Koshdukai's Music(al) Reason(ing)

Record users may already know this trick for quite some time :) You can record CV data to an audio track through the use of a CV to Audio converter (like the CV2Audio2CV ) to then examine the CV waveform. This is useful when we need to debug or check the CV values being generated by a device. The only problem with this, is that if we're on a long tweaking session, the CV recording (i.e. CV "log") may get pretty big unnecessarily. One solution is to go on a sequence of short recordings, while deleting the resulting Audio Track clips in between those sessions. But now there's Reason 5 and it's new Sampling capabilities that we can use also for CV monitoring. So, now, instead of recording to a track, we can just Sample the CV, again through the use of a CV to Audio conversion (wiring the audio output of Thor to the Sampling input at the back of the rack, making it the sampling source). This allows us to keep an eye on the thumbnail Sampling scope window, while doin...

It's official! (picture taken by yours truly, just minutes ago, at an undisclosed location) I'm now a proud owner of a recently installed copy of Reason 5 & Record 1.5 . Life is good :) EDIT : Why the picture? Well, it's just to show you how official this day is... we're talking about flags'n'all kind'of official here ;) EDIT2 : OH! I almost forgot ...and I'm now also a ReCycle 2.1 owner! :) I've never been a loop-centric type of user. I still struggle with the notion of using "construction-kits" I see being sold in Loop/Sample/Sound Library/ReFill shops. Coming from a composer-type background and not a DJing audio cut'n'paste type of producing music, I like to compose, program and play everything myself, so I usually use REX patterns (i.e. loops) just as test sources, draft vanilla starting points or as subtle added complement layers to my rhythm patterns. I also like the instant rewarding live usage of pre-programmed dynamic...

Imagine you're doing this incredible stereo multi-tap echo combinator patch, where you really need to allow the user to select a list of Left/Right ratio combinations. As an example, let's assume we need a list of ratios like this one here: Left/Right 1/1 4/3 3/4 3/2 2/3 2/1 1/2 3/1 1/3 4/1 1/4 1/OFF OFF/1 hmmm... so, to be able to go through such a list with a combinator rotary, you really need a "device" that enables you to Randomly Access an Array of CV values or states, don't you? Well, thanks to Thor and the way the Step Sequencer has been implemented, we can have such a thing. So... let's build it! Just add to your combinator (the one needing that list of CV values selectable through a rotary) a Thor device and initialize it (this is where my set of "null" patches usually comes in handy, where there's a "null" patch for each device, to quickly start with "everything off" kind'of patch, not quite achiev...

It would be really cool if we could change Thor Buttons state through CV triggering, wouldn't it ? Ya know, if you need to toggle the on/off state of some CV out to be used on, let's say, a bank of 16 devices that react differently to the state of that CV ? We can already toggle the state momentarily through a specified Note or through automation of those 2 buttons in Thor, or the 4 buttons in the Combinator, but a simple scalable solution for CV triggering a CV state would nice. Well, since there's no way in Thor to send "CV in1 -> Button1" so a gate signal in CV 1 input would flip the state of Button 1, we have to come up with the next elegant solution available, using Thor's Step Sequencer :) Fortunately, there's a "Gate In (Trig)" CV input at the back of Thor's Step Sequencer, so here's our CV input that will trigger the CV state toggle. To achieve the toggle action, we need to set the Run mode to Step, so for each CV trigger, we g...

Note: This was going to be a post about the new M-Audio Axiom 2nd Gen controller keyboards ... and, after some sentences, I realized it wasn't going to happen as soon as I first envisioned... oh well, better change the post title and move on... :P ... As you may already know, I've been accidentally collecting more MIDI Keyboard controllers than I ever wished for. Buying new, not selling the old because there's always an excuse use for it. It all started when I bought my (really mine) first "real" (as opposed to my Sinclair ZX Spectrum ) Personal Computer (I had used PCs for a while at this point: 8086, i286, i386sx, i386 based, but none were mine), a brand new D-I-Y i486DX2 @66MHz based PC with (at the time) 4Mb (a few years after, upgraded to 32Mb) of RAM. It had a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16 because I've always hoped to use a PC to generate sound through synthesis using math (i.e. DSP algoritms), besides taking advantage of the digital s...

