Reason Tutorials

Don’t get me wrong reason has always had good synths, the subtractor is still one of my favorite bass synths and the Malstrom is still fantastic for edgy goodness and doing evolving pads. The synths in reason were so good in fact that when Reason 4 was announced I kind of ignored Thor and was fixated on the arpeggiator and the ReGroove mixer (Which to be fair IS absolutely awesome).

Over time I’ve come to realize that this was a mistake. The Thor is a powerhouse, it can be subtle, solid, screechy and sometimes unpredictable in a good way. So in the spirit of “Don’t underestimate this beast like I did” I’ve decided to do a “Top 10″ style list of things I didn’t realize or think about when I first saw Thor. Hopefully some of this will be informative and useful to somebody.

1. Wavetable & Noise Oscillators - If you haven’t already, you really have to have to have a good play with these two oscillator types. The wavetable enables you to make such a vast array of sounds it’s almost incomprehensible. Everything from pianos and organs to twinkly bell like tones and deep dark pad noises. Meanwhile the noise osc is really useful for adding grit to synth tones and for doing analogue style drums (see the Analog Snare tutorial) the noise Osc can also be set to make various types of tuned noise which are really harmonically useful in pads and drones.

Wavetable & Noise Oscs

2. Internal LFO routing - The routing matrix. Well what can one say about this other than “IT’S AWESOME DOOD!!!”. There is such depth to what you can do with the routing matrix that it can sometimes get a bit confusing. The first thing I will say is look at routing the Thors LFOs to various parameters in a subtle way to help give you more evolving sounds. Take a slow “smooth sample and hold” style LFO and route it to a filter or an Osc Frequency pitch or Position setting and hear the results, instant sonic movement in your sound.

Example Routings

3. Routing midi note velocity to multiple things - Ok so we’ve all thought of the obvious routing of velocity to a final output stage low pass filter. The harder you hit a key the more top end is allowed through, the softer you hit the key the more just the bass end is let through. Thats all good stuff.

But what about routing the note velocity to LFO rate (which is in turn routed to delay amount or something else sonicaly interesting?), how about routing note velocity to a 2 filters at once one adding to the output and one taking away? Maybe add another velocity routing to one of the oscillators Position settings? You can be as subtle or extreme as you like with this. If you go far enough you can create patches where almost no two keypresses generate the same sound.

Velocity Routing

4. Routing Matrix “Scale” option - Ok so we have all these crazy routings set up, but we don’t want them to be in effect all the time or we want the option to apply differing amounts of a routing while we are playing with the patch. How do we do it? Simple use the “scale” option in the routing matrix. Essentially this allows you to specify how much of a set routing is controlled by something else. For example you can have an LFO which is routed to a filter, but if you only want this swishing filter movement to come into effect while the mod wheel is pushed up simply set the second “amount” = 100 and the “Scale” = Mod Wheel. Now the amount of LFOing filter you hear is controlled by how much you push up the Mod Wheel.

5. Filter Self Oscillation - For some quite wild and unpredictable results don’t be afraid to turn on the filter “self osc” button and push the filter resonance into the high 110s+ area, this can result in some wild and nasty screaming noises and odd bass end stuff but used in conjunction with a second band low pass or band pass filter (or even routing external audio, self oscillating breakbeats anyone?) this can generate some very usable but odd stuff.

Filter Self Osc

6. Global Envelope - Ok so it sits there all alone and looks a bit “What is this for?”. Trust me start experimenting with routing the global envelope with various settings to unusual parameters (You know something other than amp or filter) and you may well be surprised at the results.

Global Envelope

7. Audio Ins for manipulating audio signals - There are 4 audio in on the back panel of Thor these can be routed to filters and messed with by the internals of most parts of the signal chain. Try routing a breakbeat through some LFOed filters and the Shaper and see what you get.

Audio Inputs

8. Audio Ins Used as a controller in the modulation matrix – You can also route audio signals to things other than filters. You can have the level of audio example routed to an LFO speed or the shaper gain etc. This is wide open for experimentation.

Example Audio Routings

9. Back Panel CV ins & outs - If audio in wasn’t enough there are also 4 CV ins and 4 CV outs to allow Thor to interact with any other device you so choose. Fancy sending the audio level of a signal you are routing through a filter in the Thor out to the arpeggiator speed on an RPG-8 arpeggiator? No problem the Thors CV outs allow you to do this kind of complex routing with ease.

Back Panel CVs

10. The Step Sequencer - To be honest there is so much you can do with this seemingly simple step sequencer that it could fill several extensive tutorials by itself. You can do everything from letting each key press trigger a mini arpeggio to creating some very odd filter and other effects routings with the Step Sequencer. Also remember that you can not just trigger things with the Step Sequencer but you can use other devices to trigger it using the back panel CVs or the Step Sequencer Trig & Step Sequencer Transpose modulation routings.

The Step Sequencer