I have to agree with Ott on using just the basics to create your musical ideas, going on a never-ending plugin fest gets you nowhere fast - i tend to just stick with the built-in fx and plugins (in ableton suite) and a couple of VSTs and learn these inside out rather than use 100 different synths and fx and not know any of them very well.

Just in case anyone is interested, I noticed a “Computer Music” magazine special on Reason in WHSmiths today - they do a comparison of a mix done entirely in Reason vs the same track mixed using a 20K protools setup.

I think it was called something like Reason - The Unofficial Guide.

Ott - 17 November 2009 04:11 PM

Cloudwalker - 17 November 2009 06:49 AM

Ott - 17 November 2009 05:00 AM

90% of my tunes are written in Reason.

Bollocks. 
Ain’t buyin’ that statement…

Well, ok.

But it’s true.

Hi to all in this forum, I am new to here but by means not new to twisted. I have been producing and engineering for many years and have owned an arsenal of analogue synths, pissed tens of thousand of dollars to the like of digidesign, Been all tape , analoge, went digital, gone mad, gone broke… blah blah. I have pruned my rig back considerably and sold off most of the stuff that does not make music. At the moment i am loving my laptop, simplicity is bliss.

Ott, seriously mate I have the utmost respect for you as a producer and engineer. I am inspired by your work and I could not agree with you more. Its not the meat its the motion so to speak. Software or hardware lust never made someone write a good track. I use logic. that’s my weapon of choice. I love audio much. I use Abelton for gigs, but recon it changes my sound and the way I interact with my music, which can be good. I taught myself Max and its like reinventing the wheel each time you go for a drive ( a very powerful tool and great wanking fodder around the university campus). Reason has come a long way and is a very powerful , tight self contained system. I still love malstrom ( big fan of granular synthesis) and redrum. Ask yourself this people.

After many years its hard to look for music that inspires me, bugger all gets me going anymore as I look for the 10% gold amongst the 90% shite, and of the 10% only 2% is the shit. The same can be said for software.

If Ott can produce such stunning , inspiring productions and he says I use reason and recommend it as a place to start, is that not quality info?. Something to take on board? Even if you wanted to hear he used an original microwave KB though focasrite…mixed on a on a 9000 series ssl…blah blah blah. Keeping things simple so you become proficient at using your rig to its maximum potential is what its all about.How many people actually program their synths, get rite into them to unlock the full power of sonic potential other than preset flicking? Too much time is spent talking about using this and that and not writing a slammin track. I think his advice is refreshing and a real peg in the sand, look at that peg its a mark of your own objectivity. Some take a hammer and build something wonderful, some just bang on and end up with a bloody finger. Cloudwalker, sport, you must be an amazing producer to put that shit on Ott, frankly I find your comment hard to believe. Anyways thats my rant for the day
“Dont Hate Oscillate”
Here is a little something to chill out any flamers lol
Mordechai Remix

Really great post Dimentagon.

Dimentagon - 20 November 2009 10:34 AM

Cloudwalker, sport, you must be an amazing producer to put that shit on Ott, frankly I find your comment hard to believe.

Heh, his comment just threw me off at first.
I thought he was implying that his tracks were written ENTIRELY in Reason, which didn’t make sense with the lack of vst and recording support. 
We know now that “our wires got crossed”...

A student has to question the teacher from time to time…
so the teacher can kick the student’s ass and put them in their rightful place…

Keeping things simple so you become proficient at using your rig to its maximum potential is what its all about.

Words of wisdom!
It took me years to realize this.

I use to pile on plugins and download everything in sight.
Once I started using only a small selection of equipment, and started programing them myself from scratch…
music making and production became so much simpler and…intimate, one might say…

I suppose Reason is the perfect all-in-one tool for “Keeping things simple”.
May have to dive into it one of these days…

Cloudwalker - 20 November 2009 12:53 PM

Really great post Dimentagon.

Dimentagon - 20 November 2009 10:34 AM

Cloudwalker, sport, you must be an amazing producer to put that shit on Ott, frankly I find your comment hard to believe.

Heh, his comment just threw me off at first.
I thought he was implying that his tracks were written ENTIRELY in Reason, which didn’t make sense with the lack of vst and recording support. 
We know now that “our wires got crossed”...

A student has to question the teacher from time to time…
so the teacher can kick the student’s ass and put them in their rightful place…

Keeping things simple so you become proficient at using your rig to its maximum potential is what its all about.

Words of wisdom!
It took me years to realize this.

