Time-scaling Audio in an Entire Clip

• 

  Select the clip to reveal its resize handles on either end of the clip.

  While holding down the option (or alt) key, drag one of the resize handles to time-scale the clip. You will see the time-scale clock cursor, and the audio waveform will scale while you drag the handle.

  

• The sound quality of time-scaling is affected by a particular clip setting. Right-click on a clip, and choose one of the items in the Stretch and Transpose Type popup menu: Allround, Melody, or Vocal. For the poetry clips used in Assignment 4, Vocal produces the clearest result. You can apply this setting at any time, even after having time-scaled a clip. To affect more than one clip at a time, select multiple clips, then choose Edit > Stretch and Transpose Type.
• Note that if you change the tempo of your sequence after having placed an audio clip, then the clip will time-scale automatically to fit the new tempo. This is great for drum loops and other precisely rhythmic material. However, it may not be what you want for all sounds. To suppress this automatic behavior, select clips that you want to exempt from time-scaling, and choose the Edit > Disable Stretch menu command before changing the tempo.

  This works well if you want to bring in the audio file for a vocal and then find a tempo for the sequence that matches the tempo of the vocal. Import the audio file, disable stretch for its clip, and play the sequence with the metronome turned on. Change the tempo and drag the clip left and right until you find that the beats in the clip match the metronome clicks.

Working with Slices in an Audio Clip

Reason automatically segments audio files according to its estimation of transient peaks, or places where the audio suddenly gets louder. So in a drum loop, you would see transients for each drum hit. These segments are called slices in Reason. A slice is defined by two adjacent slice markers. You can move or delete existing markers, as well as create your own.

To see slice markers for an audio clip, double-click the clip to place it in edit mode, and press the Slice Edit button that is to the left of the Snap settings.

The slice markers are the triangles with descending white vertical lines, which slice through the audio waveform at transients.

There are several things you can do with slices.

• Drag a slice marker horizontally to warp the timing within the clip.

  You can select multiple slices by dragging across the clip. Then drag the gray bar at the bottom of the clip to move the slices together.

  If you want to return to the original slice marker positions, choose the Edit > Revert All Slices menu command.

• Select slice markers by dragging in the clip, and then quantize them using the settings in the Quantize section of the Tool Window.
• Break a clip into individual short clips at slice marker boundaries. Select several markers by dragging across the clip, and choose the Edit > Split At Slices menu command.
• Export a sliced clip for use in the Dr. Octo Rex Loop Player device. This gives you a lot of control over the timing of the components of a loop. Export by choosing the Bounce > Bounce Clip to REX Loop menu command. For more about this, search for the Bounce Clip to REX Loop topic in the online Reason help.