Reason Tutorials » Thor

Reason Tutorial – Chiptune Synth in Thor

AikiGhost — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:14:58 +0000

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.

10 Things you should know about Thor – Reason Tutorial

AikiGhost — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:26:47 +0000

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

Reese Bass Reason Tutorial

AikiGhost — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 19:08:02 +0000

Everyone’s heard it, or a derivative of it and a lot of people love the sound of the classic “Reese” bass. The reese bass and derivatives thereof have been around for so long now that they are almost as much of a cliché as the 303 acid sound. Yet this doesn’t stop us loving that deep deep warp and wobble in our Drum & Bass and Electro house tracks.

In this tutorial I’ll show you a way to recreate a bass with very similar characteristics to the classic reese but with a bit of “wobble control” so you can vary the sound to your own liking.

First right click and create a Thor in the rack. Now create 3 Analogue Oscillators, Leave them all set to sawtooth. Now lower Osc 1 & 2 to octave 3 and Osc 3 to octave 2. detune the second oscillator by about +15 to 20 cents and detune Osc 3 by about -20 cents. Now Route Osc 1 & 2 to Filter 1 and Osc 3 to Filter 2.

Both Filter 1 & 2 should be set to Low Pass.

Filter 1s settings are Frequency = 380 or so, Res = 60, Env Amount = 35, Velocity Amount=90
Filter 2s settings are Frequency = 40 or so, Res = 0, Env Amount = 35, Velocity Amount=90

Set the shaper coming out of filter 1 on. Settings soft clip drive = 0.

Filter Envelope settings should be A=0, D=4.5, S=-7.6 dB, R= 3 ms.
Amp Envelope settings should be A=0, D=4.5, S=-7 dB, R= 2.3 s.

Finally set Polyphony to 1 and Keyboard mode to “Mono Legato”

Initial Setup - Click to enlarge

This should sound something like this.

Now to add some basic “wobble” in to the sound. First set LFO 2 to about 1/2 way up (2.5 Hz or so) and leave waveform = sine.

Ok so here’s the clever bit. Go to the modulation matrix and set the following routings up

Source = LFO2, Amount =100, Destination = Filter 1 Freq, Amount 70, Scale = Rotary 2
Source = LFO2, Amount =100, Destination = Filter 2 Freq, Amount 80, Scale = Rotary 2
Source = Rotary 2, Amount = 55, Destination = LFO2

So now we have both Filters being influenced by the LFO2 output. But turning the Rotary 2 control not only influences the amount of modulation sent to the filters but also the speed of that oscillation. So now when you tweak rotary 2 you get an intensity and speed change to the wobble.

You’ll notice as an optional extra I’ve also routed the Rotary 1 output to the Shaper Drive so as to allow me to tweak distortion amount and also a negative amount to the Filter 3 frequency (A fully open low pass) to cut off the top end of the sound as it gets more distorted to make for a “smother” sound. Both of these final tweaks are optional extras and not actually needed to get a traditional “reese” sound.

Routing Setup

Finally add a Comp 01 compressor (Settings: ratio = 100, Threshold = 25, Attack = 127, Release =25) to even out volume fluctuations and a MClass Equaliser set to “Low cut” to remove the less than 30Hz rumble .

Compression & Low Cut EQ

You should have a noise something like this now.

Playing with the two rotaries during playback should afford you some interesting sounds, a few examples of which you can hear below.

Making an Analog Snare in Thor Reason Tutorial

AikiGhost — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 10:24:14 +0000

Ok so many people have big collections of snare samples or even the Reason Drum Kit Refill so why bother creating a snare sound using a synthesizer?

Well for several reasons:

Its fun
Its educational. You need to know about using the noise oscillators and applying filter envelopes to them.
Ive always had a soft spot for Kraftwerk, Jean Michelle Jarre and early industrial stuff like Front 242, and they use analog snares all over the place.
The sound of an analog snare is unique and with a bit of tweaking you can definitely have a unique snare of your own.

Ok so first open an instance of Thor and click on the “show programmer” button.

Next set Oscillator 1 to be a noise oscillator and choose the “Colour” setting and turn the “Col” knob to maximum.

Now adjust filter 1 frequency to about 100 Hz and envelope (Env) to maximum and adjust the Filter Env Decay to about 2.3 seconds and finally Adjust Amp env decay to about 1 second and Amp Env Release to about 1 second.

Analog Snare with Thor Image01

You should now have a sound something like this.

Ok so not very impressive. But wait a minute now try layering another noise osc with similar settings but adjust the Color parameter slightly, when both oscs sound at the same time you should get something a little more interesting.

Now try playing with Osc 1 & 2 s Color settings, and the low pass filters Env and Vel Parameters to get varing styles of Snare. You can even try adding a third oscillator to add some static or playing with different Filter types.

Analog Snare with Thor Image02

Now you have the basics its time to experiment. Here are another few sounds made this way.