How To Use Reason With Ableton

Reason and Ableton Live work well together — nosotros offer some tips on running the ii programs in parallel.

Alive and Reason running side‑by‑side. Live's tracks are colour‑coded to match the Reason instruments.

All the Propellerhead buzz right now is around the upcoming product Record, which will integrate audio recording and mixing with all the stuff we love in Reason. Of course, nosotros'll be getting our teeth into Tape in these pages as soon as the concluding release is bachelor, but in the meantime, many Reason users have already had great results running audio alongside Reason using other DAWs. This mode of working volition keep to exist advantageous to those who employ third‑political party plug‑ins and/or hardware MIDI instruments, or who prefer another DAW'due south arroyo to recording, mixing or organisation.

Ableton Live is a particularly pop host among Reason users, and has a number of features that offer tight parallel performance with Reason. This month, we're going to look at some tips for combining Reason with Alive.

How It Works: Rewire

Reason and Alive can be used together thanks to Rewire, a clever fleck of Propellerhead engineering that is supported by most major audio applications. Rewire allows audio signals and MIDI events to be passed between 2 open programs. Audio signals from the 'slave' program (Reason) are routed to the 'master' (Alive), where they appear in the mixer alongside other local sound sources. The Rewire link too synchronises playback position and tempo between the two applications. Either program'south transport controls tin be used, so you lot don't need to pic back and forth.

This idea tin can be used for glorified synchronisation, with 2 contained sequences running and a stereo mix routed from Reason into Live's mixer. However, Alive and Reason can be integrated much more than tightly, so that Reason acts more like a powerful plug‑in rack within Live.

Get Started & Get Organised

Each Reason instrument is routed to Live via detached Rewire buses.

Launch Live, then launch Reason. Reason volition observe that Alive is running, and volition switch itself into Rewire Slave mode. Reason'south sound outputs are now hard‑wired to Alive via 64 internal buses.

To keep track of Project Files you'll demand to salvage your song in both Live and Reason, so you will always accept ii project files. Before doing annihilation else, salve the Live Prepare. Live always creates a project folder for a newly saved Set, providing a default identify to store audio recordings and anything else. Switch to Reason and save your Reason Song to the same folder, giving information technology the same name. Now, you'll easily be able to locate the right Reason Vocal that partners your Live Set.

Most modern computers and laptops sport a loftier-resolution wide‑screen brandish. The Reason rack is narrow enough that you tin can usually view it alongside the Live window, eliminating the demand to keep switching your view from one application to the other. To maximise screen space in Live, hibernate the Browser and Help columns when you don't need them. You can also narrow the track widths in Live'southward Session View by dragging the track boundaries. Finally, equally you tin can see in the screen on the previous folio, you can colour‑code the tracks (and regions) to match the devices in Reason. But correct‑click and choose a colour from the palette.

Monitoring Self‑sequenced Reason Instruments

The External Instrument device adds MIDI and audio links between Live tracks and Reason.

At that place are ii types of instruments that we'll connect to in Reason: those running internal sequences, such equally Redrum, and those that you lot want to play with MIDI notes. The showtime sort are very uncomplicated to set up. Create a Redrum device in an empty Reason rack. We're going to forget about Reason'southward mixer (one of the keys to integration is to bring upwards all your Reason instruments on discrete channels in Alive'south mixer). In Reason, printing Tab to view the rear of the rack, and cable the Redrum'southward outputs to outputs to ane and 2 on the Hardware Device.

Switch to Live and create a new audio track (or use the default one that appears in a fresh Set). Make sure the input/output routing options are visible using the I/O button to the right of the Primary channel. Click the elevation pop‑upward menu in the audio From section of the Audio track, and cull Reason. The pop‑up card beneath and so lets y'all choose from the 64 Rewire sound buses, so choose '1/2 Mix L, Mix R'. In the Monitor section, switch from Auto to In, to tell Live to laissez passer through audio from the input source.

Add some trigger steps to the Redrum's Step Sequencer, and hit Play in either Reason or Alive. Both Live and Reason's transports volition start and you should hear and come across the audio arriving at the audio rail in Live.

Sequencing Reason From Alive

To play a Reason musical instrument from within Live, and tape your operation as MIDI, the arroyo is basically the aforementioned as when using instrument plug‑ins. Starting time create a MIDI track, and then get to the Live Devices browser (the offset binder in the browser that holds Live's Instruments, MIDI Effects and Audio Effects). Open the Instruments folder and locate the External Instrument device. Drag this from the list onto the MIDI track.

The External Musical instrument Device (shown in the screen to the right) adds an audio path to the MIDI rail, turning information technology into what almost other DAWs call an instrument runway. The device'south panel extends the track'due south I/O controls with routing options for both MIDI output and audio input. The MIDI To section has two pop‑up menus for choosing the basic destination (Reason) and a specific device in the rack. The Sound From selector gives you the list of 64 Rewire buses and so that you tin route the audio back from Reason.

The final step is to disable MIDI keyboard input in Reason, to prevent notes being doubled up as MIDI is received both directly and via Live. The safest style to do this is to open the Preferences in Reason, switch to the Command Surfaces and Keyboards page, then un‑tick the 'Utilize With Reason' pick for your controller keyboard and/or pads.

With these settings in place, you can treat the Reason instrument just like an instrument plug‑in. Tape‑arming the MIDI track will allow you lot to play the instrument from your MIDI keyboard. Recording Clips on the rails will record MIDI that sequences the Reason device.

Freezing & Flattening

A basic Reason Rewire template with routing notes in the device names.

Live has a Freeze function (correct‑click on a track and cull Freeze) which invisibly bounces tracks to audio Clips. To the user, a bounced MIDI track looks the same as normal, except that command of MIDI notes and device parameters is 'frozen out'. All the individual Clips are notwithstanding available and can be triggered as normal. This ways yous can go on to trigger Clips alive, or edit or record arrangements in the Arrange view.

Normally, when yous freeze a track that has a hardware insert or controls an external instrument, Alive does a real‑time record of all Clips, which may take time. However, Reason sources are bounced much faster than real fourth dimension — just like a plug‑in — because Reason is sharing Live's audio engine.

Although originally conceived equally a style to gratuitous up CPU ability, freezing is equally useful as a way to capture your Reason audio sources as audio. In fact, after a MIDI runway which sequences Reason is frozen you tin utilise the track without Reason even being open up, although of class you lot tin can't edit the contents of the Clips.

Frozen tracks can be used without Reason beingness nowadays, and y'all can still have the option of running Reason at a later time and unfreezing the tracks to make changes. However, sometimes you want to catechumen your Reason tracks into bodily audio tracks, with editable audio Clips. Again, this tin exist washed in just a few seconds, with no manual routing or recording. Simply Freeze the track you lot want to bounciness, then right‑click it once more and choose Flatten. The rails will be replaced with an audio runway, with all the MIDI Clips (in both Session and Arrange views) converted to good onetime‑fashioned audio.

Template For Living

If you lot programme to work with Live and Reason in tandem on a regular basis, it can exist really useful to create a Template in Reason, with your favourite instruments all set up to go. Past including the output number(s) that a device is routed to in its name, you can avoid turning the rack around simply to come across the routing (equally shown in the screen below). This name also appears in Live in the Reason MIDI device listing. To make a Template, fix upwards a Reason Song the fashion you'd like the Template to announced, then salvage it equally something memorable. Then, open the Preferences, and switch to the General page. In the Default Song section, choose Custom, then click the Folder icon and navigate to the Song you saved.