I just purchased Propellarheads software called Reason.This software will probably make midi obsolete in the
near future. This is a software based studio where the sounds are triggered by your midi keyboard to onboard synthesizers.
The opinion below is from a fellow user of this software and in my view he about sums up my thoughts on the
software.
Reason 1.0
by Thomas O'Neill
Mp3 samples of what this software can do are located after this article.
"The CPU of a modern day desktop PC is capable of running rings around the processors in traditional MIDI
gear, making it possible to bypass the limitations of the MIDI spec altogether through software emulation of hardware
functions. Reason is a software package that emulates not only synthesizers, but samplers, effects units and more.
After checking out this excellent package, I'm thinking of selling off a large chunk of my MIDI gear - I don't
really need most of it now that the functionality within Reason duplicates so much of the things that my hardware
can do, with an ease of use factor that's awfully hard to beat.
January 26, 2001
Let me start by stating the obvious: the MIDI spec is woefully out of date. It was out of date almost immediately
after it appeared, but no one - especially the music hardware industry - would admit to it. Instead the industry
ensured that MIDI would become so entrenched, nothing could shake it from its moorings.
The fundamental problem with the MIDI spec, quite apart from its slow transmission rate, is that it was only really
designed to let one synth control another synth. In this application, there's not a whole lot that the two synths
need to know about one another other than a few basic condition sets in order for the interface to do its thing
properly.
Personal computers were on their upward track when MIDI hit the marketplace, so needless to say it did not take
long for music tech people to realize the kind of possibilities that would be opened up by outfitting a PC with
a MIDI interface. By the late 1980s, MIDI musicians were hooking up whole roomfuls of gear to their PCs running
first generation MIDI sequencer programs, patch file libraries, and sample file editors. As long as a piece of
gear sported the ubiquitous 5-pin DIN connectors on the back, it could be assimilated. As the Borg say: Resistance
is Futile!
Well, sort of. Unfortunately, each device tends to have its own idea of which parts of the MIDI spec are worthy
of inclusion in its design. There is very little consistency between devices as to the effect a specific MIDI controller
or SysEx message will have on the device - that is, if it has any effect at all - beyond the basics (volume, sustain
pedal, pitch bend and modulation wheels). This has resulted in the phenomenon known as "MIDI Hell" where,
in the middle of a session, all creative activity grinds to a halt in order to troubleshoot some niggling problem
that is keeping a device from doing what a computer wants it to do, or is making it do the right thing in the wrong
way, or any number of alternate head scratching scenarios. One either has to keep the manuals handy and be willing
to change gears from the creative to the technical at a moment's notice, or (more commonly) junk the gear altogether,
find a bunch of guys and go start a real band.
It's doubtful that the MIDI spec will ever change, or that a new MIDI spec will make it to the marketplace that
adequately addresses these shortcomings. That's the bad news. The good news is that recent developments in other
areas of technology may ultimately render the problem moot. The CPU of a modern day desktop PC is capable of running
rings around the processors embedded in that aforementioned roomful of music gear, and the quality and fidelity
of consumer level PC audio hardware continues to improve dramatically. As a result, clever software developers
now have it in their power to bypass the limitations of the MIDI spec altogether through software emulation of
hardware functions.
Reason to the Rescue
A while back, Propellerhead Software introduced ReBirth - a remarkably faithful software emulation of some vintage
(and much sought after) Roland gear: two TB303 bass synths, a TR808 drum machine and a TR909 drum machine. These
emulations are feature complete - they look, sound and function almost exactly like their hardware counterparts
and are mounted in a handsome simulated wood grain rack (in a window of the computer screen, that is). You program
bass notes and percussion patterns into each unit just as you would the real thing, and then - here's the kicker
- you can play all the units in sync. Look ma, no wires! You can then record every mouse operation (pattern changes
and knob/fader/switch moves) as the units are running, to build a complete song. But wait, there's more! Devices
can be routed through additional built-in effects (digital delay, distortion, filter) for added timbral and dynamic
control of the sound. Throw in the ability to load in your own percussion sample libraries in place of the 'factory
sounds' and design your own custom skins for the units, and you have a powerful and versatile means of building
phat rhythm tracks that really kick.
Propellerhead has made quite a splash with this product, and it has fostered a devoted following among TB/TR fans
who can't find (or afford) the real thing. Not content to rest on their laurels, however, the Propellerheads have
been hard at work over the last year or so on the highly anticipated follow-up to ReBirth, called Reason.
