This is the thread where people who work with sequencers and samplers have helpful geeky discussions.

Honestly, one of my favorite things is to set up a really redundant and simple synth/electropercussion sequence with these two devices, and then play live drums to it. Not very hi-tech, but jesus christ it's fun!

Howevah, MIDI, computer looping software, etc. I have no idea what to do with. I'm the 4-track's biyotch, a stuck-in-the-20th-century-useless-primitive-technology junky, I will have very little to contribute.

Enter midi: Now when I record the drums I can sync up all the different parts on the different tracks and then mess around with JUST the snare sound or JUST the high hat without it affecting the other parts.

I accomplished this by (surprise) reading the manual.

This is basic stuff but I was really impressed with it.

On the Korg ER-1 I am particularly fond of using the 'motion sequence' (CV curve sorta thing) feature to record and loop my quasi-random adjustments of the delay time/feedback levels and -best of all- the modulator waveform knob, resulting in sounds that cannot decide whether they are flanged, chorused, sawtooth or S+H until WHOOPS second verse, same as the first!

I also enjoy wreaking the havoc on time signatures. With the above Korg box and its sampler brethren I have been known to program 'complex' 7-4, 5-4 etc. patterns, which always end with an irregular measure since the Korgs only allow you to program patterns in sizes of either 16 or 12 steps to the bar, max. 4 bars.

On my Yamaha RS7000 I sometimes write basslines using the following method in lieu of actual inspiration:

1. dial up preset boring synth bass noise
2. set up 4-bar or 2-bar 4/4 pattern
3. hit record and spastically strike keys while imitating the mannerisms of your favorite eccentric keyboard performer
4. Quantize the whole mess to 16ths and add appropriate amounts of swing when necessary

Another fun RS7000 trick I use when completely void of ideas is to build a boring schlocky tech-house loop sans drums -one or two bars of echoey beeps and sweeps within a mode, dynamically flat- and resample it, then chop it into eighth notes using the onboard sampler. The resulting sample patches are then reversed, pitched, stretched and played about with on the keyboard map until a satisfactory confluence of factors appears, at which point I add a drumbeat and light up.

Back with more later. Still waiting on monitor speakers and a vocoder.

i have used reason a little bit, and i think the direction you are travelling is a good one. the signal chain is the best place to mess around. you can get some interesting sounds by putting the reverb first in the chain, and then using the other boxes to manipulate the sound. also, use multiple delays and reverbs. that is the best i can do without the software in front of me.

also, i dont know if you have tried this, but you should be giving each channel on the drum machine its own channel on the mixer.

1.) Efficient ways to get good soft / "mellow" synth sounds (e.g. Boards of Canada); I feel like I often have a sort of concrete-solid sound and spend too long randomly tweaking knobs to get something more soft-focus. (I think I need to study the pad presets in Reason and figure out what settings are making them pads.)

2.) Ways to psychologically convince myself that not every melody has to be clearly audible. I mean, for the most part I love love love the classic synth-electro thing where you can audibly follow each beepy pattern as it locks into the other ones, but I'm trying to finish off an actual "record" type thing and I need some more subtle tracks. How can I resign myself to writing some great melodic fill and then using it as subtle background information? (Which sort of has to be done if you want "mood" and "depth" in a particular piece?)

3.) It would probably help if I sat down and tried a note-for-note recreation of "Tied to the 80s." It would take me a month, I'm sure, but I bet I'd learn a thousand things in the process. Should I try it?

My favorite thing about the old Roland X0X drum machines is how they have separate outputs for each drum sound, allowing for some really wild programming notions.

When I had a 606, I would send the bass signal to my bass amp head and process it as thick and beefy as possible. I'd put the snare through this ancient reverb unit, and every once in awhile drop a big reverb plate on the 4th snare hit of each phrase (yes, totally jacked from dub reggae skool). Then, I'd put the hi-hat track through guitar fx pedals like flangers and phasers, and send it through a guitar amp and mic it, so it had a really crispy, grungy, and tweaky but also somewhat "live" sound. Y'know I don't think I ever used anything but those three channels on that thing.

