Introduction To Reason

Welcome to Digital Pathways! In this class we will be learning much about audio production. There is much to learn and so we will be moving at a fast pace. However, with this blog we will be able to keep track of all of our projects and assignments. With that said, the main program we will be using is called Reason. It is one of the leading music production programs available on the market. What's even better is that it is a user friendly program that you have the chance to learn. It is very important that we do not move to fast as it could get confusing, so lets take time to learn the basics about Reason, it's controls, and music production.

Let's start with the very basics of making a drum beat. Drums are very important. In many cases they can be seen as the most important part of music. The reason is because a drummer's job in music is to keep the time of a song. He helps the band to know how fast or slow to play. It is for this very reason that we will learn how to drums first before we move to otherwise challenging aspects of music production. Here we go:

1. Open Reason
2. If you don't see a mixer: go to the CREATE menu and select a Mixer 14:2
3. Set Tempo to 98 bpm. You should see the tempo on the bottom of reason near the play button.
4. CREATE: Redrum Drum Machine
5. Click on the Folder Icon in the bottom left corner of the Redrum.
6. From there click on the Reason Factory Sound Bank:Redrum Drum Kits:Hip Hop Kits: Hip Hop Kit 07
7. Push SELECT on Sound 3. Click on Boxes 5 and 13 (This is the golden rule of drum programming with the ReDrum)
8. Push SELECT on Sound 5. Click on Boxes 1 and 11
9. Push SELECT on Sound 1. Click on all the boxes
10. Congratulations! You have made your first beat!
11. Now Click on Pattern 2 and create your own beat with a Clap or Snare, Bass Drum, and Hi Hat.
12. Remember start with a Clap (clp) or Snare (sn) on 5 and 13
13. And put your Bass Drum on 1 and a few other boxes (but not boxes 5 or 13).
14. Put your Hi Hat (HH) anywhere.
15. Now let's save the beat.
16. Go to the File menu and click SAVE.
17. When the window pops up, go to your folder you created that should have your name on it.
18. This is where you're going to save your beats.
19. Name the beat (your name's) first beat.
20. Click Save.
21. Now that you have made this drum beat, click over to Pattern 3 and work on a new pattern. Lets keep working on new patterns.