The Song Fight Bulletin Board

In my first Reaper experiment (which has become an entry for "Please Stop"), I used the Reason Transport to record MIDI tracks for the NN-19, two Subtractors, and Dr. Rex, and then used Rewire to feed Reason's mixer output to a single stereo track. Then I recorded vocals and some other instruments on additional Reaper tracks.

In the final mix, I wanted to apply a fade to one of the Reason synths. In the end I automated the fade in Reason. I also had to set the mixer pans and levels for the synths in Reason.

What I'd really like to do is use Reaper to record, play back, and master several MIDI tracks, with each track controlling a Reason synth.

First off, should I want to do this, or is it just the wrong way to go about it?

Second, can it be done? If I understand this, one Reaper track gets the Rewire plugin, and other tracks are connected to the Rewire track to provide inputs and outputs. And each Reason synth can take MIDI from a different channel. And with Rewire I can use all 64 of Reason's mixer outputs, even though my audio card just has one stereo pair, so if I swing the Reason rack around and plug the synth outputs into extra channels on the audio interface, they should show up on independent channels in Reaper. Working from these precepts, I've tried various send and receive setups, but without success. I get either everything or nothing on the slave tracks.

More worrying than that, when I move, say, the Subtractor 2 output from the mixer to Channel 3 on the Reason audio interface, and then toggle the rack to see the front, the level meter for the audio interface Channel 3 doesn't register any activity from Subtractor 2. Could this be a Reason Adapted limitation, or am I missing something?

First, it can be done with Rewire, but I don't know why you'd want to. Reason's automation setup seems much easier to use (to me).
Second, you sound a bit confused as to the "inputs and outputs". Rewire will not allow you to route anything from Reaper back in to Reason. But, each of the inputs on Reason's hardware interface device will show up as an individual track in Reaper IF YOU ENABLE THEM.

I don't know where you'd find this panel in Reaper, but here's the window in Cubase where you turn on the individual tracks coming from Reason.
So, to recap:
1: plug what you want into Reason's Hardware Interface device.
2: enable those tracks in Reaper, as only the main L/R mix is enabled by default.
3: commence to rock.

Thanks, I saw a similar screen somewhere. . . I think it was in the Reason Rewire plugin controls.

Meanwhile, I did manage to set it up so that the MIDI gets recorded on separate channels in Reaper. I see now that this is not what I want, because the fader controls for those channels don't do anything. (Duh.)

You're right -- Reason's MIDI automation is a lot more powerful. You can alter synth settings during the track, for example. But when I wanted to fade in Subtractor 2, the only way I could figure out was to do an overdub recording and move the Subtractor 2 master volume control in real time. I'd like to be able to draw a slope along the track's timeline, the way you can automate the level in Reaper, but I couldn't find a way to do that.

Back to Reaper: What I really want, I now see, is the ability to master everything using Reaper. I need to bypass Reason's mixing board and send the synth audio outputs to Reaper tracks. I'm sure that the screen you suggested has something to do with it, so I'll check it out first chance I get.

BTW, is there a way to operate the Reason's mixer directly from the Reaper interface, the same way I can operate the transport from Reaper's transport controls?

More progress -- thanks to signboy's tip, I can now send the audio from the synths to separate tracks for mastering.

The tracks don't actually record anything, they're just available as playback lanes for mixdown. As a result, they don't have a waveform, so setting up automated fades and pans is not as completely convenient as it might be.

For my next step, I might try figuring out how to record these tracks to WAV files. Not only will this give me waveforms for visual mastering, it'll also free up my limited bank of Reason Adapted instruments for another round of MIDI recording. (In Adapted, you can't add new instruments to the default rack.)

AJOwens wrote: I'd like to be able to draw a slope along the track's timeline, the way you can automate the level in Reaper, but I couldn't find a way to do that.

1. R click the mixer, "create track for Mixer 1"
2. R click the mixer track in the sequencer, and select "parameter automation".
3. Enable on the stuff you want to automate.
4. recommence to rock.

That's not working for me. I have Reason Adapted for M-Audio 2.5.

(By the end of this post I figured it out. I left this here in case some other poor bastard is combing the web for an answer.)

When I right-click the mixer, I get "Edit Automation". If I select this, I get a grey-blue rectangle in the transport, with a white grid superimposed. To the left are the words "Channel <n> Level" and some graduated marks for the grid, running from 0 to 127. I'd already discovered this rectangle by playing with the buttons above the transport.

In the middle of the rectangle are the words, "Not Automated". If I click the rectangle, nothing happens. If I click and drag, I can darken a section of the rectangle. If I right-click, I have three options:
Select All
Insert Bars Between Locators
Remove Bars Between Locators
Change Events

If I click Change Events, I get controls for Transpose, Velocity, Scale Tempo, and Alter Notes.

Oh, hang on... if I select the line tool and then draw a line in the rectangle, I get a dark blue skyline, which is broken with a feature at the place where I drew the line, and which I can further modify with the line tool. The skyline does control the volume of the track.

Huh. How intuitive!

Thanks for keeping me at it. . .

In another thread, floatingman has asked how I have Reason and Reaper hooked up. Here I describe how to reproduce the basic setup I was using when I posted the first message in this thread (in case that was the thrust of the question). Since then, I've figured out a more advanced approach, as suggested in a screen shot elsewhere that floatingman asked about. More on that later.

