Live 3: A Reason To Live
By Dave Hill Jr.
Propellerhead's Reason 2.5 virtual studio software and Ableton Live may be one of the greatest pairings since Abbot and Costello, or perhaps more aptly, Kruder & Dorfmeister.
Both applications offer stable operation, robust editing, and scads of composition possibilities. Even more impressive is that by synchronizing Reason with Live, you gain a multi-track digital audio recorder for your Reason song (to finally record those vocals you've been after). You can also expand your music in Live by playing Reason's rack of synths, samplers, and loop-generating devices. Or expand your Reason song by recording its output into Live, running those tracks through any VST or Ableton Live effect, and then shaping via Live's Clip Envelopes.
Ready to get started?
Reasonable Recording Methods
As you might imagine from last month's tips and tricks, Live's ability to record loop performances in Session View is the perfect way to capture Reason-made loops and sounds into Live for further time, pitch, and clip envelope editing. Let's set up a Reason and Live ReWire connection where Live will be the Master (Host), and Reason will be the Slave (Client).
Launch Live.
Launch Reason.
Select "Reason" in any track's Input Type menu.
Arm Session Recording for the track.
Play or program some music in Reason and record clips in Live. Here we see a Subtractor synth in Reason (on the right) playing in Live's session mixer (left).
Tip: If you own a MIDI controller/keyboard and wish to control Reason, you will need to configure Reason's MIDI preferences to receive input from your MIDI hardware. Depending upon your operating system and setup, you may need to set Live's MIDI preferences to "No Input."
In Mac OS X, you can send MIDI to be received in both Live and Reason by the same controller. Here are Reason's MIDI preferences:
Reasons to ReWire
There are many reasons you might decide to ReWire Live and Reason. Here are a few of the most common scenarios:
- Programming Reason's drum machine to create patterns for your Live song.
- Playing one of Reason's software samplers or synths into Live.
- Using Live as a multi-track recorder for vocals, guitars, or other instrument recordings to compliment your composition in Reason.
- Applying Live's effects (or VST effects) to a Reason instrument or sampler.
- Reworking a musical loop or section from Reason via Live's Clip Envelopes, transposition, and sample display (Clip View). To do this you would record Reason's output into Live.
Aside from recording Reason's audio output into Live, you might also find it helpful to sequence your entire song in Reason while composing in Live. To do this, simply activate a track's monitoring rather than the Arm Session Recording button as we did in Step 4 above.
Reason's outputs will now be heard (but not recorded) on this track. Since Live renders what you hear from the master output, you can finish your song while in ReWire mode without ever having to record your Reason output into Live. This allows you to take advantage of Reason's MIDI sequencer and Live's multi-track ability (and effects) at the same time -a powerful combination!
Tip: make sure that you save both your Reason and Live song files to the same file folder or memorable location. To reopen your project, you will need to open both the Reason and the Live song files that make up your song. Once you have finished work for the day, you will need to close Reason first, and then Live. In other words, always open the master ReWire application first, and close it last.
Routing
For more complex pieces of music, you may want to take advantage of Reason's multiple outputs (shown below). Here I have routed each channel of ReDrum to it's own stereo output. You can easily create similar routing schemes with other instruments.
Notice that I am routing the outputs directly to Reason's hardware interface. You don't need to use a Mixer 14:2 (unless you want to). You will then want to set up Live's monitoring on each track by selecting the corresponding channels.
By doing this, you can use different effects for each instrument as well as mix your Reason audio in Live. One trick would be to route two Reason synthesizers to different Live tracks, and then using Live's powerful EQ Four effect to achieve a better blend. (I have included both the Live and Reason song files with this patch scheme as a download to supplement this article).
You can also monitor single channels on each track by scrolling all the way down in the channel menu as shown below.
Tip: To use effects on any Reason track, insert the Ableton Live or VST effect on the channel that Reason is being monitored on. This can provide hours of fun, so watch out.
Controlling Your Software Studio
Once you are set up, you can start, stop, or control the tempo of your song with either the Live or Reason Transport Bar (called a Control Bar in Live).
Reason Transport Bar
Live Control Bar
Feel free to skip around as if you were working in only one application. Because of the ReWire link, Reason and Live will synchronize at any point in your song's arrangement.
Last Steps
To finish your song and export the audio, simply render your Live set while Reason is still open and routed through the desired tracks. Remember that what you hear is what you get and that Live will always render the audio coming out of the Master Output.
To render Live's output, highlight the length of the song (shown here on Track 1).
Then press Ctrl (Apple) + R and choose your settings. Here are my typical settings:
Hopefully you are beginning to see that there are many advantages to connecting your Live and Reason software studios via ReWire. If for no other, well, reason, you can now record vocals, guitar, bass, and/or any other instrument you like into Live to accompany your music in Reason. And while this month's tips and tricks is focused on Propellerhead's Reason, you could also choose to ReWire Live with other applications such as Max/Msp (www.cycling74.com), Storm (www.arturia.com), and ReBirth (www.propellerheads.se).