Specifications

USING REASON AS A REWIRE SLAVE
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About this Chapter
This chapter describes how to use Reason as a ReWire slave, that is with Rea-
son delivering audio to another ReWire compatible application. It does not deal
with using ReBirth and Reason together; that is described on page 208.
Why use Reason with
ReWire?
While Reason is a complete music tool in its own right, you might want to add
other elements to the music, such as:
• Vocals.
• Instrumental recordings.
• Hardware synthesizers (controlled via MIDI).
Connecting Reason to another application allows you to do just this, integrate
your Reason songs with any other type of music, external MIDI and acoustic re-
cordings. By recording Reason onto audio Tracks in an audio sequencer you
can also continue processing your Reason tracks with other internal and external
effects.
Introducing ReWire!
To make this integration between two audio programs possible, Propellerhead
Software has developed ReWire. This technology provides the following possi-
bilities and features:
In ReWire version 1
• Real time streaming of separate audio channels, at full bandwidth, into an-
other audio program.
• Automatic, sample accurate, synchronization between the audio in the two
programs.
• The possibility to have the two programs share one sound card.
• Linked transport controls that allows you to play, rewind etc, from either pro-
gram.
• Less total system requirements than when using the programs together in
the conventional way.
In ReWire 2
A number of features were added in Reason version 2. The following are the
most important:
• Up to 256 audio channels (previously 64).
• Bi-directional MIDI communication of up to 4080 MIDI channels (255 de-
vices with 16 channels each)
• Automatic querying and linking features that (among other things) allow a
host to display the slave’s devices, controllers, drum sounds etc. by name.
How Does it Work?
Basically the key to ReWire is the fact that Reason is divided into three compo-
nents:
• The Reason application.
• The Reason Engine (a DLL on the PC and a Shared Library file on the Mac-
intosh. Both located in the Reason program folder.)
• ReWire (also a DLL on the PC and a Shared Library on the Macintosh).
ReWire and the Reason Engine are common resources to the two programs
(the other application and Reason) that generate the audio and passes it onto
the other audio application.
! A note for Mac OS 9 users! In addition to being located in the Rea-
son program folder, an alias for the Reason Engine is also put in the
Extensions folder. This allows you, if required, to remove the alias.
This will prevent Reason from running in ReWire mode, but it will
still run fine as a freestanding application.
Terminology
In this text we refer to Reason as a ReWire slave and the application receiving
audio from Reason (this could be Steinberg Cubase, Emagic Logic Audio or
Mark of the Unicorn Digital Performer for example) as the host application.
About System Requirements
To run Reason together with another audio application of course raises the de-
mands on computing power. However, adding ReWire to the equation does not
in itself require a more powerful computer. On the contrary, it is likely that Re-
Wiring two programs requires less power than for example running them with
one audio card each.
Still, you should be aware that running two powerful audio applications on one
computer will require a fast processor and most of all a healthy amount of RAM.