Propellerhead’s Reason software is a very powerful digital music creation software. You can create drum tracks, synth tracks, guitar tracks, bass tracks, and anything else that can be synthesized.
Reason is so powerful that it can sometimes be quite difficult to learn at first. One thing that I found to be difficult at first was to create bass beats and bass tracks, but once I learned a few “tricks”, I was able to create great bass lines without all the guessing.
Create bass beats with the Thor Polysonic Sythesizer
I recommend using Reason’s Thor Polysonic Synthesizer over Reason’s SubTracktor Polyphonic Synth, mainly because of the preloaded sounds that come loaded with Reason itself. The Preloaded sounds with Thor, I feel, are more interesting and diverse then the sounds that come with SubTracktor.
There are 4 main ways, that I have found, to adjust the deepness and length of the bass sounds in Reason, but before we dive into those 4 “tricks”, you will need to set up a Matrix sequencer and a Thor synthesizer. Here are the steps if needed.
- Open Reason and first create a new Thor synthesizer. Then create a Matrix Pattern Sequencer
- Next on the Thor synthesizer, click “show programmer” and select “browse patch”
- Under Thor Patches, browse to the bass folder and select any patch you would like. Simple.thor and Round Bass.thor are two that I use often.
1. Adjusting the octaves with the Matrix Pattern sequencer
Now we are ready to start making and tweaking our bass beats. I created a simple 4 note beat for my example, but feel free to experiment all you would like. Here is a image of the pattern that I chose with the important area highlighted.
The slider next to the numbers, that are highlighted, allow you to adjust the octave range of notes in your pattern. To lower the octave you can scroll down to 1 or 2 and select notes in that range. This allows you to compose the octaves note by note.
I tend to keep it at 3 and adjust the octaves with the second “trick” that I am going to show you now.
2. Adjusting the oscillators octaves in Thor
Adjusting the octaves in Thor will change the octaves of every note in the Matrix sequencer. The only difference from the previous example is that it is not note by note, but simple all of the notes in the Matrix sequencer.
When you load the Reason patch of your choice, you will see 1, 2, or 3 different oscillators off to left. Each oscillator has their own octave(OCT) selection nob allowing each oscillator to sounds drastically different from each other.
Lowering these nobs will allow you to bring out a very deep bass sound. The best way to find what works for you is too experiment. One warning though, taking the octave too low can result in sound cancellation and a muddy response.
3. Adjusting the frequency of the filter
After the note goes through the oscillator, it is passed (optionally) through a filter. The highlighted numbers, next to the arrows, will allow you to select which oscillator passes through that filter.
By adjusting the filters frequency, we can change the color of our bass sounds. I recommend light adjustments at first, because the frequency of the filter has a lot of control over the bass response.
4. Changing the notes attack, sustain, decay and response
Last but not least, we can now alter the length of our notes with the filter and amp envelopes. This will take our notes from short staccatos, to long and full bass beats.
Here are a few rough explanations of each of the 4 variables that you will want to adjust.
- Attack – How long before the note hits
- Decay – How fast the note dissipates
- Sustain – How long the note maintains full volume
- Release – How long before the note starts to decay
To keep things simple you can adjust only the release and achieve very good results. I recommend starting there and then branching out to the other options.
Experiment, experiment, experiment!
Wow, that was a lot to take in! Don’t worry if some of this tutorial didn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially if you are new too reason and soft synths in general, just experiment with these 4 options and you should be able to learn along the way.
Also, this tutorial applies to all of the synthesizers that come with Reason, so don’t feel like you have to use the Thor Synthesizer, the others will react exactly the same way to these techniques. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below and I will do my best to see if I can help.
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