Reason 5, Record 1.5, and...

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" but after knowing more about it (watch the video and read the specs!) I gained a new respect for this new device :)
Although I'm not a serious loop user, I must admit that the new Slice Reverse, Alternate Slice groups and that pretty cool Slice Edit Mode are very serious upgrades to Dr.Rex, besides the ability to easily alternate between 8 loaded REX loops.


Now, the thing that got me intrigued and excited at the same time was Blocks.
I used to compose a lot with a music tracker application, so I'm very used (forced to, at the time) to pattern composing a song. Reason's sequencer liberated me of that, where now I could finally compose and live record my MIDI performances without any rigid length constraints.

This new way of looking at Reason and Record sequencer, through Blocks, makes me go back in time, more or less... although, in truth, it'll make me go forward ;) because now we can mix both worlds, pattern composing with Blocks mixed with the existing Song tracks.

Some might say that Blocks is almost like track audio/midi clips, and that's true, but taken to the whole Song level, well above tracks. It'll allow the same vertical editing at song level that we have now at track level. Very cool and unexpected feature indeed! :)

Oh, and I almost forgot!!! TAP TEMPO!!! Did you see it ? There's Tap Tempo now, on the new Transport section. It's easily seen on some of the videos that glance over the Tempo section.

It's almost unbelievable how many requests and suggestions are being implemented in this release.


Ok, so... tomorrow the world will know about the 5th and last known hidden feature. Can't wait! :D


...and...


...maybe something will happen here too, 24 hours after we all know what's that 5th feature about ;)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Generic MIDI Channel aware Remote Codec+Map

Image
If you have a controller capable of sending MIDI messages on multiple MIDI Channels, like an M-Audio Axiom 's 4 Keyboard zones (so 4 MIDI Channels from the same keyboard) plus the Pads on Channel 10 or an Arturia BeatStep PRO that can send 2 sequences on their own MIDI Channel (1 and 2) and its Drum sequencer on MIDI Channel 10 plus the controller on, say, MIDI Channel 16, etc,  then you certainly felt the need for a MIDI Channel-aware type of Remote Codec like this one. Taking the BSP example, here's how to get its 4 sources of MIDI into Reason with this Remote Codec+Map. Add a Control Surface per MIDI source  with these 3 easy steps: 1)  Add a Control Surface from the " <Other> " Manufacturer and choose the correct " Generic Controller on MIDI Channel __ /< " Model with the MIDI Channel you'll need 2) Give it a proper name, so you know what's the real controller being used with this generic map (that you
Read more

Arturia SparkLE Remote Codec+Map

Image
Hey all :) I've been asked last week to share my Arturia SparkLE Codec so here it is :) (unofficial) Arturia SparkLE Remote Codec (and partial Map) V1.0.2 ReDrum: Added Drum Channel selection support through the Dial encoder Edit Flam with Select+Loop Button Flam Amount  with  Select+Tempo Encoder Shuffle On/Off through Loop Button Actually, this has been sitting on my Remote projects folder for 2 years now (and far from being alone in there, eh), waiting for me to complete the rest of the Remote Map, because my initial need for it was really just to control Kong, Dr.OctoRex and ReDrum, that's why those are really the ones that got some partial love on the included map. Early this year, due to the improvements added to the ReDrum remoteables s ince Reason 8.2 , I ended up making some editing to support the new ReDrum remoteables :) I'm hoping that anyone wanting to extend it or complete it has enough examples already in the partial map I'm
Read more

Random access to a CV values list

Just added this little CV tool in the free download section (on the right): "K's Basics - Random access to a CV values list" It's basically a way to access through CV indexing, a list of 3x32 "cells" of CV values (well, one of the list is within the Note range of CV values, but this example is enough to demo the concept). So, if you're ever in need of generating a specific sequence of CV values controlled by another CV source, this is one way to do it :) It's like having random or sequential access (in whatever direction you want) to a specific custom list of CV or note values, by using a CV controlled "cursor" (just connect the CV "cursor" source to the Rotary 1 CV input and tweak the Combinator modulation programmer Min/Max values to your needs). This device was enough for something I was testing, but I'm sure it can be optimized with some thought and more time. It won't work well in a real-time fast switching situation,
Read more