4 on the Floor

May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jim Aikin

TAKE COMMAND OF THE BEST ADDITIONS TO PROPELLERHEAD REASON 4--THE THOR SYNTHESIZER, REDESIGNED SEQUENCER AND REGROOVE MIXER--WITH THESE TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

For whatever reason, Propellerhead's flagship Reason 4 software is stubbornly different. Maybe the Swedish office has Fleetwood Mac's “Go Your Own Way” in heavy rotation — or Mims' “This Is Why I'm Hot.” But Reason 4 isn't another me-too, one-stop, do-everything production studio. You can use Reason stand-alone for all-electronic instrumentals or ReWire it to a DAW so you can add vocal tracks and use plug-ins. Either way, Reason ignites a lot of audio dynamite.

For DAW/ReWire users, the big news in Reason 4 is Thor, a multifaceted, semimodular synth. If you're using Reason stand-alone, then you'll also want to snuggle up to the completely redesigned sequencer. You'll explore both in this tutorial, and you can download most of the patches — packed into a Reason RNS file — at remixmag.com.

STEALING THOR'S THUNDER

With the one exception of the Combinator, which can house arbitrarily massive patches, Thor is easily the most complex device in Reason 4. Learning to work with Thor may require a few hours of experimentation, but here are some starting points for your tweaking sessions.

External Audio

Most Reason devices provide rear-panel patch points, but Thor raises the stakes with four audio inputs that can be routed to any destination in the synth. The MalstrÖm synth also has audio ins, but only for processing signals through its filters. With Thor, audio can be a modulator.

Load a beat into Dr.Rex, use its To Track button so the beat will play back, and then route the Dr.Rex left audio out into Thor's Audio In 1. Try using this input to frequency-modulate (FM) an oscillator. Setting the oscillator (which in FM parlance is called a “carrier”) to a sine wave is usually a good choice because FM is applied to every overtone in a wave. If you use a sawtooth wave as a carrier, then FM will produce much more complex harmonic spectra, which can quickly degenerate to noise. Filtering the external audio before you use it as an FM modulator will add clarity to the patch. (See online files Thor_External_Audio.rns and Thor_External_Audio.mp3.)

Using Thor's extra audio outputs, you can route some aspect of its own signal to an external processor, such as a Scream or chorus, and then bring the tone back into Thor to mix with the rest of the tone. One limitation to be aware of is that any signal arriving at the audio inputs will be routed to all of Thor's currently sounding voices.

Sines o' the Times.

Thor's Wavetable is one of the six available oscillator types. (See Fig. 1.) It can produce complex spectra that sound like additive synthesis. Additive synthesis is based on mixing large numbers of sine waves at different frequencies, so the 10 Sines and 16:th Harmonics tables are ideal for this type of tone. Create three wavetable oscillators, leave the X-Fade switches in the oscillators turned on, choose the previously mentioned tables and sweep the position of each oscillator at a different slow rate from LFO 1, LFO 2 and the Mod Env. (The Gate Trig and Loop switches should be turned on in the Mod Env.) (See online file Thor_Wavetables.mp3.)

A comb filter messes with the overtones in a similar way, so you might try adding one in the Filter 3 slot. Delay is also good, but chorus shouldn't be necessary because the tone will already be very rich. (This patch is called Wavetables in the downloadable RNS file.)

Classic Minimoog Filter Sidebands

One of the first synthesizer effects I ever learned was how to make filter sideband sweeps on a Minimoog. To do it, you tuned Oscillator 3 to the audio range (this oscillator did double-duty as the LFO), used it to modulate the filter, turned the filter resonance up all the way so that the filter self-oscillated and then swept the filter with a long envelope decay.

A lot of computer-based synths can't do that effect at all because they don't allow the filter to be modulated at audio rate. Thor doesn't quite nail the classic Minimoog sidebands, but it comes remarkably close. An initialized Thor patch has the oscillator and filter we need, so we'll need to change only a few settings:

• Turn off the Osc 1 input to the filter.
• Set the oscillator to a triangle wave.
• Turn the filter resonance up all the way and check to make sure the Self Osc button is lit.
• Set the filter envelope to a very long decay time and zero sustain level.
• Turn the filter cut-off frequency down below 100 Hz.
• In the Patching matrix, select Osc 1 as a source and Filter 1 Frequency (FM) as the destination. Set the amount to 100.
• Select Filter Env as a source and Osc 1 Pitch as the destination. Turn the amount up to 60 or 70.
• Set the Amp Env sustain to 100 percent so the tone will stay loud.

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You can achieve a variety of effects by adjusting the filter cut-off frequency and oscillator octave knob. Turn on the chorus effect for some added richness. (This patch is called Mini Filter in the downloadable RNS file. See also Thor_Mini_Filter.mp3.)

Noise Modulation

Using a noise source in place of an oscillator tone is an effect that got boring in about 1978. But Thor lets you use noise in a more interesting way: as a modulation source. (See Fig. 2.) Choose a Noise Osc for Oscillators 2 and 3, choose band-limited noise and then turn the bandwidth knob down very low. Next, use the AM from the Osc 2 slider to add instability to the tone of Osc 1.

To explore this technique, I set Osc 1 (an Analog Osc) to a thin pulse wave and routed it through a formant filter to produce a vocal tone. I assigned Oscillators 2 and 3 to modulate filter parameters under control of the mod wheel, added a few other tweaks and ended up with the Nervous Monks patch in the downloadable RNS file. (See online file Thor_Noise_Mod.mp3.)

Casio? Not Quite

Thor's Phase Mod Osc was obviously inspired by the Casio CZ Series synths, which began way back in 1985 with the CZ-101. Sad to say, Thor's envelope generators just aren't up to the job of emulating the CZ, which had three eight-stage envelopes (for pitch, amplitude and phase-modulation depth) per oscillator.

To approximate the CZ sound, don't use filters. You can use a filter's Drive slider (which is actually an input amplifier) as an extra VCA, which will help. Run one oscillator through a lowpass ladder filter whose cut-off frequency is turned all the way up and lower the filter's Drive slider. Then assign the Mod Env or Filter Env as a source in the Modulation matrix and choose the filter's Drive as a destination.

The CZ could use two oscillators per patch, and one was often used for a percussive attack transient while the other added sustain. The Casio Bass patch in the downloadable RNS file illustrates this.

That patch illustrates another idea. Select the Comb Filter for Filter 3. It's set up with heavy resonance and no modulation, which makes the frequency knob a versatile tone control. Slight adjustments of this knob will show off a variety of tone colors.

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