Reason is, quite simply, a complete software emulation of an electronic music project studio. They advertise it
as a studio on a CDROM, and after spending time with the product I've concluded that the Propellerheads have a
flair for understatement. These people have really outdone themselves, and they have certainly upped the ante with
regard to future music software and hardware development efforts of this kind.
Most programs sporting the features and power of Reason tend to be of the "you've got to be a rocket scientist
to use it" variety. Not so with Reason: for the user interface design, the Propellerheads have really got
it right: it looks and works just like a real rack of gear, down to the rack mount screws holding the devices in
place. Drop a device into the rack and it is automatically wired to an open channel of the mixer.
Although every device in Reason's rack is based on original Propellerhead designs, there is enough of the familiar
in them to ensure a quick learning curve for anyone having experience with music hardware in the real world. The
four main sound generating devices are: Subtractor analog synth, NN19 sample player, ReDrum drum machine and the
Dr. Rex Loop Player (more on that later). All of them sound great and sport numerous controls and modulation routings
for customizing sounds. Sample player and drum machine programs can utilize any WAVs you've created that reside
on your PC. Any program you create in any device can be saved to your hard drive, so you can create your own library
of custom sounds and patches - as many as your hard drive can accommodate.
There's a deceptively simple but powerful step sequencer device called the Matrix (no relation to the movie), into
which you can easily program groups of repeating single voice note triggers. The device only outputs control voltages
and gates, but they can be routed to nearly any other device in the rack for generating anything from ostinato
note patterns to effects device controls. Multiple Matrix step sequencers can be utilized to create mesmerizing
contrapuntal patterns quickly and easily.
The effects processors (there are eight of them) are all half space rack modules with clearly labeled and intuitive
user controls. The 14-channel mixer is comparable to those found in your typical music project studio - treble
and bass EQ, four effects send/returns, mute & solo buttons and panning knobs. Each channel of the mixer can
accept either a mono or stereo signal.
Another nice touch is the way each device and mixer input is labeled: they've supplied a blank piece of tape stuck
to the edge of each device and each mixer channel. Double-click it, and a text field pops up over the tape. Type
something in the field and press enter - the text you typed now appears as a handwritten bit of text on the tape,
both on the device and along the edge of the mixer channel to which the device is routed. This really simplifies
the process of keeping track of how your devices are wired. Devices can be dragged and dropped to new positions
in the rack without disturbing the way they are wired together.
But the real eye-opener is when you flip the rack around to reveal a staggering array of patch points and the patch
cords connecting devices to one another. I dare you to try supressing your amazement as the patch cords jiggle
a bit and then settle when you press the tab key to swing the rack around. Each device has a variety of patch points
for creating custom wiring configurations. Running patch cords between devices is as easy as click-and-drag. You
can install as many Reason devices into your virtual rack, in any combination and wired to your specifications,
as your PC can handle.
If this were all there was to the Reason software, it would be impressive enough - but there's more, much more.
Consider the fact that Reason includes a built-in, fully integrated and extremely intuitive graphical MIDI sequencer.
The sequencer is capable of recording and editing not only MIDI note triggers but any real time knob/fader/switch
changes you make as your song plays, and these changes can be recorded in real time as your sequence plays. Automated
mixdowns and real time timbre changes are a snap to capture and edit with Reason's sequencer.
Every control on every Reason device can be mapped to any MIDI controller number. This is great for those of you
with multi-fader assignable MIDI controller devices, for real time twiddling up the wazoo. This is also great if
your MIDI keyboard only has a few controller knobs whose assignments can't be changed - you can still use those
few knobs to fiddle with any knob/fader/switch on any Reason device in real time.
The sequencer and rack devices are seamlessly integrated; create and play drum machine patterns or step sequences
independent of the main sequencer, and they'll all play in time with your sequence when you hit the Play button
of the sequencer transport. For further editing and refinement, you can then transfer your drum machine and step
sequencer patterns to MIDI sequencer tracks. Any MIDI track can be easily mapped to any Reason device through dropdown
lists. Fully integrated automation is the hallmark of Reason.
Then consider that your entire rack configuration and MIDI tracks can be saved as a single song file on your PC.
Build a rack, work on a song, save it to your hard drive and turn off your PC. Come back the next day, fire up
your PC, launch Reason and reload the song file - your entire rack and sequencer tracks come up exactly the way
you left them, ready for you to pick up exactly where you left off.
As with your garden variety word processor, you can open up multiple song files in Reason's main window and swap
MIDI track data and custom configured rack devices between files with just a few mouse clicks. Factor in the icing
on the cake - MIDI track import/export (handy if you've got old MIDI sequencer work you want to revive, or if you
want to use your MIDI tracks in another sequencer program), and audio file export of all or portions of your song
file - and you're talking the kind of audio production power and flexibility you could only dream of, costing no
less than a king's ransom.