I use to pile on plugins and download everything in sight.
Once I started using only a small selection of equipment, and started programing them myself from scratch…
music making and production became so much simpler and…intimate, one might say…

I suppose Reason is the perfect all-in-one tool for “Keeping things simple”.
May have to dive into it one of these days…

Ok, you didn’t put it very eloquently..So my bad. As he pointed out that is where he starts,
My question to OTT is , does he mix in or out of the box?
thanks Dimentagon

So, question to Ott (or anyone else):

What does Reason offer that the onboard plugins or workflow in…let’s say Ableton Live…doesn’t offer?

Cloudwalker - 20 November 2009 11:51 PM

So, question to Ott (or anyone else):

What does Reason offer that the onboard plugins or workflow in…let’s say Ableton Live…doesn’t offer?

mostly just speed. It’s all contained and the sequencer is the easiest and fastest to use of any other sequencer I’ve tried.

Ableton is far more powerful but its a steeper learning curve.

I wrote my entire first album in Reason even though I owned hardware and had better ‘stuff’ to use. It was most comfortable and least prohibiting of actually making music to me. And it sounds great if you know how to program.

you can check it out in my sig if you want.

im glad to be surrounded by so many musically inclined people. i hope in turn i can take some of the things i learn here and take the steps to make some proper music. you are all an inspiration!

keep up the good stuff.

psilogod, dling divination right now, the artwork is sick too!

slamminsalmon - 21 November 2009 01:50 AM

im glad to be surrounded by so many musically inclined people. i hope in turn i can take some of the things i learn here and take the steps to make some proper music. you are all an inspiration!

keep up the good stuff.

psilogod, dling divination right now, the artwork is sick too!

cheers! hope you enjoy it. I definitely don’t have the mixing and production skills of Simon or Ott (i’m still learning) but I think you will appreciate the songs and what can be done in Reason alone.

psilogod - 21 November 2009 03:27 AM

slamminsalmon - 21 November 2009 01:50 AM

im glad to be surrounded by so many musically inclined people. i hope in turn i can take some of the things i learn here and take the steps to make some proper music. you are all an inspiration!

keep up the good stuff.

psilogod, dling divination right now, the artwork is sick too!

cheers! hope you enjoy it. I definitely don’t have the mixing and production skills of Simon or Ott (i’m still learning) but I think you will appreciate the songs and what can be done in Reason alone.

BUT.. maybe with reason+record (ssl desk) mmmm. just about to try the demo

psy4ia - 21 November 2009 03:53 AM

BUT.. maybe with reason+record (ssl desk) mmmm. just about to try the demo

yes for the money I think the 2 will be an amazing combo as a standalone production tool. I want to get it as its only $150 if you already own Reason, but I have Ableton already and want to get a UAD card instead for mixing and dynamics processing.

Dimentagon - 20 November 2009 01:20 PM

My question to OTT is , does he mix in or out of the box?

These days I mix in the box.

I was a dyed-in-the-wool analogue mixer devotee right up until the point that my mixer blew up halfway through an album mix. I was up against a dealine [and living in Spain] and didn’t have time to find, import and install a new mixer to replace it so I made the decision to finish the album in the box.

It was a massive risk as there was bound to be a change in sound but I had no choice and ploughed on. It required a fundamental shift in technique and it was a total headfuck at times but with a lot of concentration I managed to get the record finished.

After I finished the last song I went back and listened to them all to see how they sounded together and I was horrified to discover that there was indeed a huge difference in the sound - and the ITB mixes sounded WAY better. So I went back and remixed the first three.

I should say I have a fair bit of analogue outboard and this does help in getting everything to sit well together but I have no intention of getting an analogue mixer to replace my old one as I am now convinced that computers do a far better job on the whole.

Automation is far better integrated, control is far more precise and of course I now have total recall that really is total. I can now save my mix halfway through and switch to another if I get bored with what I’m working on and I don’t have to worry about the cat [or my daughter] getting on the desk and “remixing” the track when I’m away having a piss.

A leftover from the days of having a 64 channel analogue mixer is that I have 72 channels of RME I/O which I used to have coming up on the channels of the desk. These days, however, I have them connected to my outboard gear and have them assigned in Nuendo as ‘external plugins’ which works brilliantly. It does compromise the ‘total recall’ aspect of things but I tend to print effects as soon as I’m happy with them anyway so it’s not really a problem.

Another bonus [in Spain, particularly] is that the Nuendo mixer doesn’t give off heat or attract dust. I no longer have to deal with crackly cables or op-amp noise or intermittent connections and I now have virtually unlimited aux sends and subgroups to play with.

And I don’t miss the tactile aspect at all really - in fact I’m really happy that my bathrobe sleeve no longer gets caught under the fader caps and fucks the drum balance ten times in every mix. Everyone mixes in a towelling bathrobe don’t they?

Cloudwalker - 20 November 2009 11:51 PM

So, question to Ott (or anyone else):

What does Reason offer that the onboard plugins or workflow in…let’s say Ableton Live…doesn’t offer?

