another question about reason

[GHP]

people sure bash reason saying it just doesn't sound right and doesn't sound professional. I pretty much mastered this program and my stuff sounds quite good to me at least on my computer and I still think they sound pretty good when burned to CD. But i get stuff like getting a reason beat and putting it on an album is a step backward when they are getting shit from other guys using Fantoms and motifs etc.

Anyways, I was also told that if I re ran my samples from reason into something like an MPC it would sound alot better, is this true? I never messed with one of those before.

 

[22sleepy415]

It depends on what you consider better. It will always sound different to say the least.

One of the thing that people dislike about reason is that your audio will always be 4db below the level that it should be. By default the audio is -4db, I forgot the propellerhead explanation for this but you cannot ever compensate for this within Reason.

The rendering engine in Reason is also not as accurate as other programs out there. While audio that came from FL is a bit thinner when compared to cubase, audio coming from reason is a whole different thing. You'd really have to run the same sample through different programs to hear the difference yourself but there's some difference there.

When taking you samples from reason into the mpc you're doing to do a few conversions. Let's say that you have a decent sample. if you run the sample from your computer and to an mpc and your computer audio device is not good, you'll lower the quality of your sample as it goes through the cheap converters of your audio device. Taking the audio from the MPC back to the audio device will make it worse even if the MPC did make the sound a bit better.

Running your samples through an mpc would be a waste of time in my opinion. Even if you have good converters. It's better to run the samples through a good analog console. And I don't mean mackie.

 

[GHP]

see I'm not up on alot of this stuff so the only thing i do to make up for any sound quality loss is double up the track when I do a final mixdown in cool edit to boost it up a little.

so your saying there isn't much i can do? well that sucks, I was also told to run my MIDIs through somehing like sample tank and switch up the the samples. If thats the case that would eventually phase out Resson outta any set up I plan to build, well if that the case I guess Reason served me real well as a beginners tool and its time to move on.

 

[djbuttnaked]

see I'm not up on alot of this stuff so the only thing i do to make up for any sound quality loss is double up the track when I do a final mixdown in cool edit to boost it up a little.

so your saying there isn't much i can do? well that sucks, I was also told to run my MIDIs through somehing like sample tank and switch up the the samples. If thats the case that would eventually phase out Resson outta any set up I plan to build, well if that the case I guess Reason served me real well as a beginners tool and its time to move on.

There are several ways to increase the headroom of your audio out of reason. Rewire is a tool that will allow you to take the outputs out of reason and place them into another application such as Pro Tools or Cubase SX (if I am planning on incorperating the use of some VST instruments). That what I have been doing and it seems to work. I for one love this program and have used it for quite sometime. It's all relative though I believe if you have the right components within your CPU you can achieve the same if not better than many of the hardware pieces on the market.

Ronnal

 

[GHP]

^So rewiring it with pro tools for example will make it sound better? I've been told that it won't but I want to continue using it just want my stuff to sound as clean as possible.

 

[22sleepy415]

Even when rewiring into Cubase/PT or any other host you still can't bypass the Reason engine.

I didn't mean to say that you can't make good music with Reason. There's a few commercial albums out there that have used Reason as a tool for the projects. The drop in db can be accounted for in the mastering stage anyways.

An important thing to keep in mind is that boosting the level up on the track will not do you a lot of good. Loudness is perceived by average loudness and not just by volume itself. A waveform may look like it's up there and even clipping a bit while another may look lower but still be louder. This is where compression and limiting comes in.

Check this page out for good info on compression/limiting:

http://waves.com/content.asp?id=226

Really though, I'll say just use the best samples you can use and make some music. You don't have to worry about all the technical stuff if you don't want to. But then it'll come out of your pocket when it comes to mixing and I always recommend getting work mastered elsewere anyways. Suit yourself.

 

[GHP]

^so your saying if you got a beat made in reason and only reason and its at a half decent level one could take it in like pro tools or whatever and EQ it to make it the level they need it for an album? is a flattened beat good enough or would they need the multitrack of it so they could adjust each and every track?

 

[22sleepy415]

The db drop is not that big to begin with. It's just there to give you some headroom when working with the audio on another application as far as I can remember.

If you're pretty happy with your mix then a 2-track will suffice. If you want someone to mix your music or if you want to do further mixing then it's probably better to have everything separate.