Reason Tutorials

Here is another short reason tutorial related to making 8 bit chiptune sounding patches. This time were going to use the Thor polysonic synth found in reason 4.

The most important aspect of this synth is the use of the step sequencer at the bottom of the Thor, to get something that sounds vaguely authentic you will need to play with the note settings of the step sequencer till you get the right sound. Keep this in mind as you play with this patch.

Ok so lets start at the top. Copy the polyphony, oscillator, envelope and delay settings you can see in the 3 graphics below. They don’t have to be incredibly accurate to sound good. After you finished making the patch you can tweak to taste.

chip tune synth poly settings

chiptune synth osc & envelope settings

chiptune synth delay settings

Ok so now on to the meat of how you get that authentic chiptune sound. Its all down to the rapid arpeggios of notes that are played by the thors step sequencer. In the example I’ve used I only used the first 4 steps of the step sequencer just for speeds sake, if you want use 8 or all 16 notes.

chiptune synth step sequncer settings

So first set steps =4

set run mode to “repeat”

now make sure “sync” is on, and that rate is set to 1/64

Now this is the clever bit, in the modulation matrix set up the following routings:

midi gate > 100% > Step Sequencer Trig

midi note > 100% > Step Sequencer Transpose

You’ll note I’ve also assigned the thors two controller knobs to filter and Oscillator balance you can do the same or simply play with these settings manually.

Now if you play keys you will now notice that a 64th note arpeggio that follows your key presses is occurring, it wont quite sound right yet as all the notes in the arpeggio are currently set to c3.

Lets remedy that. Make sure note octave is set to 2. and set each step to the following note vales.

Step 1 = D3

Step 2= C3

Step 3 = G2

Step 4 = D#3

The arpeggio should sound something like this now.

An that’s pretty much it. Play with your own filter settings and step sequencer note set-ups and you should be able to create a variety of new chiptune style patches.