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Looper's Delight
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Just to reiterate, the Dr. Rex loop player in Reason is really the method of making Recycle useful at all. The unfortunate thing about Recycle is that you can't rearrange loop slices within the application itself, that's something you can only do in Reason. When you load a Recycle loop into the Dr. Rex player, you can add limited effects to a slice or the entire loop, and you can change the pitch of individual slices as well. All the arranging of the loop slices have to be done in the main Reason sequencer. There's a button on the Dr. Rex player called "Loop to Track", which copies the sequencing of the loop as is to the sequencer, each note representing a particular slice. I'm a beginner myself, and I've found it's difficult to deal with loop slices of different lengths so it's helpful to break them down into eighth notes so you'll have a much easier time rearranging quickly and previewing what you've done. That said, I really really wish that Recycle had the ability to let me move slices around and preview it before saving it to a .rx2 file. Since I generally use Recycle for drum loops, my tendency is to make variations of the loop until I pass out, and having to do that work in Reason just seems inefficient to me. I think it all really depends on how you intend to apply the software. If you're looking to use Reason's instruments to make your music, or at least a track of it to be mixed with other stuff, then the Dr. Rex loop player won't be useful to you. You can stop reading here if this is your situation However, since I don't have any hardware except a bunch of instruments (drums, bass, didg, and a plethora of noise makers), I rely on software completely for recording and composing. The only significant piece of digital hardware I own is the EDP, which I use to jam with myself since I don't have the composition skills to work from scratch. Here's a simple breakdown of my process just to show you how I use both Recycle and Reason: 1) Turn on the EDP 2) Start playing the drums, keep playing until I find a beat pattern I like, then record that pattern into the EDP. Sometimes I don't even finish this in a sitting if I don't find an inspiring pattern. 3) Pick up my bass or my didg and start playing along with the drum beat I've got in the EDP. If I play something that I'm happy with, loop that into the EDP if it's applicable, or record it straight to my computer. Most times I end up rejecting the original drum beat and start over. 4) If I'm happy with everything so far, I'll record what I've got in the EDP onto my computer. 5) Edit all the wave files. 6) Load the wave files into Recycle, slice them up, and save them. 7) Load the Recycle files into Reason's Dr. Rex player, add any effects I need, then hit Loop To Track a few times to put a whole bunch of repetitions side by side on the sequencer. 8) Use the Reason sequencer to remix all that raw material, experiment basically. Furthermore, since I'm already in Reason I can start working with the built-in synths. 9) If I've made significant changes to my raw material, or if the tracks recorded from the EDP didn't have the audio quality I really wanted to, I write down how I need to replay that stuff and replay it. 10) Record any new pieces I want to add, then take the new raw material, repeat steps 5-10. The more repetitions of this method I do, the less I rely on the EDP and play for longer times rather than snippets. Starting out small allows me to come up with a plan and make a prototype song very easily, create variations easily, and easily preview what I've got. Because Reason and Recycle are so easy to use, the method I described is generally quick and painless. Thanks for bearing with me on my lengthy example, I just wanted to show you why I personally get a huge amount of use out of both Recycle and Reason. If you do all your music composition on other software, then you'll probably never have a use for Recycle, but Reason stands on its own for good synths for cheap. Cubase and other professional music creation software is too feature packed, too complicated, and too expensive for my purposes. -- Matt ----- Original Message ----- From: <ArsOcarina@aol.com> To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 12:37 PM Subject: Re: REASONable software looper question > Matt, > > Thanks for the lengthy reply. > > In a message dated 10/23/02 11:31:00 AM, nicholson_matt@msn.com writes: > > >Reason is pretty badass in general just for all its different sequencers and > >synthesizers. > > That is pretty much the reason I was thinkin' of getting it. Not as a >loop > player in particular. If it has one I am interested in that as a side interest > only. I'm just trying to sus out what that loop player's capabilities >are. > Though I have not been especially happy with it in the long run I have > "Phrazer" already as far a loop player is concerned. Plus I have 2 stand > alone, hardware phrase samplers. > > I was just trying to learn what utility I might get out of what the > "literature" was calling a "Recycle-related" loop player in Reason. > From what I hear, yes, Ableton Live is great. I wish it had been out > when I'd bought "Phrazer." I'd be happier I'm sure. But that's not what > I'm necessarily after at the moment. > > Best, > > Ted Killian > http://www.mp3s.com/tedkillian > http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.htm > >