I have been away but that does not mean I have not been busy

I appologize for not posting since November but I have not had much to say. Now I do so here we go-

I am recording quite a bit. It has taken a while to figure out how to be an improvising musician working on my own and using this type of recording software. The way I am now recording is that I will begin with a track of synth noodling using my IPAD. I love the Moog apps and also Korg has a nice one. I usually try to develop something that is quite abstract and record for as long as I like. Usually 5 minutes or more. I will go into quiet sections, mimimal grooves, parts that build to a climax and then I will pick up my bass or record drums "live" using my midi keyboard. The best suggestion I have for anyone wanting to do this in Reason 6 is to click on the auto quantize so that you keep everything in time. Of course if you are not looking to remain in time ignore this step.

From here I will keep building a piece of music. Sometimes I will mute a bunch of tracks while I record a new one and then see how the new one fits against the other tracks. Basically I begin to give myself options and in the end the piece of music I make is nothing like the piece of music I started.

I was working on one piece where I developed a melodic bass line I liked and then added a drum track that was much more aggressive. I then muted the original bass part and recorded a much more aggressive part, added a second lead bass part using guitar amp simulators in Reason and some signal destruction. By the time I finished I was really surprised (all of this happened over a 2 hour session) with the result. I felt I was not spending my time arranging songs, which I really have no interest in doing, but I was constructing entire pieces of music by improvising.

I bought Reason in the first place because it seemed like it was a program that would offer me the ability to be creative. I was nervous because most of the music I have listened to having been produced in Reason has been hip hop or other modern forms. However I also use a Korg Kaoss Pad and have been able to avoid using that in a way most people do. I will acutally really be posting some links to a few toons I will upload shortly... Stay tuned.

The Songs Are Flowing

I spent the weekend getting more recording done. I am having a good time. It took me almost a year to get to the point where I believe that I am spending more time being creative and less time being a computer geek.

I have to say that I now look forward to sitting down and working in Reason. It has become alot of fun and now that Record is part of Reason everything flows so much better.

I hope to have some "finished" songs posted soon. I may need to post them to some other site and link. As you can see by that comment I am no computer geek. That was one of the main reasons for going with Reason over other software. It was suppose to be easier to understand and since it it self contained and efficient with memory it should crash less often. So far I have had no crashes but none of my songs have had enough going on to really test the system.

Have I Finally Figured Things Out?

I have had Reason 6 now for about three weeks and I think that I have finally figured out a method of working that gets results for me. When I first got the program I was sucked in by the drum machines and synths and the capabilities of these machines. Unfortunately for me when I would put together drum tracks first the songs never seemed to develop.

Last weekend I pulled out the bass and began to record bass lines. I just hit record and began playing to a click track. After about five minutes I stopped and went back to listen. I was able to get four bass grooves out of that five minutes that worked really well together. I then took each groove and played drums on my keyboard using the auto quantize function. In about five minutes I then had four bass/drum grooves.

Next using the copy and paste function I expanded each groove to run a few minutes so that I could try to incorporate some other sounds into the rhythmic track.

Once I had a few things I liked I expanded some of the parts to be the verse sections of the song and others into choruses or changes or just short breaks.

Two hours in I had a song which was not bad. Its not going to the top with a bullet but it was more satisfying than anything else I had produced up to that point. I even took it so far as to use the mastering effects. I was able to define the mid-range and bring everything together so that it sounded more cohesive.

I am now looking forward to my next session this coming weekend.

Reason + Record = Reason

I just got the new Reason 6 by download. Pay what you want for Reason/Record users from the Proppellerhead website.

I like that it is now all in one. Moving between the two pieces of software to work on a project slowed things down considerably. I will give you my thoughts on the rest of the new update in the coming weeks.