Creating a backing track using Reason?

white_falcon

Hi guys,
I was given a few pieces of music from someone and asked to make backing tracks for them for a few instruments. One of them is Edelweiss, another is Rhythm of Life - they are all along those lines of types of music.

I've never really done anything like this before, but thought I'd just through myself in the deep end to force myself to learn it. For first of all, what I'm doing is figuring out what instruments to arrange it for, and then going to start off with the bass track, and put the instruments over that. They also want drums in the backing track

My question is, is this the way that you would do it - bass first, then layer it over that - or drums first, then bass, then other instruments, finishing with the melodic instruments last. Also - would Reason be the program to do it with?

dav nagle

Hi there,


I find the drum samples in Reason to be below par in every respect. You will find decent instruments such as strings and bass and keys within Reason.I would suggest using BFD 2 for the drums and perhaps a real bass player. Then do the instruments in Reason 4. Bass and drums first should be a tight start, and then layer your instruments on top.

white_falcon

cool thanks yea. Never heard of BFD2 before - google search brought up what it is. Looks cool. Must try it out thanks

Helix

if youre using bfd youll need a vst host to use it and rewire reason to

white_falcon

To be honest I can't really buy any new software and I need to have all 5 pieces done by the weekend after next

I'll give the Reason Drums a go, as I don't really need a very high quality backing track - I'll see how the drums turn out and I can change them later if needed

smurfrockstar

Hey,

If you check out the post I stuck up called 'Opinions on some tracks I've done' all the tracks are produced using reason as a basis. I'll admit the drums on reason are below par but with a bit of work with the equalizer and master suite from Reason 3 you can get relatively decent results. If you're building a track up, get your hook first and build around it or as suggested already get your rythm section right and build around that. The main thing is to have an element that catches you and then to work up from that. Also seeing as you're time constrained Reason can give pretty good results without too much effort, but you get what you put in. The tracks I've done with reason have taken months to fine tune though they only took a short time to sequence. Oh and things to avoid in Reason, guitar, piano and any instrument that requires a relatively natural feel to sound right. In particular guitar sounds terrible on reason and to make it sound alright takes immense amounts of messing about. The last thing i'll say is when sequencing tracks try to think of how the instrument is actually played in the real world, stupid stuff like you'll never catch a piano player voicing a chord all in the bass register, stuff like that. Good luck man, let us know how you get on!!!

white_falcon

smurfrockstar wrote: »

Hey,

If you check out the post I stuck up called 'Opinions on some tracks I've done' all the tracks are produced using reason as a basis. I'll admit the drums on reason are below par but with a bit of work with the equalizer and master suite from Reason 3 you can get relatively decent results. If you're building a track up, get your hook first and build around it or as suggested already get your rythm section right and build around that. The main thing is to have an element that catches you and then to work up from that. Also seeing as you're time constrained Reason can give pretty good results without too much effort, but you get what you put in. The tracks I've done with reason have taken months to fine tune though they only took a short time to sequence. Oh and things to avoid in Reason, guitar, piano and any instrument that requires a relatively natural feel to sound right. In particular guitar sounds terrible on reason and to make it sound alright takes immense amounts of messing about. The last thing i'll say is when sequencing tracks try to think of how the instrument is actually played in the real world, stupid stuff like you'll never catch a piano player voicing a chord all in the bass register, stuff like that. Good luck man, let us know how you get on!!!

yea well I've found Piano sounds ok depending on which one you use - theres a specific one I've found - some concert grand one - that really does actually sound fairly good for the job. The drums I think will be the hardest bit as I really havent a clue about the drums or how to do them in Reason, but the only way to learn is to do it :rolleyes:

I'll let you know how I get on anyway, and post up the results once they're done

dav nagle

white_falcon wrote: »

yea well I've found Piano sounds ok depending on which one you use - theres a specific one I've found - some concert grand one - that really does actually sound fairly good for the job. The drums I think will be the hardest bit as I really haven't a clue about the drums or how to do them in Reason, but the only way to learn is to do it :rolleyes:

I'll let you know how I get on anyway, and post up the results once they're done

I agree the guitars suck and are full of latency, the piano sounds caused me many problems recently after just finishing an electronica album, The pianos are full of resonance that is discrete but can cause major problems at the mastering stage

studiorat

The 5 foot grand combinator patch is yer only man.
I'd start with the melody and a click track and add the rest in as you go along.

