Christian Grobmeier - JEE, EAI, PHP » MIDI

Rewire Propellerheads Reason 4.0 to Logic Pro 8

Christian Grobmeier — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:30:57 +0000

Rewiring Reason is a nice feature – you can use all the Reason synths, effects and instruments in Logic Pro (it should work even in Express Edition). Basis is the so called Rewire protocoll which has been invented by Propellerhead before a good while.

Basically its pretty forward to wire both application together. You just need to know that one of the apps should be the Master, while the other is the slave. Usually you have Logic Pro as the Master, from which you control everything and Reason only as some kind of big effect box.

To start with it, please open Logic Pro and afterwards Propellerhead Reason – NOT vice versa. The master needs to be opened first.

Then create a new track in Logic. The type is “External MIDI”.

In Reason, step up to highest hardware component, the hardware device. There is a button called “Adv. Midi Device”. Click it.

In Logic you are now able to choose Reason in the Library. Just select your “External MIDI” Track and open the Library. You’ll see a folder called “Reason” and then several instruments, depending of what you created. I have chosen one called “Synth”.

Now the signal should go into Reason and do things, but you need to wire it back into Logic to hear it. This can be done with a new track in Logic, an AUX track. You can create it in the Mixer view in “Options > Create new Aux”. Once done you are able to choose the channel which comes from Reason in Logics “I/O” section. I have chosen R/Cha 9/10. If you choose the stereo sum: this already works, but if you want to separate between different channels you need to patch the reason components. I wanted to use the single outputs, so, back to reason.

In Reason you can choose in Options that you would like to view the Rack from the back.

Choose the instrument you want and patch two cabels from the for example master out in the hardware controller on top. The hardware controller finally decides which channels you can hear in Logic. Because I have choosen 9 and 10, my stereo out from the instrument goes into the hardware device in slot 9 and 10 too.

Once done, this is finished and you have successfully rewired Logic to Reason and vice versa. Now your creativity can begin and learning start Enjoy!

Apple Logic 8

Christian Grobmeier — Sat, 09 May 2009 12:07:09 +0000

After long time I finally decided to buy Apple Logic 8 in favour of GarageBand and Apple Logic 7! It now has arrived!

Apple Logic 8

Spotting it out showed me that everything looks more cool and nothing is missing. It runs smooth on a Mac Mini Intel Core Duo (not 2) with 2 Gig of RAM. Performance is not different to Logic 7. Synthesizer Content is amazing and I really think that the time of creating a VST or AU plugin is near

We’ll see – now I enjoy that cool piece of software!

Paul White – Basic MIDI

Christian Grobmeier — Tue, 06 May 2008 06:08:00 +0000

Recently I read a lot of books about mixing/mastering etc.. I started this with reading one book of the wellknown series of Paul White – Basic MIDI. This book is well-written and has a logical structure. It’s meant for beginners in MIDI and I guess, this is true. Basic MIDI was not in-depth enough for me, as I have played with several Audio Sequencers the last 2 years. Sometimes it gave me a good overview about stuff I allready knew which actually helped me lots to categorize several components. The book is quite old, but you can read it even when you are not a keyboarder but an synth.musician who is working with f. e. Logic. If you are an GarageBand User you may get an overview too, but lots of the concepts and ideas introduced in this book cannot be done with GarageBand – I switched to Logic Express a while after reading.

Paul White starts with “What is MIDI”, explains a MIDI Sequencer (which is in fact an old Logic Version ), gives an overview about MIDI synchronization and then about synthesis. However the chapter about “practical MIDI editing” is not very useful anymore. Things haven’t changed in the MIDI world, but the tools you work with have. Some stuff is much easier now.

However, this book is recommend for all who need an overview about what is a Sequencer, MIDI, Synthesizer, how to synchronize or connect MIDI devices etc. pp. For beginner this is quite simple, but I recommend to you to play with an tool like GarageBand for a while before reading this introduction. Some terms are much easier to recon if you have done so.
If you have played for 2 years or above, this book will give you nothing new which is no surprise, when reading the books title “Basic Midi”. For at the moment 7 euro it’s a nice to have book. 3 of 5 stars for me

Logic, Instruments and a new midi device

Christian Grobmeier — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:11:00 +0000

Before a few days i tried to install my Roland TD-20 Drum module at my mac. The TD-20 should take MIDI data, play, and the mac should recieve 8 tracks of wonderful audio files. This way I have everything seperated for a mix.
When I tried that, i figured out the very first time when GarageBand is not enough. GarageBand cannot use the MIDI out slot of anything – it’s simply not possible. After a while I realized that I have other problems with that sequencer, like: export MIDI from GarageBand.
Altough I like the GUI of GarageBand more, I had to switch again to Logic 7, which I bought before long time (and for expensive money, altough it was used!). It didn’t want that software cause it was ugly, complicated and well, oversized for my needs. It seems that I am now an adult haha.
However, connecting the TD-20 to my Phonic Firewire card was quite easy.
I started the Logic Setup Assistant. Here i could tell Logic where my MIDI Device is connected. Nearly all enviroment work will be done by Logic no. As soon as I understood the I have to connect an Instrument port to the little “Drums mapped” icon at the enviroments window (APPLE-8), I just had to make sure that the track, which uses that instrument has chosen the correct MIDI-channel. In my case, the TD-20 uses channel 10.
I am now more into MIDI than i was before weeks, and everything was going well for me now. I got some other surprises by Logic now and altough it’s ugly, I think I’ll stay with it for a while. I mean, why should I not use my hardware modules? I understand more and more now, and meanwhile it’s something like…. hu… love?

When switching back to Logic, i didn’t find my GarageBand Instruments anywhere. I get ravenous, i had installed them on my external drive. However, i found it as Instrument / Insert / Channel Strip – no worries here. My article about “moving the garageband instruments” still work for logic