Propellerhead Reason 6.5 - Part I

For about a month ago I decided to finally buy a music tool - Reason
by Propellerhead version 6.5.


I realized that the tool would fit me perfectly because I do not have particularly
many electronic devices to use for creating audio but can then use the various
instruments, effects and mixing tools included in the program.

What finally convinced me to buy Reason was the new feature to record audio directly in the program - "Audio tracks" and then adding effects. It really is a great feature, and for me it was the final piece needed to make a complete tool for music production.




I now use a master keyboard (my old synth) to record instruments via MIDI, and to the computer via USB.  I can through my master keyboard record all instruments Reason provide.
It suits me fine because then I can sit and do all the music in front of my computer and just turn to record a sequence.

To be able to bring in outside sounds so I use a small mixer - Yahama MG124CX.  It is a lightweight and portable stereo effects mixer that offers 12 channels, four buses, and a wealth of advanced features (however, one should really add to the effects last in the final mix. But I'm not always so good). I let then "Monitor Out" on the mixer going into my sound card "Line-in" jack. My sound card in the computer is by the way a Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty.



I had some trouble to get my ASIO drivers work for both input and output in Reason. At first I could not select "Line-in" as the active input channel but after reading on various blogs and posts on the web and I also downloaded ASIO4ALL (a nice program), I could understand how to set the settings in Windows.  It was not totally easy. I also turned off my extra sound card in BIOS that is integrated into the motherboard of the computer so that it would not interfere.
I also run Windows 8 and have not really got used to all the settings I can make on my sound card.

However, I had problems with being able to listen to the track I recorded from the mixer and at the same time be able to play the generated sounds from Reason. I first tested to connect my headphones directly to the sound card. The sound "lagged" and it was awfully strange when I recorded for example the song.
My solution was instead to let the output of the sound card fed back to the mixer and then I plugged my headphones into the mixer instead. I then got a problem with that I recorded the sound Reason produced. After testing different inputs on the mixer, I managed to solve it so now I have the perfect recording studio. 

These are some audio-tracks from my latest song.  I'll tell you more about the song in a new blog-posts and post it on the archive in Dooob.