Assignment 3

Reason Programming

The main point of the assignment is to make you comfortable enough with synthesizer and sampler parameters that you may then easily tweak the parameters of factory patches, so that the sound fits your music better. This knowledge will translate to other DAWs and plug-ins.

Goals of This Assignment

  • Learn to program your own sounds for the Reason SubTractor synthesizer, using oscillators, filters, envelopes, LFOs and so forth.
  • Make your own samples and map them to the keyboard, using Reason’s NN-19 sampler.
  • Work with the Matrix Pattern Sequencer to control synthesis.

Submitting Your Assignment

  1. Verify that you have satisfied all the requirements by consulting the Assignment 3 checklist.
  2. Turn in one Reason “song” file for each part of the assignment, named “Part 1,” “Part 2,” etc. Submit these in Canvas, in the Assignments section, following the submission instructions.

    Please do not submit a zipped folder of song files. Submit the four parts as individual files.

The Basic Process

This assignment is divided into several parts, which you should do in order.

Anywhere you see DO THIS in the instructions, you’ll know that it describes something you have to do as a requirement of the assignment. The requirements are summarized in the Assignment 3 checklist.

When you’re done, you should have a separate Reason file for each of the four assignment parts below. Please do not combine multiple parts of the assignment in one Reason file.

It is very important that your racks function correctly. That is, all the audio and other connections should be made so that the required devices produce sound as expected. That’s part of the grade!

Except for Part 4, you do not have to do compose any tracks in the Sequencer to demonstrate your patches. Of course, you are welcome to do so!