Using Reason 9.5 with Another DAW

[DonnieAlan]

Many of us were excited when we first heard the news about Reason 9.5 and VST hosting, only to be disappointed later when we learned that VST hosting would not work with Reason in slave mode, hosted in another DAW via Rewire, which is how many of us use Reason. While Reason is great DAW in its own right, its also a fantastic, incredible virtual instrument.

Now that 9.5 is released, I've had some time to play with it and I am happy to report that there IS a way you can use 9.5 to take advantage of the VST hosting and Reason's unique architecture to create whole new instruments and sounds and have it work with another DAW, such as Pro Tools or Ableton. You just can't do it with Reason in slave mode...at least not yet. We hope the P-heads will address that in a future upgrade. Until that happens, though, there is a viable workaround, which I'll describe below. It'll take a bit of work to set up. But once you've got all the pieces in place, it won't be any more trouble to use than having an external MIDI instrument or synth controlled by your DAWs. You just have to take the time to get everything set up in your DAW and Reason...which is a one time thing.

Some might ask "is it worth the time and trouble to do in the first place"? Good question. My view is that with VST hosting, combined with Reason's very unique instrument and patch creation architecture, has made now made Reason one of the most powerful virtual instruments on the market, because in effect it is now ALL VI's! If you can imagine combining your favorite VIs in one set up with the Reason Combinator, to create a massive, multilayered patch that you can save and easily call up again and again to use, you get the idea. Its a sound designers dream and can open up all sorts of new sonic possibilities. You'll only be limited by your imagination and your system's CPU/RAM power. (If you ever needed incentive to upgrade your system for more power...this is it!)

To make this work, you need to solve 2 things: 1)getting your DAW to recognize audio output from Reason with Reason in standalone mode and 2)sending MIDI from your DAW to an instrument in Reason to play a part.

There's no "one size fits all solution" to this, but the basic elements required to make it work will be the same for all systems. You'll have to find what will work best with YOUR system, if you want to do this.

Audio

Audio can be addressed a couple of ways. If your interface has an audio loopback feature (my Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 does, for example), then you should be able to use the loopback to send audio from Reason to an audio track in your DAW to record a part from Reason. If your interface doesn't have it, you can set up Virtual Audio Cables to do it. You'll have to Google that to see what VACs might work best with you particular set-up. But, once you've got them installed, you should be able to easily route the audio output from Reason to the VACs and have your DAW recognize the VACs as audio input. There's several VAC options out there. There may be others here that have experience with different ones on Macs or PC's and can provide advice on which will be most efficient to use.

The important point here is that you need to just figure out on YOUR system what will get the audio from Reason standalone to your DAW with both open at the same time. For me, it was pretty easy using the audio loopback on my Focusrite to get the audio into Pro Tools.

MIDI

The other thing to address is how to get MIDI output from your DAW to be recognized by Reason. For me the solution was virtual midi cables. Again there are many options available. https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software ... d on these as the best option for me. It took all of 5 minutes to set up. I just had to name the VMC something, and then set that up in Pro Tools MIDI Studio as a MIDI output, and do the same in the Preferences for Reason as a MIDI input. You should be able to do the same with whatever DAW you're using. You may also be able to accomplish this with an external MIDI In/Out/Through if you have the proper hardware. Some interfaces might have the option as well. Again, it depends on your system. The important point is defining a viable MIDI send/receive between your DAW and Reason, similar to what you would do to set up MIDI between your DAW and an external MIDI synth. Once set up, you will need to make sure that any track you're working on in Reason can recognize the MIDI input from your DAWs MIDI track. If everything is set up properly, then all you need to do is expand the MIDI module in the Master rack in Reason, and then select where the MIDI input is coming from and what instrument in the Reason rack it needs to be playing. You can have multiple MIDI tracks playing multiple parts this way. Or, you can record the MIDI in Reason, but the send the audio back to your main DAW, but have the temp and syncing controlled by the main DAW. Which leads me to....

SYNCING

You can also have your DAW's MIDI clock control the tempo in the Reason instrument, which is very useful for rhythmic and arp'd sounds. You just need to make sure your DAW's MIDI clock out is turned on for the MIDI set up you're using to send MIDI clock to Reason. In Reason, you need to check "Preferences" "Sync" and select external MIDI clock source. Also, (and don't overlook this one), you will need to select "MIDI" as the Sync source at the bottom of the Reason rack in the sequencer, just to the left of the transport controls. You can have internal or MIDI as options there. Internal just means that the Reason tempo is controlling the beat. MIDI means the external source is (your DAW in this case).

If set up correctly, you should be able to play a part in Reason with your main DAW playing tracks and controlling tempo and all, or have a MIDI track in your DAW play an instrument (or Instruments) in Reason, and it should all be in sync.

RECORDING AUDIO

Laying down Audio tracks gets a little more tricky because of MIDI delay. You need to deal with it the same way you would deal with MIDI delay with some external synth or module controlled by a MIDI track in your DAW.

Also, if you're using the audio loopback from an interface, then you will probably only be able to record one track at a time from Reason, and it will have to be in real time, too. Loopback generally includes ALL audio outputs, including any other tracks that are playing at the time from any source through your interface, even the click track! So, when you're ready to lay down a track, it will be best to mute all but the track you're recording, otherwise you'll likely be recording the audio from not only the Reason instrument, but any other tracks playing.

Once recorded, you might need to edit the audio for any timing delays from the MIDI delay. Some of that might be mitigated by recording the MIDI itself in Reason and just sending the audio back to your main DAW.

So, that's pretty much it. Obviously, it would be way more efficient if Reason would allow VST hosting while in slave mode. But, if you think of this as similar to what you would do to have your DAW control and play an external hardware synth, then its a good workaround for now, if you want to have the power that this new feature in Reason will provide.

As I said earlier, there's no one size fits all solution, but these are the general parameters you'll need to deal with to make this work.

I hope this is helpful to some of you who, like me, weren't using Reason as their main DAW, but more as a powerful, flexible virtual instrument. Now its more powerful and flexible than ever!