Granular synthesis is the creation of sound by taking tiny slices of audio from another source and playing them back really quickly. Here’s a handy trick for chopping up samples into pieces without ever leaving Reason. First, create a Redrum drum computer. Next, notice that the function of the bottom left knob in the Redrum varies depending on the channel number. In the third, fourth, and fifth channels, the function is “START”. What this does is alter the starting point in the sound file that you have loaded. So, load up any sound file of your choice (vocal sounds are good) into channel 3, 4 or 5. Then turn Channel 3’s length knob to the left. You want the sound to be just a short burst. Next, while holding Shift, right click (or command click for mac users) on an empty space in the rack. Select “Matrix Pattern Sequencer”. Now, flip the rack around with the Tab key, and then drag a cable from “Gate CV” on the Matrix to “Gate In” on the Redrum. Flip back around again, and then press the Run button on the Matrix. You shuld now hear a stuttering sound. Now play with the Start knob and you will hear the effect we were looking for. Now you can record the automation of the start knob (make sure the Record button next to “Redrum 1″ on the sequencer is lit up red, hit record and then press play). Go wild with the pitch and the start time, and you should get some cool sounds. Even cooler: play with the Resolution knob in the matrix to adjust the speed of gate triggering.

Download the Reason .RNS

This is a trick that you can use with any quantizer that provides the ability to apply a range of strengths of quantization. In Reason, there is a dropdown bar next to the quantize button that gives you a list of percentages ranging from 5% to 100%. What we are going to do is create a length of triplet notes on a hi-hat or any instrument, actually. In this case, let’s use 4 bars. For each bar, you should have 12 notes (the grid on the sequencer is labeled 1/8 T). And it helps to accent (apply a higher velocity to) to the first of every three notes. This creates a more natural, less robotic sound. For the first bar, leave the notes as triplets. On the first half of the second bar, apply a 1/16th quantization at 5%. On the second half, quantize the notes at 10%. Then at each additional half-bar, you will apply 25, 50, 75, 90, and 100 percent quantization. At 100%, you will have groups of three notes that are aligned to the 16th note grid, which is 16 notes per bar. It sounds kind of like a shuffle. You can also just leave out the 100% quantized triplets, and just fill in more bars with 16 notes per bar, with the first of every four notes accented. Listen to the included demo sound to hear this effect.

You’ve all heard it… a low-pass filter on the master out.

Here’s how to do it in Reason: Create an ECF-42 filter unit, and wire your mixer through the filter into the audio interface. Right click (Ctrl + click for mac) on the device and choose Create Sequencer Track for name of device. When your track is playing, hit record and turn up the FREQ knob to make it sound like you’re going back into the club. Try experimenting with the modes on the filter. BP 12 means band-pass filter. It allows only frequencies a bit lower and a bit higher than the frequency specified by the cutoff point (FREQ knob). The “angle” at which frequency amplitudes drop off is 12dB per octave. The LP filter has two modes: 12 and 24 dB per octave. The 24 cuts off frequencies above the cutoff point much more dramatically then the 12. The 12 leaks more high frequencies than the 24.

In Reason, put a delay device on any drum beat or instrument. Create an automation track for it. Then, make sure that the track’s record toggle button is on. Hit record, and go wild with changing the delay time (the box with numbers in it), feedback, delay unit (ms or steps), etc. If done right, you get a crazy effect because a non-fixed delay time has to compensate for the change by fluctuating the pitch, it’s really weird sounding. Try it!

Have you ever wanted to make a knob move around on its own? With the Reason 3.0 addition of the combinator device, this is possible. And it’s pretty entertaining to see the MClass EQ device’s EQ curve dance around (as seen in the animation) when its knobs are moved automatically.

First, create a combinator device in the rack.
Then right-click inside the combinator device and create a Subtractor synth.