Sure, you're saying, this is all impressive - but how does this thing actually sound? Well, I've saved the best
for last: the audio quality out of Reason is second to none. Because the signal path stays entirely in the digital
domain until it's sent to your sound card and comes out of your PC speakers, there is absolutely no tape hiss,
no ground loop hums, no dicey patch connections, no noise floor to cover up. The sound is drop dead gorgeous and
white glove clean. The clarity of the audio and the precision of the MIDI timing in the WAVs you create from your
Reason song files will simply blow you away.
For those of you who might be wondering how or whether Reason can be used in conjunction with multitrack digital
audio hardware and software, the answer is yes. Through a special Reason device called ReWire, all the equipment
in Reason's virtual rack can be placed under complete control of another audio production system (such as Cubase,
Digital Performer, and other high end MIDI/audio PC software). Reason also transmits and can sync to MIDI clock
for synchronizing with external MIDI sequencers, and (if you're willing to forego Reason's own internal sequencer
control) Reason devices can be driven from any external MIDI source.
All this functionality can be found in Reason version 1.0 - and it works with near flawless perfection. How many
'1.0' software packages can you say that about?
In case you were curious, the Reason 1.0 installation CD comes with both the Mac and PC versions of the program.
This means you don't have to buy a version that's specific to your platform, so if you happen to use both a Mac
and a Windows PC in your studio, you can install Reason on both machines. (Sorry, there's no Linux version available,
nor is one planned.)
'What about sound libraries?' I hear you asking. Well, apart from any sounds and patches you create for yourself,
Reason comes with a special CD containing the 'Reason Factory Sound Bank' - a full library of analog synth patches,
sample player sounds and patches, drum machine sounds and patches, and Dr. Rex loops. Without doing a single bit
of synth or sampler programming, you can create great sounding music right from the get go. And if you're an inveterate
knob twiddler like I am, you'll have a field day customizing and mutating this source material to fashion your
own unique sonic palettes and landscapes. Moreover, as with ReBirth, additional collections of Reason patches,
samples and loops will be posted to the Propellerhead web site as they become available, as free downloads. (Note:
by themselves, Reason sound libraries are useless - they can only be heard and used in the Reason software environment.)
This summarizes most of Reason's features. You would do well to check out the extensive information about Reason
you can find on Propellerhead's web site (http://www.propellerheads.se). What I'd like to focus on for the rest
of this review are my real world experiences with the program. Despite the above product rave, there are limitations
and problems that should be mentioned so as to at least maintain an appearance of impartiality.
System Requirements
The main consideration with regard to using Reason on your PC is: if you're really looking to push your virtual
rack configurations to the hilt, you will need a PC with some real muscle. The more time you spend with this program,
the easier it will be to drop device after device into your rack. As you push your system ever harder, there will
likely come a point at which you find that your CPU cannot pump audio to your sound card as fast as Reason needs
to generate it. When this happens, noticeable pops and clicks begin to occur, and the phenomenon only gets worse
when you drop more devices in the rack, or add more MIDI track data to your song.
Reason provides a latency setting in the Preferences dialog box (similar to they way they do in ReBirth) that gives
your system some breathing room with regard to its internal timing. While this helps ameliorate the pop & click
problem, it can also introduce a noticeable delay when triggering sounds directly from your keyboard or MIDI controller.
A latency setting of 15ms or more will throw you off when you're playing keyboard parts into Reason. A good drummer
playing drum machine sounds via something like a DrumKAT or other MIDI percussion trigger device will complain
vehemently if latency exceeds 8ms.
For my first full blown Reason composition , my rack is made up of eight analog synths (three of which generate
no sound at all - I use the LFOs of each unit to modulate the panning and pitch of specific drum machine sounds),
four sample players, a Dr. Rex loop player, two drum machines, two chained 14-channel mixers and fourteen separate
effects devices. My PC is a 100%mHz Pentium III machine with 256MB of memory, a 100mHz system board, a SoundBlaster
Live Platinum, an NVidia GeForce 2 graphics card, and a 7200rpm 27GB hard drive. If I cue the Reason sequencer
to the busiest part of the song where I'm generating a lot of audio from a lot of MIDI tracks, I get a fair amount
of popping and clicking in the audio output during song playback. I can minimize the problem by sizing the window
so it only displays about two rack spaces of gear, and scroll the devices off the screen so it shows only an empty
rack space - this helps to largely eliminate Reason's need to animate the device controls and peak dB meters, which
in turn reduces CPU drain. Also, when I'm in the mixdown phase of a song, increasing the latency to a high number
(40ms or more) doesn't much affect the timing of things like fader and knob moves as they're being recorded - "close
enough for government work."
