Operation Manual

REMOTE - PLAYING AND CONTROLLING REASON DEVICES
42
Other functions
D To edit a surface, double click it in the list (or select it and click Edit).
This lets you change its name and MIDI port settings, if needed.
D To delete a surface, select it in the list and click Delete.
D You can turn off a surface by deactivating its “Use with Reason” check-
box.
This could be useful if the surface is connected to your system but you only want
to use it with another program, etc.
D There is still an “Advanced MIDI” page in the Preferences.
This is only used for External Control MIDI buses and for MIDI Clock Sync input.
All hands-on MIDI control is set up on the Control Surfaces and Keyboards page.
Example Setups
There are several possible variables when it comes to what type of setup you are us-
ing. Please read on.
A single MIDI keyboard with controls
With this setup, the keyboard is your master keyboard, which means it is always
routed via the sequencer (it controls the device connected to the sequencer track
with MIDI focus). To control another device, you move MIDI focus (the keyboard sym-
bol in the In column in the track list) to another sequencer track.
You can, however, use Remote Override to control parameters on other Reason de-
vices (or global Reason functions such as transport).
A basic MIDI keyboard and an additional control surface
The keyboard and the control surface should be connected to separate MIDI ports (or
use separate USB connections). Here, the basic MIDI keyboard is your master key-
board - it is used for playing and recording via the sequencer. You can have the con-
trol surface follow the master keyboard - this lets you tweak the parameters of the
device you are playing (just like in the example above).
You can also lock the control surface to another device in the rack - this lets you play
one device while adjusting the parameters of another.
A MIDI keyboard with controls plus one or more control surfaces
This is the ideal setup! Again, all keyboards and control surfaces should be connected
to separate MIDI ports (or use separate USB connections). The keyboard is routed via
the sequencer and you can use its controls to tweak the parameters of the device you
are playing. The additional control surfaces could be locked to different devices in the
rack.
For example, if you lock a control surface to the main mixer, you will always have con-
trol over levels and pans. You could also have dedicated controls for transport, Undo/
Redo, sequencer track MIDI focus selection, etc.
Remote basics
Parameters and functions for each Reason device are mapped to controls on sup-
ported control surface devices. As soon as you have added your control surface(s) in
the Preferences, you can start tweaking parameters!
D By default, all connected control surfaces follow the sequencer MIDI in-
put (the Master Keyboard).
This means that you set MIDI input to a track in the sequencer to route the control
surface(s) to the track’s device in the rack. You can bypass this functionality by
locking a control surface to a specific device - see page 43. Or you can simply use
Remote Override mapping (see page 45 for specific parameters - these will then
be mapped to the selected controls regardless of MIDI input.
D The Reason device connected to the track with MIDI input will have its
parameters standard mapped to logical controls (faders, buttons etc.) on
the control surface device.
E.g. if a Subtractor has MIDI input, your control surface will control the most impor-
tant Subtractor parameters. If you set MIDI input to a track connected to a NN-XT,
the control surface will now control parameters on the NN-XT device, and so on
for each device. There are standard mapping variations for most devices as well -
see page 43.
! Please refer to the separate “Control Surface Details” document for de-
vice related information.
D Supported control surfaces with dedicated transport controls will be
standard mapped to the equivalent transport controls in Reason.
If you do not have transport controls on your control surface you can still map
transport controls to controllers using Remote Override mapping - see page 45.
D Other important functions such as switching target track in the se-
quencer, selecting patches, Undo/Redo can also be remote controlled.
See page 47.
About Standard vs Remote Override mapping
Reason parameters are “standard mapped” to supported control surface devices.
There is nothing the user needs to set up to remote control any Reason device. You
can, however, use Remote Override mapping to map a specific parameter to a spe-
cific control if you should want to.
D By using standard mapping the remote mapping for each device will be
the same for any new song created in Reason, given you have the same
set of control surfaces online.
If you use Remote Override mapping (see page 45), the overrides will be saved
with the current song, but won’t be there if you create a new song.
D Which parameters and functions that are standard mapped for each Rea-
son device depends on the control surface(s).