Note that I'm using an older version of Reason Adapted. I don't know how a current full Reason installation would behave.

1. Ensure that Reason is NOT running.
2. In Reaper, add a track.
3. Set the track input to use your MIDI keyboard. (In my case, this selection is something like "USB MIDI Keyboard".)
4. Open the fx controls for the track.
5. In the Track fx controls, open the Rewire section, and then select Reason. (In my case, the selection reads "Rewire: Reason Adapted".) At this point, Reason should start automatically.
6. In the Reaper Track fx controls, select the Audio from Rewire tab, and confirm that Mix L and Mix R are set to Channel 1 and Channel 2, respectively.
7. Close the fx controls.
8. Set the track's Record Monitoring to ON. (Use the speaker-icon control.)
9. Set the track's Arm Recording to ON.

You should now be able to play and hear your Reason synths.

You can record a performance to this track as a MIDI sequence. During recording, playback, and mixdown, Reaper uses Reason to generate the sounds. Note that it will use whatever synth is currently selected in Reason to play back the MIDI.

Instead of recording your performance in Reaper, you can record your music on multiple synths using the Reason transport, and then use Reaper to play back your composition.

Here's one way to set up Reaper and Reason so that you can control all the synth audio levels from within Reaper. (These instructions assume that you can program your keyboard or MIDI controller to send on any MIDI channel. If not, there's probably a way to work around that.)

You need one track to control the connections between Reason and Reaper. I call this the "IO Controller" track. Then, for each synth, you need an input track (to receive MIDI signals from your keyboard or other MIDI controller) and an output track (to receive the audio signals generated by Reason.)

You also need to rearrange the wiring in your Reason rack.

1. Make sure Reason is not running.
2. Open Reaper and add three tracks, one for the IO Controller and two for a Reason synth. You can add more tracks for other synths later. (I found it useful to contain all the tracks in a master folder track called "Reason". This provides a master level, and also a handy collapse control.)
3. In the IO Controller track, open the fx controls and add the Reason Rewire plugin. Reason opens automatically.
4. In Reason, toggle the rack for access to the patch cords.
5. For each synth you want to control in Reaper, move its audio output patch cords from the mixer to the Hardware Interface. Make a note of which synth goes where. Also make a note of the total number of Hardware Interface channels you've used. 6. Toggle the rack again, to display the synth control panels. Each Hardware Interface channel has a level indicator. When you play a synth, you should see activity on its level indicator. At this point you won't hear the synth, because it's no longer going through the mixer.
7. Save this as a Reason project so that you can re-use it any time.

Back in Reaper, we need to set up the IO Controller.

8. Open the IO Controller's io control panel.
9. Set the number of Track Channels (at the top of the dialog box, in the middle) to the number of Hardware Interface channels you used in Reason.
10. Close the io controls.
11. Open the fx controls.
12. Select the MIDI from Rewire tab. Notice that your Reason synths are already listed. Each one has a MIDI channel assigned. In my case, NN-19 is assigned to MIDI Channel 6. This means that in Reason, when a MIDI sequence appears on channel 6, the NN-19 is the synth that will respond. Note these assignments.

13. Select the MIDI Send to Rewire tab. This shows where Reaper sends MIDI signals received from a keyboard or MIDI controller. You can set this up so that when your MIDI controller is sending on Channel 6, Reaper will pass those signals to the NN-19. To to this, right-click the Channel, and then select the appropriate Reason synth. Do this for all the synths you want to set up, using the default channels that were listed on the MIDI from Rewire page. 14. Select the Audio from Rewire tab. This lists all the Reason Hardware Interface channels on the left, and on the right, the Reaper audio inputs (the Track Channels you set up earlier) that receive them. Right-click to assign the Reason Hardware Interface channels to Reaper track channels.

15. Close the fx controls.

You're now ready to set up the sends and receives. Recall that you'll need two tracks for each synth -- one to send MIDI, and one to receive audio. You've already created these tracks for one synth.

16. Select the track to use for MIDI input.
17. Open the io control panel.

18. Use Add new send to add a send to the IO Controller track.
19. Set Audio to None, and set MIDI to the MIDI channel used by the synth. For example, send 6 to All.
20. Close the io control panel.
21. Set the input for this track to receive from your MIDI controller, on the appropriate channel. (in > MIDI Input > [your MIDI device] > Channel n).

22. Select the track to use for audio output.
23. Open the io control panel. 24. Use Add new receive to add a receive from the IO Controller track.
25. Set MIDI to None, and set Audio to the Track Channels you assigned to the Reason Hardware Interface channels for this synth. In this example, I'm sending Reaper Channels 7 and 8 (corresponding to the Hardware Interface channels I used for the NN-19 in Reason) to Reaper Channels 1 and 2 (Reaper's mixdown channels.)
26. For the MIDI input track, set Record Monitoring ON, and set Arm Recording ON. (If you've set up a track folder, then to control these for individual tracks, hold down the Shift key.)
27. Set your keyboard or MIDI controller to send on the appropriate MIDI channel.

That should be everything. You should now be able to play and hear your synth, and use the audio track control to adjust its level. All you need to do now is add more synth input and output tracks, and set up the sends and receives to the IO Controller track.

Thanks for posting this James. I think I'll try to add some Reason to my next submission.