Orchestral manoeuvres with Reason 5
Propellerhead’s Reason 5 (version 6, combining Reason 5 and Record 1.5, is available) has always been my favourite Digital Audio Workstation.
Reason 5 is very stable; it has bright, bold colours; it can be magnified easily (due to its window size), which is great if, like me, you are partially sighted.
Everything in Reason can be internally re-wired, and of course it looks like a hardware set up; Reason can be used live and it opens up to layers of complexity that are often overlooked.
Indeed, people have the impression that Reason 5 is only for dance music, and not for film scoring; but when you rewire Reason to another DAW like Studio One, Logic or MixCraft that sports video screening and editing (in the case of Mixcraft and MOTU, now 64 bit), then Reason very much comes into its own; and for contemporary [electronic] scoring, it has always been excellent.
But what about orchestral scoring? I have set up in Reason a film score rig and an ‘ultimate orchestra rig’ using the orchestral preset combinator patches that load with the program: many of the instruments needed a fair bit of EQing, typically 10 EQ units to get the right sound, as some of the patches/samples do have their audio failings, such as ‘microphone bleed’.
However, my current Reason 5 orchestra is a tad limited, especially in terms of instrument articulation choices; it is time to research into improving the sound set.
The first thing to consider is the sample base, because WAV samples can easily be imported into Reason’s NX 19, mapped across the keyboard to create multisamples, modified with LFOs and filters; and then put through the outboard effects – the sampler has a 16 audio outputs. Here is a good list of high quality, commercial packs suitable for all aspects of film scoring, from cinematic loop bundles to a collection called ‘sexy strings’!
http://sounds.beatport.com/style/orchestral/44?xhr=1
SF2 Sondfont files can also be loaded into the NX 19, which means you can download patches from the legendary EMU Proteus 2000:
http://www.millionloops.com/emu-proteus-2000-soundfonts-sf2/
Reason’s Dr Rex sample player is a powerful tool for everything sample-looped because it is possible, once the loop has been pasted into Reason’s MIDI sequencer track, to edit not only the MIDI sequence data [the MIDI dots that appear against the instrument listed next to the piano roll] but the dynamics section underneath the note lane; this means that every orchestral loop you load into Dr Rex can be modified at the MIDI data level, and that’s before you add a touch of filter to the overall sound and before you pipe the multiple audio outputs to any outboard effects of your choice.
Here is a Rex loop collection for orchestration and arranging purposes, priced at just $99:
The big thing about Reason 5’s Combinator is that multiple instances of, say, NX 19 can be combined, routed together and through various EQ and effects boxes, and mapped across the keyboard, as well as wired to front panel control knobs which of course can all be automated; everything is tweakable via the Combinator’s editor.
Refills are combinator patches that have been painstakingly designed to get the best out of a particular collection of NX 19 samples used to create a combinator patch – but of course every detail of the Combinator patch is then entirely open to your editing skills. Of course, some Kontact sample libraries are ‘open’ to editing within Kontact, but some are not.
For just under $75, you can get your hands on a vast collection of Dr Rex loops and NX 19 patches just for Strings:
http://www.midi-store.com/Propellerhead-Reason-Strings-ReFill-p-17273.html
Now for the best bit: you can scoop up a full collection of Combinator Orchestral patches (there are nearly 1000 patches, covering the four major orchestral instrument groups and articulation sets for each) from Sonic Reality .This unique Refill collection was created exclusively from the superb Miroslav sample library. True, it is more expensive than the original library from IK Multimedia, but you do get a more flexible system using Reason’s Combinators, thereby making Reason into a powerhouse for creating film scores, suitable either for bouncing down as a 24 bit audio file, or for rendering MIDI mock ups ready for importing to notation software:
http://www.esoundz.com/details.php?ProductID=1344
And there is an even bigger collection of samples, including ‘Triple Guitars’ and other non-orchestral instruments available:
http://www.floridamusicco.com/proddetail~prod~sonic_refills_gold_DL.htm
I think many people have overlooked Propellerhead’s Reason as being a tool for the film score composer; but the quality and flexibility are there to be exploited.
You don’t have to go looking for other, more expensive orchestral sample libraries, based, say, on the Kontact format.
If you enjoy Reason, it is time to rig it out for some serious film scoring!