Reason's Organic Sampled Instruments Video Lecture | Reason Tutorials: The Ultimate Guide - Video & Sound Editing

For just a second, let’s talk about music
making in very broad strokes.
Sounds are either synthetic or organic.
In Reason 10 while introducing two highly
powerful synthesizers with Europa and Grain,
we also wanted to include a collection of
organic sounds to balance them out.
Why?
Because quite frankly the two styles go really
well together.
Entirely synthetic production can sound, well,
synthetic.
The inclusion of organic textures can bring
about realism, depth, and subtle imperfection
that just works perfectly to put the humanity
back into machine generated tones.
This can be especially true for people who
make music for things like game soundtracks,
where situations often call for a blend of
the modern with a twist of the quirky.
But really everyone’s music can benefit
from organic textures so today let’s build
a song together using the organic instruments
in Reason 10, and see how they fit together
perfectly alongside modern elements in your
music.
In partnership with Soundiron, and their expertise
in all things organic, Reason 10 comes with
three new sampled instruments: Klang, Pangea,
and Humana.
While they look and function similarly, each
one houses a highly specialized collection
of sounds that makes them quick to access
when creativity is striking.
Klang’s specialty is tuned percussion, which
includes traditional instruments like the
Alto Glockenspiel… perfect for your singer-songwriter
vibes.
But Klang also includes some less traditional
instruments, like the Kalimba, also known
as the African thumb piano.
The wooden tones of the Whale Drum.
And many other instruments for you to try
out.
These sounds can be used for their natural
intent or they can be pushed into new directions.
For a simple example, this Whale Drum sounds
nice and woody but if we play it well below
its intended range you might instantly recognize
its potential for Trap style beats.
Toss a Scream 4 distortion on that and we’re
on our way to an organic 808 kick hybrid sound.
One Klang instrument that perfectly showcases
the depth of organic instruments over synths
is the Imbibaphone.
You might know it by it’s more common name:
a crystal wine glass.
The way the sound blooms, the vibrato, overtones…
it’s all layers of complexity that synth
patches rarely approach.
This same line played on Thor is nice but
it just doesn’t have the same realism and
character.
Each have their time and place, of course.
Let’s go ahead and lay down a little part
with this Imbibaphone for our song.
To fill out the chords of our song I’m going
to use another instrument addition to Reason.
Radical Piano has been a long popular Rack
Extension for sculpting pianos with character
and a sound all their own.
Now in Reason as a native device, Radical
Piano’s sounds are available to all of us.
Radical Piano uses a hybrid of sampling and
physical modeling technology to create customizable
pianos with control over the physical characteristics
of the piano, from the style of the microphones
used, the key and pedal mechanics, and even
the resonance of the piano’s body.
The result is a piano so flexible that it
can fit whatever style of song you’re working
on, from soft intimate ballads…
All the way to powerful rock or pop pianos,
which is the style I’m picturing for this
beat we’re making today.
Let’s drag one of Reason’s Players above
Radical piano called Scales and Chords, and
set it to a patch designed for big powerful
chords.
To build on this let’s check out another
organic instrument in Reason.
Pangea is a collection of instruments from
around the world like the bamboo Angklung,
the harp-like zitherette, and even some instruments
we’re familiar with, but played in new ways
like this piano being struck with a metallic
hammer.
By now you’ve noticed there’s a wide variety
of sounds in both Klang and Pangea that often
have somewhat complimentary characteristics.
In fact, one excellent way to use these devices
is to combine them into layered instruments.
Let me show you what I mean.
If we double click to create a Combinator
instrument, and add a line mixer we can go
ahead and add one Pangea and one Klang to
the Combinator also.
Let’s select Pangea’s Harp Guitar and
Klang’s Circular Bells.
And let’s even pan them in our mixer for
a nice wide instrument.
Now when we play our Combinator we get the
sound of both instruments layered together.
Klang, Pangea, and Humana come with a variety
of presets that include a natural setting
to capture the purity of each instrument.
