Songwriting with Reason.

[keeverw]

Hello, my name is Wayne.
I am using Reason 9.5 and have been a Reason user since 2.5.
I mostly use Reason as a sound module, for my keyboard rig. I play at my church about twice a month.
And it has been amazing for that. At times I have tried a workstation for this, and other times I have tried other apps like Mainstage and even Ableton, but I keep coming back to Reason. Because even though it's not specifically designed for this purpose, it still manages to be better at it than any other, in my opinion.

So that said, I am very familiar with the Rack and the SSL. But I am starting to do some songwriting and I am finding out how unfamiliar I am with the sequencer. I am pretty comfortable with the Reaper sequencer, but I find the Reason one quite different.

So I guess my question is this.
Lets say I have a song idea, maybe I'm playing around on my piano and singing a bit, and I want to get the idea down, or at least start the process.
How do other Reason songwriters approach this? Where do you start?
Do you use block mode? Or some other method?

The reason I ask is because my current method isn't working very well.
Basically I will play and sing the entire song with the click going, but only record the piano midi notes.
Then I will go back and do the vocals over that, trying to get it all in one take (because I'm not terribly familiar with doing multiple takes).

This might be ok if I'm doing a cover and I already know how the song is going to go, but for example my most recent song, I got to the bridge section and I knew I wanted to have a bridge, and I knew the chords I wanted to play for the bridge, but I didn't know the words or even the melody yet. So I end up with a track that has a bridge piano but not vocals, and now it's set so I can't easily add another measure or two if needed. I feel like it would be easier to start over than to try and modify what I have.


I know I'm giving a lot of specific details, but my question is a little more broad.
I just want to know how other Reason song-writers approach this. What works for you?

I really appreciate any advice!


Wayne


edit: FYI, please don't suggest using another DAW for this. I really want to do it all in Reason.
First of all because all of my created sounds are already in Reason, and second because I know it can do the job just fine once I get my head around it.

[chimp_spanner]

Hey Wayne!

There are many different approaches, and really it varies from person to person and style to style. Sometimes I'll start with drums first, and I'll just have bits/patterns scattered all over the arrange window. I just set my locators to that area and work on a section, then figure out how I want it to all snap together later (obviously Blocks would also be good for this - certainly a lot tidier!). Other times like yourself I'll just have a keyboard part worked out, but again I just capture little ideas and motifs as they come to me and pretty much just put them wherever, then stitch it all together later in the process.

To be honest your method sounds just fine. If you reach a point in the song where you don't know what you want to happen next, just tidy up the ends of the clips so you've got a nice clean edit point and just move on to another section. If you need to insert measures the quickest way is probably to use the razor tool and click on the ruler where you want to insert (this will cut all parts on all tracks), position your left locator there and your right locator at the duration of extra bars you need, then go to Edit -> Insert Bars Between Locators.

And yeah I mean Blocks might be worth exploring for you as you can make changes to a section wherever it appears in the song with a single edit. Which is cool!

[stratatonic]

for example my most recent song, I got to the bridge section and I knew I wanted to have a bridge, and I knew the chords I wanted to play for the bridge, but I didn't know the words or even the melody yet. So I end up with a track that has a bridge piano but not vocals, and now it's set so I can't easily add another measure or two if needed. I feel like it would be easier to start over than to try and modify what I have.

First off, you have a verse, chorus and bridge mostly mapped out, so now it's a matter of tweaking to finish up.
Second, what chimp said:
position your left locator (at the end of the section you are working on) and your right locator at the duration of extra bars you need, then go to Edit -> Insert Bars Between Locators.

This will give you extra space to work with. I'll often add a few more bars of "space" to work with. Whether I use it all up is not is another story - but sometimes, you can go off on another tangent that you hadn't considered - and you are not recording into your next section.

When you have your extra part down, just set your left and right locators in the empty space, right click, and "Remove Bars Between Locators". (alternatively, you could highlight ALL the clips in the sequencer after your newly recorded section, and drag them all to the new section and connect to it - with snap set on bar)

[Vince-Noir-99]

If your issue is how to add bits of recording non-linearly (in real time, in one take), then the answer lies in comping and/or recording on separate tracks using the same channel settings. Then, you can sort it all out later. Check out 'comping in Reason'.

[QVprod]

Many people write songs in sections. However there's nothing wrong with playing the entire song out in one go. You get the most organic performance that way. You can ignore blocks entirely unless you're making pattern based music. For your process, blocks might not help at all.

Recording vocals is simpler than you think. It's not tape. Reason keeps all audio you record so you won't lose anything by continuing recording on the same track. If you record over something, you can always put it back using the comp editor. So if you don't have a bridge written yet, it's simple to just add it later either on the same track or a separate track.

[keeverw]

Ok, thanks for the great replies. Really helpful so far. I didn't know about insert and remove between locators.
When you do that, do you have to cut first or it just does it for you?

Maybe I was doing it wrong, but I tried selecting multiple tracks and then using the razor tool on the timeline tried to cut all the selected tracks in the same spot but it didn't cut anything if I remember correctly. I had to cut each track individually which is really hard to get them all cut in the exact same spot that way. Maybe I just did something wrong.


To clarify, when I mentioned my current method, I meant to say I am not satisfied with it at all. That's why I'm looking for other ideas.
Because rarely do I get an entire song the way I want it in one take. That might be ok for a rough draft, but when I am ready to produce my song, I want each track perfect. And I can never get that done on one take.

I have used the take editor a bit in the past. I know you can do multiple takes on the same track and then in the take editor slice it up using whatever part you want from each take, and it splices them all together somehow. The splicing part is what I don't know how to do.
Is that the same thing as comps?


I like the idea of just separating each section of the song out in the sequencer. I never thought of that.
In the past when I've tried to tie two sections of midi piano together, I had issues with the sustain pedal. How do I make sure that doesn't hold over from the previous clip?


Thanks for all the advice. Please keep it coming!

[keeverw]

Also, quick question.

In Reaper (only bringing that up because I am familiar with it) I can select multiple tracks, then click a spot on the timeline, then hit "s" for split and it cuts all selected tracks at the point I had selected on the timeline.

Is there any shortcut like this in Reason, or do you have to change to the razor tool to do it?

[keeverw]

And how do I do multiple takes on a track?
Lets say I have an audio track and I record 6 measures starting at the beginning of the timeline.
Do I just keep that track armed, go to the beginning of the timeline and record that track again?
I always assumed that would just overwrite what I already recorded.

[syncanonymous]

Comp Edit Mode
Look it up in the manual

The idea is to record multiple takes over the top of previous performances in the same Sequencer lanes.
You need more than one take for comp edit mode to work
So set up your audio tracks to play into
Record as many times as you want over the same sequencer lanes.
After recording,
Enter Comp Edit mode by dblClk or cntrl/cmd+e on the top most audio clip (previous takes are hidden when in Arrange Mode)
When the clip expands, click the Comp Edit Mode text that appears

When you enter Comp Edit mode all your takes are there. Use Razor to make cuts and create a composite of your multipe takes. If I want a one take, sometimes I will make a comp and then learn it and play it in on another track.

It takes a little while to figure it out, so you'll need to commit a bit of time. It's a great feature of Reason, actually.