(a) "does reason not allow midi-controlled filter sweeps, etc?" -- I dunno, I'm sort of scared of anything that actually says MIDI! I thought the "curve" function of the Matrix module was basically doing the same thing? (You can use it to control any of the filters on the synth module.) I use the curve thing for small variations and the knob automations for gradual ones. My problem with the curve thing, though, is that it works by individual steps, so you can't really do smooth little sweeps. (Would MIDI work better for this?)

(b) "also, i dont know if you have tried this, but you should be giving each channel on the drum machine its own channel on the mixer" -- Are you serious? I would need several mixer modules to accommodate this, but I guess I could give it a shot. Do you really mean I should do this for each channel, or just for limited important ones that I want to tweak (e.g. an EQ patch on the bass, phasing on a particular snare hit, etc.)?

as for pads, here are some basics;
1. ADSR - attack should be any setting but the lowest one to that there is no sound when you trigger a note. Release should be long.
Decay and sustain should be similar to ensure evenness across the pad.
2. waveforms. smoother the waveform, smoother the sound. you will not sound like a womb using the saw waves.
3. do you have even a small midi keyboard? with the matrix sequencer, you can only trigger one note at a time. the thickest pads involve many notes at the same time. get a small midi keyobard (you can find cheap ones for less than $100), which will allow you to play more notes!

I use a bit of freeware I've had for a couple years...I'm poor at the moment...Sonicworks. It allows me to create drum patterns, and good ones--isolate sounds--and there're some decent algorithims for pitch, time, delay, reverse, reverb, etc. So I can create some pretty cool stuff out of pre-existing sounds; I can also fuck with my own stuff I record, which is even more fun...and once you create a SW file, you can edit...so it works for me. It doesn't really sample, though, you still have to create your own loops...but I've got a good ear (and eye) so it's not too difficult...

So for me recording comes down to a combination of all that plus the live recording itself...I try to experiment w/mic placement, get a room sound, which is great to set off the sometimes dead-sounding stuff ...I like to record everything dry and then use outboard effex... and I think that trying to do cover versions your own way, but in a disciplined way, is an excellent learning experience.

If you can afford reason there's no reason you can't afford one of these

Re: MIDI -- the only keyboards I have are a $10 toy used exclusively for booty-bass and video-game sounds and an old non-modulating Casio. For multiple-note chord pads I tend to either (a) arpeggiate then in little sweeps so they go brrrring! and hold there, (b) arpeggiate them overall, or most often (c) actually create a module for each note.

But the 'Formants' preset, alone, makes the Ineko priceless.

I cry myself to sleep longing for a cassette-based 24-track TASCAM with each channel having it's own 5 dedicated EQ knobs taht costs under $300.

Father, why hast thou forsaken me?

a neat thing that my cousin taught me about reason is using the malstrom oscillators to control things instead of that matrix sequencer. there are many waveforms you can choose from in the A and B sections of the malstrom. plug these into CV inputs on the other devices to control filters, pans etc. you can get some really cool movement happening quite easily. try plugging other instruments into the malstrom's shaper section as well.

if you want to draw very smooth curves, it's much easier to do with a graphics tablet than with a mouse.

Also Millar, please note: Reason actually is covered in stickers (or at least tape labels)!

I just wanted to note that I think I found the root of my problem: I just need to BE LESS LAZY. This weekend I bothered isolating the key drum channels, setting up independent effects chains on everything, setting up sequencer boxes to control really subtle modulations, etc. Everything immediately sounded 100x better, and now I'm ashamed that there was a day when I wouldn't even bother running the bass through an EQ box.

All of the suggestions here were very helpful. For those that care I compromised on the channel-for-each-drum thing: I like the kick going through a compressor and EQ, the snare through a reverb box, and left and right sends for everything else going through reverb or phaser.