The audio hardware drivers you use can affect any latency problems you experience when using Reason. ASIO drivers
tend to perform the best on both the Mac and Windows platforms. If your audio hardware supports the use of ASIO
drivers, this is definitely the way to go. Otherwise, your only other choices as of this writing are: Apple Sound
Manager for Mac, and either DirectX (preferred) or MME (avoid if you can) for Windows.
There are additional steps you can take to reduce latency. When recording MIDI performances, mute the tracks you
don't need to hear as you are recording new tracks. (Alternatively: you could open up a second song/rack window,
populate it with only the devices you need to record your performance, play to the built-in metronome and then
copy your performance to a new track in your main song window.) Also, if you can live with a video resolution of
16-bit ('high') color instead of 24-bit ('true') color, this will help reduce the some of the CPU drain caused
by Reason's screen animation of meter levels and real time device control changes as a song is played.
You should also know that the latency problem only affects audio being played back in real time. When you export
your finished song to a WAV, the WAV is not played back in real time as it's being generated - it is simply written
directly to your hard drive. When you play back your finished WAV, the audio will be pristine and completely devoid
of any unwanted audio artifacts.
The bottom line, however, is this: if you're planning on pushing Reason to its limits, you need the fastest PC
you can set yourself up with. As an experiment, I brought my song file and sounds over to the apartment of a fellow
Reason owner, who is running a 733mHz Athlon on a 133mHz system board and a SB Live sound card. We found that the
same section of the song that creates problems on my system played flawlessly on his system, using DirectX 8 drivers,
at a latency setting of 3ms. For my next system upgrade, I'm going with a 900mHz Athlon and the same system board
my friend is using - I suspect that on a system like that, I won't be running into latency problems until I fill
my rack with twice the number of devices as I used in my test song.
Another little anomaly I've run into concerns the Reason online help file. This is a standard Windows help file,
and covers most everything you need to know about using the program. What seems to happen to me is that after running
Reason for a while and working on songs, I'll try to bring up the help file only to get a dialog box telling me
an Unknown Error has occurred - Reason cannot open the help file. If I save my song, close and restart Reason,
and reload my song, I can then open the help file with no problem. For me this is a very minor annoyance, takes
me just a few brief seconds and 10 mouse clicks to get around. Moreover, the Windows-based help file also resides
on the system as an Acrobat PDF - I could use that in lieu of closing and restarting Reason. (To be honest, I don't
know if the Mac version of the program has this same problem).
Although the Propellerheads have done an exemplary job in designing Reason's tone generating modules, MIDI musicians
used to working with the real world counterparts to these devices will likely find themselves compiling a wish
list of features they'd like to see added to future versions of the software. The synth is missing a 'hard sync'
button and could use a few more modulation sources. The sample player (not a sampler - you're expected to use your
favorite WAV editor for creating raw digital audio material for use in Reason's sample player) uses one set of
VCF/VCA settings for all the voices of a given unit, so if you tend to use your sampler to play short loops and
other odd bits where each voice requires custom enveloping, you'll need to drop a bunch of sample players into
Reason's rack to do this. While the ReDrum drum machine has some really cool retro features, it only supports ten
samples at a time and not all slots share the same feature set - so count on loading multiple ReDrum units in your
rack as well. On none of the devices do we find a way to modulate the LFO from another source, which would be a
really useful feature.
From a strictly empirical standpoint, I find the Chorus/Flanger and the Compressor to be the weakest of the effects
devices. The Chorus/Flanger doesn't really do what I consider to be Flanging (I can't get the kind of harsh bite
I used to love getting from my old MXR Flanger stomp box), though the Chorus effect is nice. The Compressor controls
are limited and applying the effect to a mix do not sound musical to my ears - consider using it on individual
components, but apply overall compression to your mixdowns using either a decent outboard compressor or your digital
compression algorithm of choice.
The other effects are really quite cool. The Reverb is capable of generating an astonishingly wide range of room
ambiences with just a few controls. The Phasor has a lot of bite to it and sounds really good (though watch out,
if you overuse it all your mixes will wind up sounding the same). The digital delay features the ability to set
it to a millisecond value or to a number that is a multiple of the current song tempo - extremely handy for when
you want the delay repetitions to occur in time with your song. Two seconds might not sound impressive as the maximum
delay time - until you consider that you can patch them in series to get longer delays (Frippertronics, anyone?