I just love these behind the scenes video documentaries =) Oh... and I use one those headphones too!!! How funny is that ? :D uh... erm, it surprised me ok ? Just had one of those moments, pointing at the screen "OH!!!" :P oh well... moving on... -.-'

...in a "as is" edition. Yup, more than a year was enough for me to figure that I had to release this as it is and don't bother to make a proper song demoing every little feature with the detail I wanted, nor making a .pdf document explaining the use and custom changes anyone could make to every device I had. So... here it is "as is" and I hope those that kept requesting this either through mail, comments or YouTube messages can now enjoy this... finally! :) K001FX - Koshdukai's FX Machines 001 microReFill "as is" Edition So, what's in the "package" uh ? Besides the Effect devices you see in the picture, you can also find in there 3 very small .rns songs that try to do some simple demoing of 3 of the devices. Nothing fancy, just some REX files with the device as an insert FX. You'll find that ReGRAINZeR V.0.9 now allows you to engage a Fake Pitch-shift-like playable mode, by turning Rotary 3 full clockwi...

So, Reason 5 & Record 1.5 new features are almost known to the world. 4 down, 1 to go, eh? :D Today's announcement about the new ability to do live Sampling in Reason 5 , was one of the most inspiring to me, besides Neptune's Pitch-Adjusting, Live Audio Transposing, Formant and Voice Synth capabilities . Finally, Reason Samplers deserve their name. They are now truly what their names have been implying for years... they are now real Samplers that can Sample :P And being able to do live sampling during song play is even more awesome! Imagine doing live beat-boxing with a running ReDrum, live sampling each channel while the patterns are running, adding up stacks of on-the-fly sampled noise/voice ? Nice eh? ;) Add to that, live usage of Neptune's Voice Synth... pure bliss =) (and now, Reason-only users can live-Vocode to boredom as well !!! ;) The first time I saw Dr.Octo Rex I thought " meh... it's just a 8xDr.Rex... I already have that in a Combinator " b...

Record 1.0.1 was just announced ! =D What's all the hassle about such a "minor" fix/update ? Well, for starters, Master Section got the missing "In" I was complaining about in my previous post :D • Advanced MIDI Device: Master Section: In was not available as target That's the good news, the bad news is that I forgot that using Advanced MIDI Device ports redirection to devices, bypasses the Remote layer (where all the conversion/mapping occurs), so... just setting Axiom faders to Channel 16 and redirecting it to the Master Section wasn't enough. Anyway... all to say that, the workaround explained in my previous post, is still valid for the purpose I described. But, it's good news that the missing "In" is now there where it should! Now, the BIG news. IMHO, is: • Import multiple audio files feature added This, to me, was the most important "fix" (i.e. new feature) brought by Record 1.0.1 Record now can really shine as a mastering ...

All the new exciting and cool features one gets with Record 1.0 over Record 4.0 quickly became second nature as I made it my default music production application from the start . I rarely use Reason 4 standalone now, and when I do, I'm quickly reminded of why using Record 1.0 is way better and more along the lines of what I've always wished for Reason in a long time. I only go to Reason 4 now when I need to save something as a Reason file (as opposed to a .record file, impossible to share with Reason-only users) or quickly check something on a device, patch or browse a ReFill without having the hassle of going through the online authorization process of Record (or when I'm on an offline location) if I forgot to bring the Ignition Key (aka dongle) with me. So it's only natural to say (and unfortunate to hear from the developer perspective, I'm sure) that it's easier for me (or any other user, I guess) to remember what's not implemented in Record simply becau...

One of the bugs I reported during Record Beta testing, relates to a Master Section missing "In" target, when trying to redirect MIDI channel data to a specific device. Why would I care about this tiny little forgotten thing? Well, since I'm using an M-Audio Axiom 61, and don't find the fader section useful for Synth parameter tweaking (non motorized faders cause weird and sudden parameter value jumps and I find that distracting) I made my custom M-Audio Axiom Remote codec SysEx block (the bunch of data that gets sent to the recognized controller to set it up properly each time we start Record or Reason) have that fader section send its MIDI data to MIDI Channel 16. This would allow me to "Channel Lock" the faders to the Master Section in Record, so I could easily control the Record's Main Mixer with those faders. ** A little explanation here : When I wrote this, I wasn't aware that the Advance MIDI Device bypasses Remote, so any MID...