John Keston Classes

Week 8

Session 1: After a brief introductory demonstration of Reason, I’ll be demonstrating how to interface Reason and ProTools, import MIDI into a ProTools document and setup the MIDI tracks to play specific virtual instruments in Reason while the class follows along in the lab. This demo includes a 15 point exercise due Session 1, Week 9. The steps for the exercise follow:

1. Import a .mid file into Reason (File > Import > MIDI File). Use www.classicalarchives.com or www.creativecommons.org to find a MIDI file use can use for this exercise. Other sites, like mididb.com have many files available as well.
2. Add a 14 channel mixer device in Reason (Create > Mixer).
3. Create instruments for each of the tracks in your MIDI file.

4. Assign the instruments to each track in the MIDI file (shown in demo).
5. You can create multiple instances of the same device, but do not assign the same instance to more than one track because conflicts can occur in the controller data.
6. Render your document to an audio file named midi_exercise1.wav and copy it to the drop off under John Keston/ca2431/<your name>.

Session 2: We’ll be covering audio compression today in our group lessons. Audio compression (not to be confused with file compression) is a way to automatically adjust the dynamics of sound. Mixing multiple tracks of audio can often become difficult when some of the audio has varying or inconsistent levels. Audio compression can help resolve these difficulties. It as also widely over-used, especially in the mastering process resulting in the “loudness wars“. Please look at the following articles regarding compression for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression
Compressor / Limiter (article with audio examples illustrating compression)
The Death of Dynamic Range (Atricle on the so called “Loudness Wars”)