WALKTHROUGH TUTORIAL: MPC + REASON (VIDEO TO BE ADDED SOON!)

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double post thing.

Mike Dugan wrote:So a lot of cats are having problems setting up reason with their MPC - - - -. I'd like to help everyone out but I use a 2000xl and have not used the others. Basically, the set-up of wiring should be the same but internal settings, depending your MPC model, may have additional settings that need to be changed. Therefore, you'll have to ask around for your specific model in its particular forum.

Anyways, down to business. This walk through will only apply to connections between your MPC, a midi controller and reason. Addtional connections such as external sound modules will be covered in the video tutorial. Hopefully it'll be up in the next 1-2 weeks so keep an eye out.

HARDWARE CONNECTIONS/REASON SETTINGS

1.) First, open reason. Go to Preferences and select advance midi connections. Select Bus 1 and set it to interact w/ your midi interface. Close reason for now. From here will be setting up cables and settings within the MPC.

2.)Connect 1 midi cable from your first midi interface out to MPC midi in 2. Connect a 2nd cable from your first midi interface in to MPC out 2. A basic handshake method. We're using the MPC's 2nd I/O's b/c the first midi in will be occupied by a keyboard controller.

3.) Now that your MPC is connected to your computer you need to connect your controller. Connect 1 midi cable from the midi output of your controller to the 1st midi in on your MPC. *If your using a usb bus powered device do not set this as the keyboard controller in reason just yet and I'll explain why later.

4.) Make sure Reason is closed and your controller, if bus powered, is turned off. Now turn on Controller, MPC, and then Reason in this order.

5.) Create an empty rack within Reason and create a mixer. Save this as a Template, so that in the future it saves time. More on that further down.
Lets get this thing working first, then I'll get in to some tips and tricks.

6.) Create an NNXT. You'll Notice in Reason's sequencer section a new track has been created as well. Delete that track and keep the device.

7.) At the top of Reason you'll see the MIDI IN device with 16 drop boxes. Select the NNXT that we had just created in the drop box.

Load a factory preset or any sound and hit few keys. Nothing right? We need to set up the mpc to send midi to Reason.

8.) Create a new sequence within the MPC. Set your tempo and change your midi channel to midi channel 1B. We set up the MPC to send midi out of the second set of outs. Remember? Make sure you also change to a midi track from a drum program. How bout now?

SHOULD BE DEFINATELY WORKING W/ a 2000xl. IF NOT check with other forums for your particular machine to send/receive midi.

9.) Play a few notes. Record a sequence. Having latency issues? Change your audio driver to an ASIO if available. Dont have ASIO? google ASIO4ALL. Get it.

10.) Creating additional devices with in Reason is just repeating the few previous steps. Except make sure you select the next availble drop box in the MIDI IN device for Reason and Select the corresponding midi channel with in your MPC.

Channels 1B-16B will send midi to Reason's MIDI IN device. By selecting an empty channel in your MPC, say channel 16b, although theres nothing assigned to it, you'll see that its receiving the midi by lighting up red.

So far we've connected your controller, Midi interface and MPC to Reason for sequencing within the MPC. What if you wanted to record your sequences from the MPC to Reason? So you could track out in Reason.

MIDI SYNC

1.) Open Reason's preferences and go to Advanced MIDI. Select your Midi Device to be the MIDI CLOCK.

2.) Go to your MPC. Open Midi sync and select MIDI Clock and set the output to B.

3.) Now looking at Reason's transport, you should see a green light next to the CPU meter, right below the ENABLE Button. If you see this, Reason has been properly connected and synced with your MPC. Make sure the ENABLE button is selected and the tempo with in Reason will reset to 0. Press play on the MPC and Reason will follow.

TRACKING/RECORDING SEQUENCES TO REASON

Any sequences you have created with in the MPC with Reason's devices will trigger those devices to which those channels are set to send/receive. So when recording individual instruments for tracking purposes, make sure you mute/solo instruments and select that device in Reason's sequencer to record.

