Workflow for loop-recording instruments / midi wanted!

[CloudsOfSound]

Feeling a little frustrated, so this post will be a bit lengthy, but I hope someone has the time to read it.

A couple of months ago, I went all-in and sold my Ableton Live Suite + Push and purchased a full version of Reason 10 and a couple of RE's, confident that I'd manage the transition without many major issues.
So far, the experience has been mostly positive, and I learn new stuff every time I use Reason (watching Groove 3 and Ask.Video tutorials and reading the manual). I like most aspects of Reason 10 and feel that I've made the right decision.

I'm not a DJ, so I didn't need the "Live" part of Ableton Live and I've never liked the user interface in general or the "Arrangement" view where they've put the track info on the right side of the sequencer lanes, and the "Session" view was something I didn't use much, so the syncing between the two always got me into trouble. I just didn't really "get" the software, so it was not a good match for my way of making music.

Just wanted to ask for some tips and tricks on using the sequencer to get similar results when loop-recording MIDI / Instrument parts as I get when recording audio:

When looping is enabled in the sequencer, Reason automatically creates new lanes (alternative track + mute the previous) when recording audio, then you can jump into comp edit mode and slice and dice parts from the different takes and merge the final result into the "main" track if you so wish, with cross-fades and all.
I think this works really great, and the comp edit functionality is very intuitive and streamlined.

With Midi / Instrument recording it's a different story though...

Here I must resort to using keyboard shortcuts ( . for alt take or , for overdub ) at the end of each cycle to manually create a new note lane, in the middle of recording something with both hands, or I'll overwrite the previously recorded notes or just mess something up.
This breaks my creative flow, as I'm a lousy keyboard player and finger-drummer (artist in general), and often have to create many takes before I'm happy with the result.

I feel that there's a serious user-interaction / logical disconnect in the software, when doing two seemingly identical operations results in two totally different outcomes based on whether you record audio or midi, with no option for setting a preference for how to handle this consistently.

I've written to the PH folks, and they can only confirm that it's on the priority list of features to implement, but who knows how long it will take...

They haven't even managed to release a simple update patch to get rid of the "Drop to Allihopa" button in the transport bar yet!
How hard can THAT be? Imagine new users purchasing Reason today, and getting an error saying that this functionality no longer exists.
Not the best first impression.

I guess one way to go about the issue I have is to record the audio first, and use the audio in a sampler, set to loop the audio parts, then just record one long line of midi data and chop it up afterwards to get the pieces I want assembled. This is kind of a PITA to be honest, so if anyone has a better solution, I'd be happy to hear about it.

Luckily I have Logic Pro X as well, and the recording part done as described here is super easy to implement in Logic.
I've also tried doing the same in Studio One 4, and it also support this kind of workflow.

I haven't read everything about the sequencer in the Reason Manual, but from what I've learned watching tutorials, there is no way of doing this "out-of-the-box" in Reason 10 today.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[Loque]

For your "midi" overdub problem is somewhere here in the forum a solution and i cannot find it atm. It is a bit clunky and was too complicated for me and i did not spend much time on it, otherwise i would explain or could remember more details.

For the thing with the Allihoopa button...i couldnt care less about it...I guess they remove it with next update and i think there wasnt a aupdate since Allihoopa was dropped.

[motuscott]

I've not tried this method myself, but I bookmarked the video.

[Loque]

...

[CloudsOfSound]

I've not tried this method myself, but I bookmarked the video.

Ok, that was quite involved, but I guess it's less involved than having to fire up Logic (and remember to connect the external HD with the gazillion GB sound library on it) to do the parts that require loop recording using MIDI.

I've actually thought about using Logic as a main DAW and Reason through ReWire, but, I really want to learn Reason as I find it much more interesting and motivating to work with and explore.

I've found that after switching to Reason, I use all my spare time (also nights) to learn new stuff and explore the instruments, players, RE's, CV routing and all the other cool stuff Reason brings to the table. Just the visuals makes it more inviting to do something creative, compared to the flat boring UI of Ableton Live.

