Switch this one and become a master of music theory. When left off, Reason will correct any played notes that are not in the selected scale. When switched on, any incorrectly played notes will not sound. It’s like Reason is saying “play anything except the dark notes”. There’s even a little window that highlights the notes on a keyboard that fit within your chosen scale. There’s also a custom scale for experimentation and creation of your own scales. There are 12 keys and 13 preset scales to choose from. Start by inputting the desired key and scale. It’s also very useful for speeding up the workflow of accomplished musicians as well.
This is a brilliant way for the non-musician to create complex chords progressions and melodies with minimal effort. It also will allow you to play notes and it will transpose them into the desired scale. I love this device! Scales & Chords allows you to play one or more notes and generate chords that fit the chosen scale. I forgot to mention Dual Arpeggio is also mono and polyphonic, so it’s a quick-and-easy way to create lively interest in your music. This works on Dual Arpeggio and Scales & Chords. Send To Track records the exact notes you play on your MIDI keyboard (or from the onscreen piano keyboard) straight to their own track for further editing.ĭirect Record, on the other hand, records the output of the device to its own track, so you can edit those notes. There are two cool buttons at the top of the devices, which I found a very welcome addition. You can also create one by right-clicking on the instrument and adding it from the context menu. Creating a player is a simple matter of dragging one onto an instrument or its track. This means you could play arps and melodies or basslines at the same time. Anything you play outside the key ranges…well, that gets played as is. Each arpeggio can be run in parallel or separately and assigned to separate key ranges – as in a key split. This is a dual arpeggiator, as you might have guessed at the back there.
Finally, direct recording and sampling were possible in Reason, but still no third-party plugins… It also introduced a new mixer modelled after an SSL 9000 K and pitch correction with its Neptune device. Propellerhead then incorporated Record into Reason completely with Reason 6. Along the way, we saw the addition of Thor, a mega-synth with amazing modulation possibilities and fat, juicy sound and Kong, a total drum designer package using synthesis, sampling, and physical modelling for the purpose of creating completely new drums and kits. Although a little cumbersome, this gave Reason owners, for the first time, the ability to record directly.īefore this, the only way to get audio into Reason was by way of importing audio files. Record sessions could then be saved and opened in the DAW with the audio intact. Then there was the fact that for a long time you couldn’t even record audio into the software.Īt version 5, Propellerhead created Record, a separate program allowing you to record audio for use in Reason. It’s always been a bit of an oddball, in that it has never allowed the use of third-party plug-ins. Reason is like that funny cousin who you can’t help but like.