Ok, so you have Reason up and running, time to get some sound out of the program. Here you'll find a step-by-step explanation to create your first beat and bassline in Reason.

You can download an example song file here

To start fresh, open the file "Empty Rack.rns" from the Template songs folder. This will open a Reason Song file (.rns), that contains - well, not much yet. The black zone you see is the rack, and this is where it all really happens. You can add devices to the rack, and those devices will help you to make the music you want.

In Reason, there's a lot of different devices you can create, each with their own function: a mixer for adjusting the overall balance of your instruments, a drumcomputer for creating beats, a synth or a sampler for playing back melodies you program for it...

First of all, create a mixer: right-click somewhere on the rack and select Mixer 14:2 from the context menu. A mixer device appears on the rack, waiting for some sound-producing devices to be attached to it. (note: a mixer is the only device you need for EVERY Reason song, so this very simple one-device set-up might be useful to save and use as your Reason default song).

Now, to create some beats, add a Redrum drum computer to the rack: right-click the rack below the mixer, and select Redrum drum computer from the context menu. Notice how the first mixer channel got labeled "Redrum 1" automatically. Indeed, Reason automatically connects new sound-producing devices to a mixer channel. You can take the word "connect" quite literally here: if you press TAB to go to rear view, you see the cables running from the Redrum to that first mixer channel! Press TAB again to go to normal front view again.

In the Redrum you just created, load up a patch of sounds. Click the little enveloppe symbol in the bottom left corner. Than browse to Factory Sound Bank, Redrum Drum Kits, House Kits, House Kit 01.drp This loads up a set of 10 drum samples in the Redrum, ready for use to create a beat with it.

Create a drum rythm. You do this by placing the drum sounds in any position you want in that row of 16 grey little buttons you see at the bottom of Redrum. Light up the select button from the first channel, and than mark the buttons at positions, 1, 5, 9 and 13. If you press the RUN button, you should hear a pounding beat. Add some more elements to the beat now, by selecting the appropriate drum sound in Redrum, and than placing it at the positions you choose. Experiment with this, it's fun!

Add a SubTractor synth to the rack. Rightclick in the black area below the ReDrum, and select SubTracktor Analog Synthesizer from the dropdown menu. By now adding devices should be becoming a routine, because you'll be doing it a lot :-) Notice how the SubTractor is automatically connected to channel 2 of the mixer. This SubTractor will play a bassline for us.

Add a Matrix Pattern Sequencer to the rack. With this device you'll give the SubTractor a melody to play. Just add it to the rack, it will connect automatically to the SubTractor.

Draw a melody in the Matrix. Click in that central black zone to select notes, and raise the little red bars (by dragging) below that zone to adjust the volume of the note played. You might want to switch the octave slider down from 3 to 1, to create a lower melody - a bassline that is.

To hear both your beat and bassline play back, use the "global" stop and play buttons at the transport bar, all the way at the bottom of your Reason window. You can also adjust the tempo here.

You can download an example song file here

Now you're ready to move on and read about the Sequencer!