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Wednesday 13 May 2009

Reason to be cheerful...

...no, nothing to do with a new happy-sounding Paranoid Foundation. Just sharing some insight into the creative process!

Ok, so there are many ways of recording and generating sounds and between us, we have probably tried most of them. However, inevitably bringing everything together whether we are using electronic or acoustic instruments or even field recordings involves using some kind of computer software.

One particular piece of music software I have used consistently throughout the past few years is 'Reason' - a virtual studio application from a Swedish company, Propellerheads. Reason enables you to sequence together drum beats, samples and create all manner of weird and wonderful sounds. I've just (finally!) upgraded to the latest version (4) of the the software and it has some pretty incredible new editions. Including a rather amazing sounding synthesizer module:


These past few days i've had a lot of fun getting my head around the new functions and generating various off-the-wall noises. However, having all this functionality counts for nothing without the desire to create and some good ideas to go with it.

In fact many of my favourite pieces of music were created using limited tools or very basic instrumentation. As useful as it is to be able to create any sort of tone imaginable, having limited means often forces you to think in a more creative manner. With a program like Reason 4, it's important to take a disciplined approach and not get lost in a novelty soundworld... something i'm only just getting to grips with.

Right, where did I put that manual...!

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