Sure, being a software developer, I do wish that Propellerhead had been a bit more focused towards creating an open source abstraction layer with a good and developer friendly API, for advanced users to tinker with, or at least a framework for scripting functionality into things like the sequencer and transport bar, so that I could have coded the changes I needed myself, adding a button and writing some code to trigger the steps required, but I guess they have a Reason for not doing that.

I never dug into the whole Max for Live thing, and being a software developer that's probably something I would have found interesting, but I didn't have time for it, and it just looked kinda restrictive, dull and boring to work with.

I've been looking into AudioKit and Synth One lately, and that's a fantastic abstraction of C++, Objective-C and low level audio code wrapped into a Swift framework that let's you program a working synth in a few hundred lines of code in a couple of hours.

I hope to see more focus from PH on creating an open community for developers, like they have going in the Reaper community, but that is probably just wishful thinking.

Thanks for the link by the way!

Jeez, I really do talk too much...

[motuscott]

[/quote]
Jeez, I really do talk too much...
[/quote]

Welcome to ReasonTalk.
I believe we can accommodate your skillset.

[Boombastix]

My guess is they are pretty tied up with fixing the code for VST performance, until then we do not get the basic midi functions. Nice to hear this one is on a "priority" list.

I sure hope that the BASIC midi functions comes as a 10.5 update. I am in the same boat as you, bought Reason, expecting stuff to exist that was implemented in other DAWs many many years ago. And now at >$1000 investment in Reason/REs I sure would be deeply dissatisfied if I have to pay another $129 just to get basic midi functions that are supposed to be just there.

Its like buying a car and they only deliver it with three wheels. So, yeah kicking two of the tires was not enough, but you should make sure ALL wheels are all there, right? Well, that argument doesn't hold water in my world, you demo a complex tool with a 1000 page manual. There is no way you can investigate ALL and every function, and stuff like basic midi should be expected, just like seat belts for the passenger seat and that 4th tire. I sure hope they decide to exceed customer's expectations on the midi/sequencer functions update. Plenty of functions as a 10.5 update. I really do cause we are not asking for anything crazy. And this whole VST debacle is also just to bring Reason up on par with the competition. I feel I already paid for that functionality.

[CloudsOfSound]

My guess is they are pretty tied up with fixing the code for VST performance, until then we do not get the basic midi functions. Nice to hear this one is on a "priority" list.

I sure hope that the BASIC midi functions comes as a 10.5 update. I am in the same boat as you, bought Reason, expecting stuff to exist that was implemented in other DAWs many many years ago. And now at >$1000 investment in Reason/REs I sure would be deeply dissatisfied if I have to pay another $129 just to get basic midi functions that are supposed to be just there.

Its like buying a car and they only deliver it with three wheels. So, yeah kicking two of the tires was not enough, but you should make sure ALL wheels are all there, right?

Hehe, yeah, I've had a few moments when I've felt like they forgot to put an engine in the damned car, not just a wheel missing...
Compared to how fluid these things are done in Logic and Studio One, it certainly feels a bit disappointing to not have basic midi recording functionality in an expensive application like Reason.

You have the ability to do this in free tools like Garage Band and in low cost DAW's like Reaper you actually have a dedicated plugin that you can install to fine tune how this exact behavior should be done when loop recording both audio and midi.

But I guess I'll just have to find a work-around until this gets implemented. Probably possible with some creative problem solving, like the method shown in the video posted earlier. I really like many things in Reason, and the sequencer workflow with audio recording is now perfectly fine for my needs, even though many out there complain about the sequencer being old fashioned and missing important features.

I actually find the Reason sequencer very comfortable to work in, I don't like when five different things happen automatically if you drag on different parts of a clip, separated by a few millimeters on a high resolution display. I like to select a tool, do the work, and drop the tool, just like it works in Reason.
Also the Option / Alt and Shift modifiers adds enough functionality for me without having to select a specific tool for things like creating fades, lower a clip's volume or time stretch or copy an event. I don't want a super advanced sequencer, I just want the basic loop-recording to behave consistently with both audio and midi. A button to enable / disable this functionality for users accustomed to how it works today would probably be the best implementation.