1.) Set your loop points in Reason to match your MPC. I.E. Bars 1-5 or 1-9. As well as, the tempo, in both Reason and your MPC.

2.) Turn OFF the Looping function in your MPC and Reason.

3.) Solo the channel of the device you would like to record in the MPC.

4.) Set/create a sequence track in Reason for the device you are recording and enable the recording button.

5.) Press PLAY on MPC. Reason will record your sequence and stop once the # of bars in your sequence play out.

6.) Press Stop. Disable MIDI SYNC with in Reason by deselecting the ENABLE button next to the CPU meter.

7.) Press PLAY on Reason's Transport or space bar on your keyboard and your recorded track will play.

8.) Repeat for addtional instruments. Make sure you create a new SEQUENCER TRACK for each individual device you are recording in Reason and dont forget to arm/disarm recording for additional tracks.

When creating and tracking out a whole song in reason. Group your midi events and move them outside of your loop points. Set them to the next bar so that you can continue recording different sequences until your song is finished.

TIPS/TRICKS

- For Reason -

- Create a template with empty devices already connected to MIDI channels so that in the future you can have Reason autoload that template to save you time of connecting and configuring within Reason.

- I always set my redrum on channel 16 within Reason. It makes it a lot easier to get to when programming in the MPC. I just spin the dial to 16B and Im there.

- I use Recycle a lot to chop up samples, so when I load them in the DR.REX I have more editing capabilities. By setting the polyphony to 1 and setting the release time high, you can emulate the PREVIOUS PAD MUTE/OFF function with no limitation to your pad count.

- Flip the remix around and split your stereo channels to seperate inputs on the remix. I.E. NNXT outs will go to individual ins on the remix. Make sure you set your pans Hard L/R to get a wider stereo effect with samples/sounds.

- Tracking out drums individually is time consuming and redundant if using the Reason/MPC method. Mute all of your instrument tracks, record your drums to one channel in Reason and copy and paste until everything is seperate.

- Using external sound modules or VST's? Record your Drum/Instrument sounds in a audio editor or DAW, load them in Reason and then import to REDRUM/NNXT. This way you can do everything right in Reason and not have to rewire or track in a more CPU consuming DAW.

- With MPC -

- Assigning the AUTOCHROMATIC feature will allow you to use your MPC to trigger REDRUM sounds in BANK A. Or if REDRUM's not enough channels create a kit in a NNXT.

- Dont use Quanitize? Turn off quanitize in Reason to properly record your personal grooves.

- Create an empty sequence and save that sequence to autoload on the MPC. This way your ready to go once you turn it on.

- Like the MPC sound better? Resample everything from Reason into the MPC for those A/D converters.

- Recording individual drums sounds on different midi channels keeps everything a liitle more organized and easier to edit within the MPC. Just when it comes time to track mute your instruments and let the drums bang away.


Hope that helps. PM if i missed something or got something wrong.

stay up

WORK SMART NOT HARD, CRAFT ALL YOUR SOUND IN REASON, SINGLE SHOT, 2-4-8 BAR LOOP EXPORT THEN AS WAVE FILE AND DROP THEM IN YOUR XL THIS WAY YOU HAVE MORE CONTROL OVER SOUND AND EVERYTHING COMING OUT OF ONE UNIT.

Mike Dugan wrote:- Tracking out drums individually is time consuming and redundant if using the Reason/MPC method. Mute all of your instrument tracks, record your drums to one channel in Reason and copy and paste until everything is seperate.

When you say copy and paste, you mean like, if your drum track has three different sounds (hat, kick, snare), then you make three copies of the drum track and then go through each one and delete the notes other than the one that should be on that track? And then route each track to the respective Redrum/NNXT instrument? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Mike Dugan wrote:- Assigning the AUTOCHROMATIC feature will allow you to use your MPC to trigger REDRUM sounds in BANK A. Or if REDRUM's not enough channels create a kit in a NNXT.

Explain this one a little more, please. You're saying that if you create an Autochromatic program for a sound, you'll be able to trigger all of the sounds you have loaded in Redrum via Bank A?

