Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Recreate a beat (part 2)

For the last part of this lesson, we're going to record ourselves playing the synth melody for "Dumb It Down".

1. First, create a Subtractor.
2. Now load the following sound:  
Reason Factory Sound Bank>Subtractor Patches>MonoSynths>Rave Lead.zyp.
3. Now let's find the notes used in this melody. They are 
CA flatB flat, and F.
4. Set your Loop Markers around the first 4 bars of the beat (L on Bar 1, R on Bar 5).
5. Listen to the beat on You Tube for a bit to get a feel for when then notes are played. Notice that the last note is held for a long time. The whole melody is a total of 4 bars long.
6. Now switch back to Reason make sure that the Loop On/Off button is lit up in the Transport Window. Hit play and practice playing the melody over the beat.
7. When you are ready to try to record it, hit Record
. Don't feel pressured to start playing right away. You can let it play through the loop once and then start playing when it comes back around.
8. When you're done, press the Record button again, or Stop if you want to stop.
9. How's your performance? Tight? If so, then go ahead and Copy and Paste this Loop for the whole 16 bars.
10. 
Save it as (your name)_Dumb It Down.rns
11. Put a copy on the Media Share folder in Student Work>Dumb It Down

If your performance was not tight, however, Reason can help you through the miracle of Quantizing...

1. Make sure that your new Region is highlighted
2. Go over to the 
Tool Window and click on the Tool tab.
3. In the section where it says 
Quantize, hit the Apply button. What happens?
4. So you may need to fine tune some of the notes even more.
5. To do this, double click on the Region and scroll up or down until you find your notes.
6. Listen to it play back and try to spot where the problem notes are.
7. Click and drag the note in the appropriate direction until it sounds like it's in the right place (make sure that you're only moving one note, and not all of them!)
8. Drag the right edges of some of the notes to be long enough.

Save it and you're done.

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