cornbb

As for your choice of instruments, your life will be a whole lot easier if you stick to the instruments that tend to work well with MIDI. It can be a nightmare to get multisampled instruments like guitar or bowed strings to sound good. Try sticking to keyboard instruments (piano, organ, synths), percussion/mallet instruments (drums, marimba) or stacatto strings (pizzicato violin, harp). You'll end up in a world of pain trying to get a decent guitar sound using MIDI and multisampled instruments.

white_falcon

studiorat wrote: »

The 5 foot grand combinator patch is yer only man.
I'd start with the melody and a click track and add the rest in as you go along.

yea thats the one. I always use that and find its actually fairly good sounding. I've started it anyway, and what im doing so far is I put on a click track started with the bass, did an orchestral intro, and then put down the piano. I'll try and do the bass the whole way through tonight, and then the piano, and put the melody on top - not too sure what I'll use for the melody for it. Will have to see about that

If the drums dont need to be great you could always just slap a drumloop into recycle and then into the dr. rex..just a thought...

white_falcon

Deleted User wrote: »

If the drums dont need to be great you could always just slap a drumloop into recycle and then into the dr. rex..just a thought...

yea thats what I will most likely be doing. I'm not too sure how to do it tho really as I've only messed around with the drums on reason once or twice. I'll try it anyway and see how I get on

dav nagle

Hi,


If you want a cool electric guitar sound try the following:

1. Load the combinator and select protection grand piano

2. Add scream 4 distortion (Select distortion,boost the high end,drop a bit of the mid, select type c)

3. Play/record some chords or notes

Well, if you want to alter the tempo, you'll need recycle..Even if you dont, get it anyway, its needed for beats in reason..Id say its nearly free at this stage..Just open the loop you want to use in recycle, bang up the sensitivity, you can mess about with a filter and a gate maybe as well if required, Save it as a rex2 file, insert a dr rex into the rack in reason, open the loop, insert pattern into track..et voila..Ya should be good to go..

Must give that 5 foot grand piano a blast..
And Ive just noticed this is going to be my 100th post..yesssssss...

xual

I use reason and recycle a lot..

If you can get the sonic reality drum samples you will be laughing I use them a lot and find they are adequate. The bass in reason is a bit dirt.. but synthezisers are legend. teh mclass compressor eq and limiter can help sort our some bass problems. If you change the velocity of each note on the bas you can make it sound more natural. http://ie.myspace.com/stoneddevelopments . . Every track on our myspace site used reason drums and recycle to loop some bass and guitar tracks.. some tracks are live bass and guitar all the way true. And bizzare sounds or strings or piano is reason.

Reason works well IF you are patient and clever. infact come to think of it anything works if your patient and clever!!! :-)

white_falcon

OK, so I have the piece kind of done, but theres a few small problems with it. The largest problem is the drums. I can't do the drums at all lol. They won't fit in with the piece and I'm not actually too sure about where to place hits and fills etc. Would anyone here fancy having a quick go at it for me out of the kindess and generosity of your owns hearts?

Theres a few parts arent finished yet - ie. the xylophone is only done half way through and I still need to tidy up one or two parts.

Is there anything else that anyone can recommend I should do with it? It's my first real try at a piece in Reason, so be nice

I can email it to you, as it won't let me post it up here as its a little bit too big

Hey man...If you wanna send it to me I'll fire the drums onto it for ya..If they're not fitting in with the piece though, is the piece in time?...did you play to a click track?..If you didn't, and its not in 4/4, there could be a problem...Ill have a look at it for you anyway, if you wanna send it to me at deadpan_music@yahoo.co.uk..
Cheers, p.

white_falcon

Deleted User wrote: »

Hey man...If you wanna send it to me I'll fire the drums onto it for ya..If they're not fitting in with the piece though, is the piece in time?...did you play to a click track?..If you didn't, and its not in 4/4, there could be a problem...Ill have a look at it for you anyway, if you wanna send it to me at deadpan_music@yahoo.co.uk..
Cheers, p.

hey man, yea its all in time and I played it to a click track. I'm sure its fine I was just tired when I tried to fit the drums on it, so I couldn't figure out what to do. It's done on Reason 4 - is that ok - do you have Reason 4?

Yeah. cool out...shur just send it to me so and i should have it back to you within a day or two..

white_falcon

I have all the backing tracks done anyway thanks for all the help everyone.

Buring them to CD right now

Is there anywhere I can upload them to so you can listen to them?