I've tried it, and it works! I had to insert a 2-band parametric EQ at the end of the three chained delay units
and cut the highs a little, so that the higher frequencies would diminish with each echo repetition - just like
it did with the dual reel-to-reel tape delay Fripp used to use. Unlike the old tape delay, however, with Reason
you can go back and edit your MIDI notes to taste.)
In all honesty, the problems and reservations I've outlined above are the only ones have encountered in Reason,
and they do nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the product or have any reservations in recommending it for use
in creating professional quality electronic music work.
Dr. Rex Loop Player
One of the problems encountered when creating percussion loops is timing: getting a loop recorded at one tempo
to play properly in another tempo. Simply speeding up or slowing down the loop playback time radically alters the
sound of the loop, and using time compression software often introduces unwanted audio artifacts into the sound.
The Propellerheads' approach to the problem is their ReCycle program, which lets you divvy up a loop into a bunch
of small time slice samples, and adjust the rate at which each slice is played. Using this approach, the loop timing
can be altered without affecting the audio quality in any way. While ReCycle lets you save the separate slices
and their timings in a file format native to the software, ReCycle is mainly engineered to create and export complete
audio loops that you then transfer directly into your sampler - a tedious process, and it forces you to commit
your loop to a given tempo ahead of time.
The Dr. Rex Loop Player bypasses this limitation - it can read native ReCycle files and play them directly within
Reason. No matter what the original tempo of a given ReCycle loop happens to be, Dr. Rex automatically played the
loop at the master tempo to which Reason's sequencer is set. Tweak the master tempo, and the loop changes with
it. Aspects of a loop's slices - pitch, panning, volume level - can all be individually adjusted in Dr. Rex, and
there are some useful and interesting modulation controls for mutating a loop's sound to the point where it's almost
unrecognizable (very cool).
The current version of ReCycle is not optimized for use with Reason's Dr. Rex loop player - but they have a forthcoming
upgrade in the works (ReCycle version 2) that many Reason users are likely to find that it will be a necessary
add-on in order to get the most out of the Dr. Rex. loop player.
Conclusion
Overall, I have to say this is the most amazing piece of music software I've ever seen. The power, flexibility
and sonic quality of the audio it generates is miles beyond anything else on the market. The fact that rack configurations
are part of your saved song files opens up the possibility of long distance song collaborations with others; as
long as you and your writing partner maintain your songs, custom samples and custom device programs in identically
named folders on both systems, the song file your partner plays will sound exactly the same as it does on your
system.
I never thought I'd say this, but I'm seriously thinking of selling off a large chunk of my MIDI gear - I don't
know how much I really need most of it now that the functionality within Reason duplicates so much of the things
that my hardware can do, and with an ease of use factor that's awfully hard to beat. If this is Reason 1.0, I can
just imagine what new features they'll add to version 2.0 ... 'The Age Of Reason' is indeed upon us! "
Ok so what do songs performed witht the Reason software sound like listen below for an idea...
Pretty impressive huh!! More news to follow keep checking back.
INFORMATION ABOUT MIDI
There are many places on the internet where you can obtain detailed MIDI information. What I have tried to do
here is provide a basic understanding of the formats and what MIDI is in simple language as an introduction for
those planning to purchase a MIDI equipped instrument
MIDI is short for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. The word refers to many things, the most obvious being
a connector type that is used by musical instruments and effects devices to exchange messages relating to the act
of making music.
MIDI is a language that translates every action relating to the music into binary digits that can be transferred
via MIDI cable. It is a universal standard, which means that musical data can be sent to and received by instruments
of different types and manufacturers. Furthermore, MIDI allows you to connect your MIDI equipped instrument to
a computer or hardware sequencer.
GM System:
The GM (General MIDI) system is a set of recommendations which seek to provide a way to go betond the limitations
of proprietary designs, and standardize the MIDI capabilities of sound generating devices Sound generating devices
and sound data that meet the GM standard bear the GM logo. Song data bearing the GM logo can be played back using
any GM sound generating unit to produce essentially the same musical performance.
GS Format:
The GS format is Roland's unified set of specifications to standardize the MIDI capabilities of sound generating
devices. Song data bearing the GS logo can be played back using any GS sound generating unit.
Prior to the advent of GS and GM, there was no way of predicting what a sequence would sound like when played
back on another module or synthesizer beacause memory 1 on instrument A contained a synth pad sound, while the
same memory on instrument B contained a grand piano sound.
It is therefore very important that before you purchase any musical instrument that you want to use MIDI with
that you look for the GS and GM MIDI formats.
