Reason 6 Tutorial Stereo Reason 101 basics

Reason 6 Tutorials

In this reason tutorial I would like to write down some thoughts and guidelines how to get a stereo mix down through the complete process of a synth module, drums, effects and mastering suite for final processing. Eventually I will be using Reason 4 to demonstrate most of the inner workings, however they are also applicable to Reason 5 and Reason 6 in this case. Since all these examples I am going to write about are compatible.

In most cases you will most likely not go too much in depth when it comes to stereo sound, or even better yet, one does not always have to do this all the way to make certain sounds or final mixes sound so wide spread. However sometimes we lack the tools or the knowledge to make things wide without having to burst our heads when things start to spin around like crazy (which eventually will make things rather chaotic in a way).

In this Reason Tutorial I would like to give a few tips and tricks I personally use in my own productions to make full use of the realm of stereo, surround, instrument depth and so on. The process of creating something stereo effective might take some time to set things up, but as you may start reading this article you will find that we already did most of the hard work for you guys, since we are adding all the Reason example files and combinator patches that you will be needing for these effects.

What defines Stereo

Stereo is the exact opposite of Mono. Mono means that the signal over the left ear and the right ear are exactly the same.

While with stereo sound you will make use of the left / right ears to make an effect or sound sound different from one and other. Which results into a sound that sounds hollow, spaced out, in a distant, upfront and so on.

Stereo sound has a characteristic to put a third dimension in to a sound. This goes with some well crafted effects like filtering, reverbs and delays. Some of the stereo effects are applied within the instrument itself, some of them are defined over the complete range of a few mixer channels and some are defined on the complete mix down itself (final processing unit or mastering suite if you will).

How does Stereo work in Reason

In Reason the Audio jacks are usually separated into 2 different audio jacks, left and right. An Audio jack is normally defined with 2 different colors, red and green. Normally this would not have any impact on the stereo signal by default. The different colors red and green usually mean the following:

Red – an unaltered sound, the sound comes directly from an instrument
Green – an altered sound, the sound comes from and effect processor unit (delay, reverb, combinator and so on).

Under normal circumstances the left / right audio jack cables are attached to the left / right signals of the devices that that connect to. However, it is optional to manually route the left / right signals to different devices or route the chain of events in a different path way.

Please note, if the end receiver is a mixer and the Left In Audio jack is used in either the mixer 14:2 or mixer 6:2, the final outcome of the signal will be mono (we will get back to that one shortly).

Some devices in Reason are Mono only. The subtractor analogue synthesizer would be a good example in this case. When you would look at the rear of the subtractor, you will notice that there is only one audio output. This audio output will be attached to the left in of the receiving device, and thus it remains mono.

Other devices are stereo by default, the Malstrom Graintable synthesizer would be a good example since it has a spread knob to alter the way on how much mono / stereo is applied to the synthesizer.

Download RNS Example File: Subtractor Mono Synth
Download RNS Example File: Malstrom Stereo Synth
Download RNS Example File: Thor Stereo Synth

In the next paragraphs we will be digging into the different methods on how to achieve a stereo effect using Reason.

Stereo and Detuning

Detuning a sound or synthesizer is probably the easiest way out to achieve a stereo sound. The way this works is pretty simple. On each synthesizer you will find a setting which is called “Tune”. Tune is nothing more then slightly increasing or decreasing the pitch of a sound. This pitch correction is so minor, it does not really go off key (since one key is defined by 52 + / - of tune).

By using tune, we can slightly adjust the pitch, thus while using the same sound twice over left and right with a minor tune change, we are already creating a minor fraction between the sound over left and right.

The malstrom in this case works pretty well for this setup since it requires less work to set it all up. You need the following steps:

Create malstrom
Initialize the malstrom (Menu Edit > Initialize Patch)
Turn on Oscillator B
Set the Spread knob to 127
and use the Cent (Tune) setting of Oscillator A and Oscillator B to change the characteristic of the stereo sound.

Setting up a Stereo Subtractor

Since the Subtractor is mono by default, it requires a bit more work to setup a stereo Subtractor patch. For detuning, the most straight forward approach is to use 2 times the exact same Subtractor Analogue Synthesizer, but with a different tune setup. Where in the end, one Subtractor goes left while the other one goes right.

To do this inside one patch, a combinator would be idea in this case and it would require the following steps:

Create combinator
Add Mixer 6:2
Create Subtractor
Set the subtractor up
Copy and paste the same subtractor inside the combinator
Attach the new subtractor to the mixer 6:2 on channel 2 (note: with reason 6 you can auto route devices so this step becomes mandatory)
Detune the subtractor a little bit differently
Pan the mixer 6:2 channel 1 to Left
Pan the mixer 6:2 channel 2 to Right

Download RNS Example File: Subtractor Stereo Synth

Instant Stereo

In Reason there are 2 devices which have the effect to create instant stereo effects:
the UN-16 Unison
the Mclass Stereo imager

The first one does a similar setup as Detuning 2 different oscillators. However, the difference here is that is tunes the audio signal. So in a way the Unison can be used with any device (Dr Rex or Dr Octorex included).

