Posts on: reason

Audio

Oct 25, 2009
@ 4:46 pm
Permalink
Played 4 times. DL

Comments

This one is much closer to the music that I’ve been listening to (mostly Blue Sky Black Death) than almost anything else I’ve made. I started with the guitar, then added drums and changed from a chord progression to an arpeggio, which definitely gives the whole thing a certain sound. Strangely, I had intended to do something much more string heavy, but somehow the strings ended up coming together last, at around 1 in the morning. There’s definitely some mixing problems here; the whole thing sounds almost like nonsense over my laptop speaker, but it’s pretty hip over headphones or better speakers.

Audio

Aug 23, 2009
@ 9:49 pm
Permalink
Played 1 times. DL

Comments

After reviewing the minutes of music I’ve made up until now, I’ve determined that, when I use reason and record, I prefer the songs that started with a pad and then worked up from there. So, I grabbed a bunch more pads and did exactly that today. I got pretty excited when I found one that sounded like what Mogwai used in “Moses? I amn’t,” which I’ve embedded below for reference:

I also wanted to try to drop rock-drums in, and of course a live bass, because it’s a lot of fun to play my bass now that I can have other instruments to play it with. I used some heavy effects on the strings, and they sort-of work; really, the whole affair could use a more careful hand mixing, but that’s what later revisions are for.

Audio

Jul 2, 2009
@ 2:07 am
Permalink
Played 1 times. DL

Comments

I love delay. I don’t think this is unusual for people who play rock instruments. For Christmas one year, I got a big multieffects pedal, and even with hundreds of effects patches, I pretty much left it set to delay. And last night, I discovered that record has hell-of delay. It’s kinda like my pedal, only instead of two delays, there are 12. Having so many options was nearly paralyzing… but only nearly; I decided I couldn’t just fool with them all night, found one that had a nice rhythm, and dug in with my bass. About 45 minutes later, this 45 seconds of music was ready. It’s really simply — two variations of a bassline, a steady helping of delay, a nice rock drum loop that I found in reason, and a synth-guitar part that’s actually just three notes run through reason’s arpeggiator. Certainly not my most ambitious, but fun to lay down all the same.

Audio

Jun 28, 2009
@ 3:12 pm
Permalink
Played 0 times. DL

Comments

On Friday, I got my Record beta invite, and last night I fired it up and wrote a song. Record is like reason, only you can record audio from instruments that you plug into your soundcard. So, I grabbed a drum loop, put down an initial synth melody, and then plugged my bass in to see what I could add. And then before I knew it, it was 2AM and I still hadn’t really mixed anything yet, but I had a ton of tracks. I really enjoyed making this one; the more I played, the better each note felt, and I’m pretty happy with the overall sound. Like, so happy that I might have just thrown all my more productive plans out the window in favor of playing my bass more and trying to understand the massive soundboard that record emulates…

Audio

Apr 9, 2009
@ 1:22 am
Permalink
Played 0 times. DL

Comments

I actually wrote this one last night, but by the time I was done tweaking it, I realized I had lost track of time and I needed to get to just stop before I stayed up way too late. I use more automation in this than I’ve ever used before in reason, and I actually sequenced the drums myself, which is new for me. I think that’ll be a goal for a while, so expect the rest of the songs to suffer for the extra drum work. But, in the long run, it should lead to more interesting music.

Audio

Apr 6, 2009
@ 2:37 am
Permalink
Played 1 times. DL

Comments

With my computer back from Apple with more new parts than old parts, I’m able to record music again and post it. It shows that I didn’t write anything for two weeks, but you’ve got to start again somewhere, and tonight has a lot of pads. I likely will have to drop back to about every other day for a while, while the weather is nice (fresh air makes it hard to sit inside and record), but it’s good to be making music again.

Audio

Mar 19, 2009
@ 2:11 am
Permalink
Played 0 times. DL

Comments

Tonight’s minute of music, I wouldn’t let myself have any pads or other long, lush sounds. Instead, real-sounding drums, a simple bass, and the most absurdly complicated synth instrument I’ve found to date. Musically, it’s much more complicated than usual, and since that’s what I’m going for, I’m pretty happy.

Audio

Mar 16, 2009
@ 2:50 am
Permalink
Played 0 times. DL

Comments

I wanted to build something out of variations on a theme tonight, and so I did. I found a wonderfully aphex twin-esque instrument to start with and then kept making things more sinister. I also got to try the groove feature in reason, which is pretty amazing — my first loop is slightly out of time, but feels much better than when I quantiized it, so I was able to tell reason to grab the overall feeling for the other loops from the first one and to thereby shift everything else using it as a guide. Amazing.

Audio

Mar 11, 2009
@ 2:35 am
Permalink
Played 0 times. DL

Comments

This one is again recorded in reason, and I didn’t have anything specific in mind, other than to not use a hiphop beat for it. I used the same basic technique for the composition — found a good rex loop, printed it, dropped the bass part and then rhythm, and then something to lead the song along. The hardest part in reason is staying within a minute — it’s just so easy to keep dragging the loops out. It may be nearly time for something longer again.