This new feature of Reason 5.0 is called BLOCKS, meaning you can create and build Musical Blocks with great control over the song you create.

When it comes to arranging your music, its all about putting together the musical elements like intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, instrument solo, break etc., in various segments of the song. Blocks allow you to achieve that in a seamless fashion. Its a great concept of building a workflow in the arrangement. In this video, you’ll see a small example of How to Use BLOCKS in your Song Arrangement.

Here’s how Propellerhead explains Blocks:

Many musicians tend to think of music in terms like intro, verse, chorus, breakdown, buildup and so on. With the new Blocks mode in Reason 5 and Record 1.5, your sequencer does too.

Blocks lets you sequence your songs using a more pattern-based approach, with the segments of your song as individual building blocks to be laid out in your arrangement.

Start by creating the discrete parts of your song in blocks mode. When you are ready to start building your song, just switch back to song mode and draw in what blocks should play in the dedicated pattern lane. Use one block for the verse and one for the chorus — or build your song around a single 8-bar loop.

Blocks provide a very fast way of creating a musical structure for your song. But the options don’t end there. With the basic arrangement laid out, you can see the contents of the blocks and create variations and mute individual parts, or add further musical elements in song mode.

A typical use for Blocks is to create your backing track in blocks and then use the song mode sequencer to record vocals or instrumental performances. For music based around a single looped section, one repeated block with automation and mutes of individual tracks added in song mode makes arranging a breeze.

You never have to commit to using either mode – you are free to move back and forth between Blocks and Song mode, and any changes you make in your Blocks will instantly be manifested in all instances of that Block. Need some tambourine on that chorus? Add it, and there will be tambourine whenever the chorus block is playing.

Blocks — a new way of sequencing your songs, coming in Reason 5 and Record 1.5.

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This is the Orchestral Theme Music I composed using Pro Tools 8 & East West Quantum Leap Symphony Orchestra Gold Edition. East West Quantum Leap Symphony Orchestra Gold Edition can also be played by Kompakt player of Native Instruments. The music involves a small theme with 9 basses I recorded and looped. I played the drums using the XPand2 plugin of digidesign and had some harmonies going to give the theme some vocals. The music was sequenced & mixed on Pro Tools 8, the digital audio workstation (DAW). Hope you will like the music.

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How to Loop & Midi Merge in Pro Tools 8

In this video, you will be seeing “How to Loop & Midi Merge in Pro Tools 8″.

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Following are the Steps involved on How to Startup ProTools Systems.

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We will be using the Hardware Interface in Reason, and the Reason plug-in in Pro Tools to transfer audio between the two programmes. This process is called “Rewire”.

The two programmes will sync to the Pro Tools clock, and will therefore run at the same tempo. One programme is called the Master, and the other is called the Slave. We will be using Pro Tools as the Master and Reason as the Slave.

Make sure Reason is not open, launch Pro Tools, and then create a stereo instrument track.

In the Mix window, click on the first Insert and choose Reason (Stereo).

Inserting Reason in Pro Tools

After you have selected Reason as the Insert, Reason will automatically launch. When the Reason insert appears, make sure that the input selector is set to Channel3+Channel4.

Select Channels in Pro Tools

Starting from a completely empty Reason Song file, hold down the shift key and right click in a blank area in the rack in the upper half of the window. (Holding down the shift key creates an un-patched instrument).

• Create > NN19 Sampler.
• Do NOT create a mixer.

A sampler will be added to the rack. Load a patch into sampler.  Press the tab key to turn the rack around, and you will notice that none of the devices are attached with cables. Now, drag a cable from the left audio output of the NN19 to input 3 of the hardware interface, then drag a cable from the right output of the NN19 to input 4 of the hardware interface.

Connecting Audio Outputs to Channels 3 and 4 in Reason

Return to Pro Tools and make sure that the Reason pop-up menu on the ReWire plug-in is set to Channel 3 + 4, which corresponds to outputs 3 and 4 on the Hardware Interface in Reason, which is connected to NN19.

We now have an audio pathway between the two programmes. Any audio that the NN19 makes will now leave its audio outputs, and pass via the patch cables to inputs 3+4 on the Reason Hardware Interface. By plugging cables into the hardware interface, we are effectively connecting them to the Reason plug-in in Pro Tools. In other words, if the sampler makes a sound we will hear it on the instrument track in Pro Tools.

We now need to trigger the NN19 sampler with midi. Though we could do this from Reason, it is better to trigger the instrument with midi from Pro Tools. This will allow us to see our midi data in Pro Tools, as well as any subsequent audio we record in Pro Tools, on the same edit window.

In Pro Tools, make sure that you can see the Instrument view in the Mix Window, by choosing:

• View>Mix Window

Make sure that “Instrument” is ticked.

Instrument View in Pro Tools mix window

Record enable the track. Press the Return key to bring the cursor back to zero, and record some midi onto the track.

The signal flow will be as follows :

• Midi from controller keyboard
• To Instrument track input
• To NN19 sound module
• Audio leaves the NN19,
• To Hardware Interface inputs 3+4
• To Reason Rewire plug-in
• To Pro Tools fader.

Some points to be noted :

• We need to be sure that when we record midi into Pro Tools, we do not have the midi track in Reason record enabled. If we did this we would be recording midi twice and on playback we would have two midi parts playing the same sampler. For this reason, most people delete the Reason sequencer track as soon as they create a device.
• If we are working on a TDM setup, the automatic delay compensation feature does not work with Reason.
• If we are working with a mono device in Reason, i.e. a Subtractor, then we only need a mono Instrument track and a mono Reason plug-in in Pro Tools. We will then take a single cable from the mono output of the Subtractor and plug it into the Hardware interface output that corresponds with the Reason plug-in’s input.

Subtractor in Reason

• Pro Tools and Reason, though Rewired, are still running as independent programmes. When we close the session, we have to save the Pro Tools session and the Reason session independently of each other. Saving the Pro Tools session will not automatically save the Reason session. Also, you must close Reason (the slave) before we close Pro Tools (the master) or we will see a warning message telling us to close and save the Reason session first.

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