Press tab to flip the Subtractor around, and draw a cable from LFO 1 (under Modulation Input) to Rotary 1 on the Combinator device. Optionally, you can change the amount on the CV amount knob next to the Rotary 1 input, and this will affect the amount of modulation. Flip the rack around again, and click “Show programmer” on the Combi device. Select Subtractor 1 on the leftmost list, and on the right, select “Filter Freq” from the first list box. The boxes to the right control the minimum and maxium values that will be sent to the filter frequency slider. Notice the Filter frequency knob is moving on its own! Now, the section on the Subtractor labeled “LFO 1″ is where you can change the speed (rate) of the modulation. Notice the Amount knob doesn’t affect how the filter frequency slider is now moving. The LFO can still work independently and modulate the available parameters (like Osc pitch, FM amount, Phase, etc.) Try experimenting with the value of the Rotary 1 knob, the Min and Max boxes in the programmer, and the CV amount knob to get the perfect settings. Go crazy with the modulation routing, and animate different knobs, it’s great fun. Notice you can use ANY Modulation Output source and control the knobs like this. Anothing thing to try is the Spider CV merger/splitter. With this tool, you can send multiple CV signals all from one LFO. To make the animation seen above, I used the CV splitter to make two copies of the LFO signal, one of them inverted. That’s how I got one EQ gain paramater to move up while the other moved down.

A really mind-bending technique in reason is to automate the various knobs on a master auxiliary effect. To do this, set up an auxiliary effect (such as the ping pong delay mentioned on this site) by right-clicking on the main mixer and then creating an RV7000 reverb unit. This will automatically create the auxiliary send for you. Now, you turn up the auxiliary send knobs for each track you want to have an effect on. Then, create a new sequencer track and assign it to that RV7000 unit. Next, arm the track for recording and then press record. Now fiddle with the any of the knobs on the RV7000 and it will all be recorded. For an example of this technique in action, check out this excerpt from a track by Takyon called Hypergate:

Download Hypergate reason file (1.7 Mb)

This involves drawing many sequential ON and OFFs in your volume automation. For an example of this technique, listen to this example from “outer shpongolia” by shpongle. In Reason, there is really simple way to achieve this effect with the matrix pattern sequencer.

Here’s an example that you can use in Reason 2.5 or above: Download the example .rns file

Route the gate cv out of a matrix into the amp level in of any device. As you can see on the front side of the matrix, there is a note sequencer and a gate sequencer directly underneath it. Notice in the screenshot I have drawn in a pattern into the gate sequencer. This will automatically control the volume of the Subtractor synth. To create stuttery sounds, play a sequence through the synth while the matrix is on. Start drawing gating notes and see how it sounds. To create tie notes (the wide red columns that take up a whole grid box to themselves), hold down shift while drawing notes. Notice that you can also change the time resolution on the very right knob. This will make your pattern be interpreted at different speeds. For super-stutter, make it really fast =D Now you can program many different patterns by playing with the buttons on the left of the device. You can then automate the changes of the patterns for creating a unique, easy to manage microedited sound! For all other programs, you can automate the volume with a tempo grid turned on. Just draw volume automation into on and off patterns at different grid divisions.

This comes in really handy when you’re editing a drum track in Reason, in fact, it’s pretty essential. When you hold down shift while using the pencil tool in the sequence view, only the notes that you have selected will be affected. So for example, if you want to make a snare roll with a bunch of sequential 16th notes, but you have a kick drum hitting at the same time as some of the snare hits, you use the arrow tool to select just the snare rolls, and then use this method to alter just the snare notes, just draw a diagonal line that moves from low to high, and voila, a snare roll! (Snare rolls are even better, though, with a slight accent in velocity every 3rd or 4th note.)

The first thing I do is create a new Subtractor synth. By default, the selected waveform is a sawtooth wave (the sawtooth wave just happens to be a nice waveform for a cool bass sound. Also by default, in the lower right corner of the synth, the velocity is mapped to F.env (filter envelope). By this default, when you hit a key harder, it will sound more bright. You will briefly hear these higher frequencies before the filter cuts them off at the speed set by the attack and decay on the filter envelope.