The VST stuff...
Probably busy with the VST stuff, for sure. That's also a thing I can't really wrap my head around, why don't they focus on implementing support for VST3, that has a programming model that makes it much easier control resource management and performance.
VST3 generally has a lower CPU and memory usage and performs better in most cases, at least on modern CPU's. Still PH does not offer support for VST3, even if it probably would have solved most problems with performance, at least for the plugins that already comes as VST3, which is starting to become the rule rather than the exception.

[boingy]

My workaround for the loop thing is to copy the section of song I want to record into then paste multiple copies beyond the end of the song until you have 1 or 2 minutes of "backing", record against that until I get it right then cut and paste the good bits back into the real song. For me it's less fiddly than using the "auto-ALT" workaround and ending up with dozens of lanes to process.

But, yes, it should be built-in and automatic, just like the audio loop recording.

[CloudsOfSound]

My workaround for the loop thing is to copy the section of song I want to record into then paste multiple copies beyond the end of the song until you have 1 or 2 minutes of "backing", record against that until I get it right then cut and paste the good bits back into the real song. For me it's less fiddly than using the "auto-ALT" workaround and ending up with dozens of lanes to process.

But, yes, it should be built-in and automatic, just like the audio loop recording.

Yeah, this seem to be the best / simplest alternative until we're blessed with proper midi recording from the Propellerheads.
I've also tried to loop the audio in a DrOctoRex instance while just keep on playing midi into a track, and this works as well, but I have to bounce the audio into a Rex file, and mute the original audio track for it to work, but this is a work-around as well...

[fieldframe]

I sure hope that the BASIC midi functions comes as a 10.5 update. I am in the same boat as you, bought Reason, expecting stuff to exist that was implemented in other DAWs many many years ago. And now at >$1000 investment in Reason/REs I sure would be deeply dissatisfied if I have to pay another $129 just to get basic midi functions that are supposed to be just there.

The bad news is, there almost certainly won’t be a 10.5. In another thread, I looked at the past decade of Reason point releases, and there were only two .5 versions, 6.5 and 9.5. They were both blockbusters that completely changed the Reason ecosystem: Reason 6.5 opened up Reason to Rack Extensions, and 9.5 finally broke the 15-year exile of VST support.

So Propellerhead has only put out a .5 release when they’re completely shaking up Reason, and given that they’re still working out the kinks from the last big shakeup, it’s highly unlikely they’ll start another one right now.

But the good news is, Reason 11 will be the first version whose entire development cycle was after the Verdane investment. It’s likely we’ll see some big changes that will make it well worth your $129.

[CloudsOfSound]

I sure hope that the BASIC midi functions comes as a 10.5 update. I am in the same boat as you, bought Reason, expecting stuff to exist that was implemented in other DAWs many many years ago. And now at >$1000 investment in Reason/REs I sure would be deeply dissatisfied if I have to pay another $129 just to get basic midi functions that are supposed to be just there.

The bad news is, there almost certainly won’t be a 10.5. In another thread, I looked at the past decade of Reason point releases, and there were only two .5 versions, 6.5 and 9.5. They were both blockbusters that completely changed the Reason ecosystem: Reason 6.5 opened up Reason to Rack Extensions, and 9.5 finally broke the 15-year exile of VST support.

So Propellerhead has only put out a .5 release when they’re completely shaking up Reason, and given that they’re still working out the kinks from the last big shakeup, it’s highly unlikely they’ll start another one right now.

But the good news is, Reason 11 will be the first version whose entire development cycle was after the Verdane investment. It’s likely we’ll see some big changes that will make it well worth your $129.

I still feel that a 10.5 release is warranted and deserves a "blockbuster" label for:
1. Making VST actually work in Reason (VST3 included)
2. Adding a functioning way to loop-record MIDI instruments