Mike Dugan wrote: Recording individual drums sounds on different midi channels keeps everything a liitle more organized and easier to edit within the MPC. Just when it comes time to track mute your instruments and let the drums bang away.

But the same could be accomplished if even you had all of your drum sounds on the same track, right?

Anyway, other than these questions, this is a great post. Thank you.

wildstyle72 wrote:WORK SMART NOT HARD, CRAFT ALL YOUR SOUND IN REASON, SINGLE SHOT, 2-4-8 BAR LOOP EXPORT THEN AS WAVE FILE AND DROP THEM IN YOUR XL THIS WAY YOU HAVE MORE CONTROL OVER SOUND AND EVERYTHING COMING OUT OF ONE UNIT.

Now, you're method seems more difficult. You're recommending creating loops in Reason, dropping them to the XL, and then you'll still have to record your song down in whatever DAW that you're using.

Why do this when you could just do everything in Reason and then just Rewire to your DAW?

Just a suggestion.

OMG.

Don't tell me mike cant even write a reason tutorial.

Poor guy

The method that Dugan suggested of sycing the MPC and Reason and recording each track individually is great but may sometimes be time consuming, having to record numerous sequences and copy and paste outside of the loop points that you're set up.

One possible option would be to save ALL SEQUENCES and SONGS as a MIDI file Type 1 and then load that up in Reason. New tracks should be created for all of the tracks within your sequences on the MPC.

Two qualms though:

1. You'll have to connect each of the new tracks to their respective devices

and

2. Tempo changes will be disregarded, with Reason sticking to the first tempo set in the midi file.

Other than that, this should be a great option.

I'll probably be giving this a try tonight or sometime this week, so I'll post back with my results. I just wanted to put this out there as an alternate route to the same destination.

Peace.

Maybe its me but when i tried importing midi files from the xl into reason, reason would seperate each midi note on a different channel as oppossed to intstruments.

Tracking out actually doesn't take that long, what i do is track out my 4-8 bar loop once. Then copy and paste everything. Arranging everything outside the loop points allows you to keep tracking with in them. Another member had a method in which you could change bars by setting your MPC's sequence to match the number of bars you wanted the song to be and work with in the whole song. Sounded a little too confusing, and it even sounds confusing the way i explained it.

Remedial- Yes, to both of your questions, and by seperating drum tracks you can edit individual hits in the mpc a little easier. Well at least for me it is.

GritKitz wrote:OMG.

Don't tell me mike cant even write a reason tutorial.

Poor guy

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WHEN?

Mike Dugan wrote:
2.) Go to your MPC. Open Midi sync and select MIDI Clock and set the output to B.

I tried this and it doesn't work. It looks like you can't use the same midi output for syncing as you used for controlling the midi in/hardware interface device. The operational manual even advises against this on page 58.

When I tried using output B of my MPC for syncing and for controlling the external control bus inputs, the track would be synced but no data would be recorded. If you're able to get it to work, maybe I'm doing something wrong. Let me know.

recording in the mpc or reason?

u should already be able to record in the mpc if not you got some connections wrong.

If its in reason make sure you create a sequencer track and arm that track for your instrument/drums.

hope that helps

Mike Dugan wrote:recording in the mpc or reason?

u should already be able to record in the mpc if not you got some connections wrong.

If its in reason make sure you create a sequencer track and arm that track for your instrument/drums.

hope that helps

I'm talking about within Reason. Even if you create a sequencer track and arm it, if you're syncing using the same midi output that you're using to control your devices, no midi data will be recorded on the sequencer track.

I aint been in the studio for a few days. Let me look into. I'll have answer for ya by sunday morn.

We're still waiting for this video-footage, though!!!

J WALES wrote:ok, how about making a tut or just a write up on how to do a one pass from reason to pt nobody seems to know or care. one way i heard, which was really idiotic was to open intances of reason to match however many devices you have and bus, WTF!

I'll write a tutorial up for connecting Reason to PT. Give me a day or so. I'll try to include screen shots.