Next, I change the polyphony to 1 instead of the default 8. That way, if I press more than one note at a time, only one will be allowed to play. For the most part, bass instruments do not play chords or simultaneous notes. Next, I lower the octave on Osc 1 to 2. You will want to lower your octave on any bass patch to get a nice deep sound. Then, I change the mode of the oscillator to X (there are 3 options directly to the left of the waveform selector: X, -, O) What this does is creates a duplicate copy of the waveform and stacks it on top of itself. Then you can control the “alignment” of the two stacked waveforms with the phase knob. With the X mode, the waveforms are multiplied, and create a nice fat sound. If one waveform is subtracted from the other (- mode) then it will sound weaker. If O is selected, then a duplicate waveform is not created at all. So for a thick juicy bass patch, I leave the mode set to X and shift the phase knob to my taste.

Next, I decide how I want the filter envelope to sound. If I increase the amt (amount) knob, the filter envelope will be more noticeable. Then I can create a sort of fade-in effect on the filter by increasing the attack time. This is nice for slow notes that build in intensity as time passes. If you only want this fade-in effect when the keys are pressed lightly, and not when you hit them with force, you can also change the amp (volume) envelope. Increase the attack time and then turn the A. Atk knob in the Velocity area to the left. Now when you press lightly on the keys, the sound will fade in, and when you press hard, it will snap right into action.

Finally, I add EQ and Compression (not the dinky old kinds, I’m talkin’ about the MClass units). Emphasize those low frequencies with the EQ to really make your subwoofer rumble. Then use the aforementioned compressor settings to make sure the bass cuts through all the other parts.

download the example RNS file

For those times when your loops in Dr. Rex are twice as slow or twice as fast as your song, there is an easy way to slow down the loop or speed it up. In the sequencer view, select a group of notes and right click on one of them. Then select “Change events”. You will see an input that is labeled “Scale tempo”. If you want to double the speed, type 200% and then press ok. Otherwise, type 50%. You can experiment with this for interesting loop speed variations

When you use the Dr. Rex loop player, you can easily change the pattern to break the monotony of looping something over and over. Here’s how: on the Rex player, there is a button labeled “to track”. Press that, and notice that in the sequencer view, the space between your left and right loop points will fill up with colored boxes. Right click (or ctrl+click for mac users) on one of the colored boxes (this is a group of notes), and then choose “Change Events” from the pop-up menu. This gives you many options for changing a group of notes. You want to use the “Alter Notes” functions. This will randomize the notes according to whatever percentage you choose. Now listen to the loop, it will be remixed. Granted, it is somewhat randomized, so you may have to switch over to the note view and change it to your liking. But this is a really great way to come up with drum tracks in a matter of minutes. Try it on a whole bunch of note groups all at once and listen to all of them. Chances are, there will be some remix of the notes that’s a real keeper.

Start off by creating an RV7000. Now personally I think you should bus it to your main mixer on one of the aux tracks. To do this, right click on the mixer and create the device, it should automatically attach the device as an auxiliary effect. This will allow you to send the audio signal to the effect with the aux send knobs on each mixer track. This will give you control over the dry/wet sound, and you can apply the effect to any track on the mixer. I would not recommend attaching a space/delay type of effect directly on your device; this reduces the versatility of the effect. Okay, now that that is taken care of, expand your RV7000 view by hitting the carrot on the left [it’s the triangle pointing at the remote programmer, right under the patch loading box]. With this open you can now adjust the parameters of the device. The algorithm is set to hall, but we want multi tap, so adjust the top knob on the left side till the algorithm reads “multi tap”. Alright, now notice the knob second from the top on the left side. It should be set to tempo sync. By default, it it should be set to OFF, but we want it ON. With this on, the delay will sync to the tempo that you have your track set to. Set the diffusion to about 15 (second knob from the bottom on the left side) and the LF damp about 385Hz (bottom knob on the left side).
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