Reason midi controller setup

Controls such as velocity-sensitive pads are great for programming drums and rotary knobs can be mapped to parameters to, for instance, record EQ automation in your tracks. Everyone has a different budget to work with and all of the factors mentioned will have an impact on the price of a midi controller.

The Akai Professional MPK Mini, for example, really is a great, entry-level friendly controller that will make a big difference to your workflow, without taking up much space in your studio or breaking the bank. There are many types of midi controllers available nowadays, not just midi keyboards. For most, and especially if you already have some experience of playing keyboards and want to play keys, a midi keyboard is a good option. Some producers opt for a non-keyboard style controller for the functionality e.

Simply put, a synthesizer creates sound, whereas a midi controller does not. Midi controllers send midi messages that a computer or hardware device can interpret to generate sound, but they do not themselves generate sound. Nearly all midi controllers nowadays use USB to connect to your computer or laptop.

Sound on Sound has a really comprehensive guide on different ways to setup midi controllers with Reason. Skip to content Reason has been around for over two decades and remains one of the most popular DAWs. Best Midi Controllers for Reason Overview. Deep Reason integration. There is a setting in Reason which allows you to control the keyboard sounds and timing from within Reason by setting the keyboard to take signals from Reason.

Consult your keyboard manual to find out if your keyboard can use external timing. Locate the plugs on your MIDI device and keyboard. If your interface has a MIDI-through plug, do not use it for this application. If you are using Reason through Pro Tools, this should be done automatically. You should see a button which will allow you to test the connection of your MIDI interface to the Reason software.

Get a new Reason song going and add a Mixer. Once you have added a mixer to Reason, connect a MIDI-keyboard controlled device to the virtual mixer. A good device to start with is the NN-XT device, which uses digital samples to make music. However, because patching via the Rack interface is not part of the Remote system, you can't simply map learn any MIDI source to a device control with the usual Remote Override option.

The KeyStep Pro has a dedicated controller bank of five encoders. I configured the first of these to send on controller 79, and I set its MIDI channel to 4 to match the note track patched to the Malstrom. Now I can both sequence and automate the synth from my hardware. Traditionally, the External Control buses have also been used to trigger Reason from other software apps running on the same computer, especially if they didn't support Rewire.

Screen 4: As an alternative to using the Advanced MIDI Hardware Interface, single-channel sources can be locked to a specific device from the right-click menu. The port will subsequently only communicate with that device, regardless of Rack or track selection in Reason. In fact, there's a couple of notable advantages to working this way. Firstly, you can take advantage of the MIDI control learning, in other words use the Remote Override Mapping feature to control parameters without having to look up and configure CC values on your hardware.

Secondly, you can record into Reason tracks. So why not go this route all the time? Connections via Remote and the Control Surface setup page are port-based. So you can direct or lock any MIDI port to a specific device, but can't specify a channel.