It offers restriction - which to a beginner, delving into the world of computer music, is essential.

It’s easy to get carried away with the possibilities of different esoteric processors and the hundreds of free [and ‘free’] plugins on offer on the ‘net and to spend all of your time gazing in wonder at the inexhaustible geeky richness of it all but never get round to learning any of it.

Reason restricts you to three synths, a drum machine, a REX player, two samplers, a vocoder, some sequencers, mixers, routing devices and a representative selection of effects units. Everything you need to learn the basics of electronic music production in one reasonably priced package. Spend a year or two getting to the bottom of Reason and you can’t fail to become reasonably proficient at making electronic music.

I absolutely cannot imagine a better learning package and I think it should be available in all schools as part of the standard syllabus.

The other MASSIVE advantage of Reason is that it NEVER crashes. Ever. 99% of crashes, in my experience, are caused by dodgy VST plugins or combinations of reputable ones and, being a closed system, Reason doesn’t have this problem. 

It’s efficient too - you don’t need a mental octo-core PC to build up quite a complicated rack and arrangement and if you stick to the Reason Factory Soundbank sounds you can email your [50kb] song file to your mate for collaboration without having to render off gigabytes of audio data.

For me, personally, I find it very immediate and intuitive and it enables me to get an idea going really quickly without hunting around for a snare drum sound or a pad when I want to be writing music.

I always end up rendering the audio out and continuing in Nuendo after a few hours but for that initial writing burst Reason is unbeatable.

Ott - 21 November 2009 05:49 AM

Dimentagon - 20 November 2009 01:20 PM

My question to OTT is , does he mix in or out of the box?

These days I mix in the box.

I was a dyed-in-the-wool analogue mixer devotee right up until the point that my mixer blew up halfway through an album mix. I was up against a deadline [and living in Spain] and didn’t have time to find, import and install a new mixer to replace it so I made the decision to finish the album in the box.

It was a massive risk as there was bound to be a change in sound but I had no choice and ploughed on. It required a fundamental shift in technique and it was a total headfuck at times but with a lot of concentration I managed to get the record finished.

After I finished the last song I went back and listened to them all to see how they sounded together and I was horrified to discover that there was indeed a huge difference in the sound - and the ITB mixes sounded WAY better. So I went back and remixed the first three.

Shit you just reaffirmed my great phyco acoustic suspicions. I have retired my old trusty Soundtracs PC midi 24824 into storage now, which I am seriously considering breaking it up and racking the pre’s and eq’s. I bit the bullet and purchased a Dangerous 2 Bus with a Prosonus central station to replace it. I have an Alesis Masterlink hanging off the dangerous 2 bus as my master recorder.I have moved back to the city after closing down my acoustically treated purpose built studio which was a great move because since I moved the town has flooded twice and it has ended up with 3 feet of water up the walls which would have been charming for the equipment!!!. I am back to a small untreated room. I have some nice outboard comps and eq’s and I have been mixing in the box lately and decided to do a proper stemmed mix of the track I was working on. The in the box mix was way better. This has totally done my head in but my ears don’t lie. It goes against all the principals I have held so important. I took the mix into the studio’s at uni with the genlecs and blind tested 3 people and they all picked the in the box mixes as substantially better. So Now I am using two outs of my AD8000 which is 2 of my 26 outs. I am dumping Protools after years of anguish. I invested in a PT TDM rig some 5 years back and did not go HD.(I have a mix cube with 2 Apogee ad 8000’s, 1x888/24,1x 1622 I/O)and going totally native with the next rig I buy. I never use protools, its logic all the way. If I need protools (hopefully not) i will use Mtools on my laptop or whatever is the studio In working in.
Do you use the RME interfaces? I was thinking of the Lynx Aroura or the RME Fireface 800. What are your thoughts on clocking eg: Apogee Big Ben ? Also are you track laying to Nuendo and compiling mixing your final in Nuendo?. One more thing, I have been using Ozone strapped across my sum mix (only at the end after I have it all sounding rite, I never monitor though it till the bounce). Do you strap any plug across your bounce?
thanks for the revelations.  I really appreciate you sharing this information. It is so cool to get insight into your process as skylon has actually became a bit of a reference cd for me.
regards and respect
Dimentagon
PS my towling bathrobe is Blue, I got it for Christmas last year, definitely adds sonic integrity to any project.
[IMG]http://i123.photobucket.com/albums/o310/rickypann/Bathrobe.jpg[/IMG]

Ott - 21 November 2009 05:49 AM

Everyone mixes in a towelling bathrobe don’t they?

Err yeah sure we all do.
Seriously though thanks for the insight.