That’s what we’ve been listening to so
far.
For example, Klang has a fantastic music box
that sounds great in its natural state.
Or if we select “Music Box Dream” the filter,
effects, and envelopes on Klang turn our music
box into something more mood-setting.
And Music Box Percussive is a great short
decay pluck, useful in modern production.
In fact, let’s keep Klang like this and
choose a complimentary sound in Pangea for
our Combinator.
Pangea’s Acoustic Saz is a nice natural
stringed instrument with a quality somewhere
in-between guitar and sitar.
But it also includes a great pluck version.
We’ll pair that Saz pluck with our percussive
music box and let’s drag a Dual Arpeggio
player above the Combinator to lay down a
nice busy texture to our song.
Arpeggiated sounds like this often work well
with a side-chain style pumping effect.
Synchronous is a popular effect now included
with Reason capable of all sorts of changing
and wild effects, but one of the most simple
yet effective things it can do is that exact
pumping effect.
Let’s drag a Synchronous to our Combinator’s
Insert FX and select one of the side-chain
effect presets.
We can adjust the amount of the effect using
the Dry/Wet knob.
With our other instruments it adds a level
of bounce and energy to our beat.
In fact, this much energy just begs for drums
and bass.
Let’s go into the Reason Loop Supply and
explore our options for drums.
I’m thinking of something like a half-time
Trap feel.
For each drum loop style there are several
loops which include the full loop...
and then isolated loops giving you just the hi hats,
for example, or just the special fx sounds.
We could either find an entire loop we like
or we could choose just part of the loop,
like Chaos’ kick and snare.
Let’s double click that to load it into
a Dr. Octorex loop player in our song.
We still need hi hats and here is where we
can have some creative fun by choosing a hi
hat loop from one of the other Loop Supply
styles to create a combination of kick, snare,
and hats all our own.
Let’s audition a couple.
I like these crisp hi hat rolls in Dub Hats.
If we right click the sequencer track for
them and create a pattern loop lane we can
draw in the loop and go about customizing
it.
Trap hi hat patterns like this are often very
busy and frequently changing.
So let’s grab the razor tool to chop up
our pattern, rearrange it, delete some sections,
and duplicate others.
You can play around to see what works for
you but for a loop like this you almost can’t
go wrong.
For the bass, I’m going to go straight for
one of my new favorite bass patches in Reason.
Boomer Bass is a great 808 Bass sound, courtesy
of Grain.
Our production is really starting to fill
out and we’ve got lots of great modern elements,
organic touches like piano and our imbibaphones,
and even organic sounds tweaked to sound more
synthetic.
What would be great is to ground this song
with one more undeniably human element: The
sound of the human voice.
Humana is an instrument built for just such
a task.
With a variety of solo voice and choir samples,
Humana adds drama to a production with that
unmistakable choir sound.
Like Klang and Pangea, there are different
patches which represent different sample collections
and different front panel setups.
We’ll select “Venus Oo Dressed”, which
is a female choir with effects applied to
sit well in our mix.
Let’s record a haunting melody over our
beat, but let’s solo just the piano and
choir so we can match the chords well.
To fill it out, we can add some male voices
as well.
We’ll double-click to add another Humana
and let’s select the male counterpart to
“Venus Oo”, predictably called “Mars
Oo.”
I’ll pan the female choir a little left
of center and the male choir a little right
of center in the mixer to simulate the arrangement
we might find for a mixed choir on a sound
stage.
Let’s add a harmony with the male voices.
When it all comes together, our beat has a
good combination of the modern mixed with
the organic.
Klang, Pangea, Humana, Radical Piano, the
Drum and Loop Supply… they all bring a touch
of the perfect imperfection that comes from
organic instruments.
There’s of course undeniable strengths to
the rigid purity of synthesizers too, but
bringing them both together in our production
combines the strengths of each for a sum that’s
greater than the parts.
Whether you do quirky soundtracks, epic bangers,
or intimate singer-songwriter ballads these
new instruments in Reason are sure to find
a home in your arrangements.