User manual PROPELLERHEAD REASON GETTING STARTED

[. . . ] Getting Started Getting Started manual by Anders Nordmark The information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Propellerhead Software AB. The software described herein is subject to a License Agreement and may not be copied to any other media expect as specifically allowed in the License Agreement. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced or otherwise transmitted or recorded, for any purpose, without prior written permission by Propellerhead Software AB. ©2007 Propellerhead Software and its licensors. [. . . ] Pull down the File menu and select Open. The Song browser window opens were you can open Reason song documents. It shows the contents of your hard drive as a standard folder structure much like Windows Explorer or the Finder in Mac OS, but only Reason Song document files can be shown/opened. This can be found in the Locations list in the upper right corner of the browser. Select the song "Tutorial Song. rns". The document window for the song is displayed on screen. This consists of a "virtual rack" with devices (this song contains four instrument devices and two effects), a sequencer section and a transport panel. Click the play button on the transport panel (at the bottom of the window). If everything is properly connected, you should now hear Reason play! The stop button. Click the stop button to stop playback when you've heard enough. This moves the song position to where you last started playback. In this case, this will be the start of the song, allowing you to play the song from the beginning again. 42 TUTORIAL 1 - PLAYING A SONG 9. Near the top of the rack is a mixer device - make sure this is visible. You may need to scroll the view using the vertical scrollbar to the right in the rack (or the scroll wheel on your mouse, if it is equipped with one). The scrollbar. The Mixer. If you look at the mixer, you will see that each mixer channel has a "tape strip" next to the volume fader. If a device is connected to a mixer channel, the tape strip is labeled with the device name. In this song, there are only four instrument devices, so only the four first mixer channels are labeled. 10. Click the play button to start playback. While the song is playing, click and drag the faders to adjust the level of each instrument device. Try changing the pan setting (stereo position) of a channel, by clicking the pan knob above the fader and dragging up or down. Dragging up will turn the knob clockwise; dragging down will turn it counter-clockwise. You may also want to add some effects to the music. In this song, there are two effect devices connected: a delay and a chorus/flanger. These are connected as send effects from the mixer, allowing you to specify how much of each mixer channel signal should be sent to each effect. TUTORIAL 1 - PLAYING A SONG 43 13. [. . . ] Stop recording, rewind to the top of the song and start playback. The arpeggio will now play back exactly as you heard it when recording. You can still change RPG-8 parameters freely. Changes will be reflected in the arpeggio although the recorded notes that generate the arpeggio will be the same. [. . . ]