kompulsion, MIDI CV Converter, mDSQ, Euclidean, ChordLine, BLG, PatMut, Delta, AutoLatch, Humanizer, A/B Transpose, DeNote, ChordBank (discontinued)

[RobC]

No Reason 5 users? : D

there ya go
one 5 vote on cue

That's probably a joke; but I remember seeing 1-2 years ago, someone elsewhere trying to figure out stuff on Reason 5. People even asked if it was a new purchase. x D