The second one, the Stereo Imager is a bit tricky since it does not always work the way you might think it works. The thing with the Stereo imager is that it needs a wide range of differences between the left / right audio signal to make it work. With a default mono signal of the subtractor you won't be getting that much stereo imaging from the sound when using it in its default chain of Subtractor > Mclass Stereo imager. Yet, by using a unison in between it becomes a total different story, since the unison already turns a mono signal into a stereo signal. So the chain of Instrument > Unison > Stereo imager would be ideal in this case.

Download RNS Example File: Instant Stereo Effect

Keep in mind even while this is a serialized routing scheme, we could turn this stereolizer into a combinator patch so you are able to connect this to any setup if you will.

Download RNS Example File: Instant Stereo Effect as an Effect processor

Stereo Any Effect

Here is where things get a bit more tricky. In some setups you need some form of effect where it adds some form of stereo on top of it. In a way, this can be done with any effect. The idea behind the “Stereo Any Effect” is that you would use the original sound from an instrument but use it twice. This can be done using a Spider Audio Merger Splitter in this case. The idea is to split the signal up into 2 different paths where they go through the same effect but with a different setting over left and right.

This may sound confusing when writing it down, but I think a picture would be nice to demonstrate the setup:

The thing with this setup is that it will often not be that much noticeable with some of these effects. It totally depends on how much the 2 effects are separated from one and other over left and right. Also it depends on how 'harsh' the effect itself is. A typical delay in ms will probably be more noticeable over left and right with using a different ms setting compared to a reverb which uses a tiny difference over the Hi EQ setting of an RV7000 Advanced Reverb in Reason.

But the idea is that this approach can be handled with almost any effect.

Download RNS Example File: Stereo Effect Unit - RV7000
Download RNS Example File: Stereo Effect Unit - Phaser
Download RNS Example File: Stereo Effect Unit - Chorus

If you take a look at the 3 examples, I think you will get the idea behind this one.

Stereo-The-Thor

A very familiar setup would be using Thor as an effect unit. Even while Thor itself is a synthesizer, you can still use it to route audio signals through Thor even while you are not playing it. One would need to look at the remote programmer for this one, and an Initialized Thor patch would be ideal for this setup.

So, the steps would be as followed:
create any instrument
create a Thor patch
Initialize the Thor patch (Menu Edit > Initialize patch)
Connect the Audio cables from the instrument you created and attach these to the Thor Patch Audio In cables 1 and Audio in 2
Click Show programmer of Thor
Set the source / destination as followed:
Source Audio In 1 > Amount 100 > Destination Filter 3 Left in
Source Audio In 2 > Amount 100 > Destination Filter 3 Right in

In this case Thor will pass on the signal from the audio inputs to the Filter 3 slots. Even while we haven't set any parameters here yet, the audio input will now sound exactly the same as the audio output. However, there is one thing you may need to know about Thor its Effects settings like the Delay and Chorus. These 2 settings are Stereo!

So if you would save a thor patch with the above mentioned settings, you could re-use that Thor patch to insert it as an effect all the time. Or one could just grab the following combinator patch and you will have a similar setup.

Download RNS Example File: Stereo The Thor

Frequencies and Chaining Events

A method which is similar as Stereo effect anything, is to use Filters or EQ to create space inside a sound or instrument. The big advantage behind filtering is that the sound itself will be cut, depending on the filter type, very drastic. In the end of the audio chain the signal will be lesser clear compared to the original signal. Sometimes you can use this technique in your advantage, especially when it comes to using Resonance on top of the filter.

Please note: Resonance increases the frequency which the filter triggers or cuts. With some instruments, a the volume might increase while triggering the wrong frequencies. So be careful when using resonance on top of filters.

In the next example I will be using 2 Envelope Controlled filters over left and right. These two filters will use a Gate which is coming from the Malstrom Graintable Synthesizer. To make use of the stereo field of the sound, there is an additional Envelope Controlled Filter which is set to Band Pass (which cuts most of the lower / high frequencies). The last one is delayed with a few milliseconds which adds a tiny bit of a flange / chorus effect.

Download RNS Example File: Stereo Filters

This concludes this Reason Tutorial about Stereo and what kind of ideas which may be applied to create some form of stereo inside the Reason rack. These examples I have been given are all made in Reason 4, but of course this is applicable to Reason 5 and Reason 6 as well.

Anyways, have lot of fun with these free patches and examples and try to experiment with them.
Signed, Hydlide

Reason 6 Tutorial Stereo Reason 101 basics

Posted on: 28 Dec 2011 0:00
Posted by: Reasonexperts.com

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