Reason masterclass goes down a storm

To everyone who came along to last week's free Reason masterclass, we'd just like to extend our thanks for making it such a success. Gratitude also goes to Propellerhead, who were great on hosting duties at Confetti Studios in Nottingham, and guest speaker Gary Bromham. We're already gearing ourselves up for our next session!

Reason has always had a very hardcore following, and its expansion in Reason 6 away from a purely synth-orientated workstation to a fully fledged DAW with comprehensive audio recording and mixing features has only broadened its appeal further. Unsurprisingly, seats at the event filled up pretty quickly.

Sometimes it seems there's no shortage of product demonstrations or clinics for all manner of music software suites. The real value of this sort of masterclass is that it's not a simple run through of a feature set; instead, producer Gary Bromham took us on a trip through Reason 6 via his own real world projects, showing off a host of features that really open up the possibilities for professional level production. Among the hot topics were the mixer (based on an SSL 9000, and discussed by a producer thoroughly familiar with physical SSL consoles), the new effects (Pulveriser, Echo and Alligator) and the incredible timestretch algorithm that allows free control of tempo from within Reason with audio playback speeding up and slowing down in perfect sync.

Gary also demonstrated how various aspects of Reason accommodate his own production techniques, honed over years of working in traditional production facilities. Examples of these were the Reason mixer's flexibility for sidechaining, use of channel filters to control compression, creating summing mixers, parallel processing, being able to patch just one component of a rack effect and more. The consensus amongst us Reason users in the audience was that we all discovered things we had no idea Reason was capable of, as well as some top tips that everyone was keen to try out for themselves.

So a big thank you to Propellerhead and Gary for the masterclass! Rest assured, there will be more of these in the future, so stay tuned for details...

To find our more about Propellerhead's Reason 6, or to keep tabs on any upcoming masterclasses Jigsaw's involved in, get in touch. Call 03332 409 306, email audio@Jigsaw24.com or head to our Twitter (@JigsawAudio) and Facebook page.