Common audio editing functions

The functions below apply to all audio clip types.

Delete Unused Recordings

After you have edited your audio clips in the Comp Editor, there might be unused recordings left on Comp Rows that you don’t plan to use. To reduce the file size of your song, you can choose to delete all unused recordings in one or several audio clips.

Select the clip(s) in the Clip Overview area in the Comp Editor, or select the clip(s) in the Arrange View, and then select “Delete Unused Recordings” from the Edit menu or context menu.

All recordings that are not used in the clip(s) will be permanently deleted.

•	If a clip is in Single Take Mode, only the selected Comp Row will be played back - all other Comp Rows are per definition “unused”. However, there may still be Cuts and assigned Segments among these Comp Rows, visible and audible if you switch the clip to Comp Mode.

As a safety measure, if you use the “Delete Unused Recordings” function on such a clip, you will be asked to confirm that you really want to remove all Comp Rows other than the selected one.

•	After deleting audio recordings, you will have to use the “Save and Optimize” function on the File menu to minimize the Song file size - see “Saving and optimizing a Song”.

Bounce Clip(s) to New Sample(s)

You can bounce one or several Audio Clips to new Song Samples. You could then edit the samples in the Edit Sample window and then load into a sampler device for playback. Proceed as follows:

Select the clips in the Clip Overview area in the Comp Editor, or select them in the Arrange View, and then select “Bounce > Bounce Clip(s) to New Sample(s)” from the Edit menu or context menu.

The Audio Clips are bounced to new Song Samples and named according to the Audio Clip name (if the clip was named) or according to the Audio Track name with serial numbers. The bounced Audio Clips then end up as sample files in the Song Samples location in the Browser. Refer to “Sampling” for more details about sampling and sample editing.

About the “Bounce Clip to Disk” function

The “Bounce > Bounce Clip to Disk” function on the Edit menu and clip context menu allows you to export the audio of a selected clip to disk as a single WAV or AIFF file. This might be useful if you want to process an audio clip in an external application and then re-import the clip to the track again. See “Bouncing Audio Clips” for more details.

Bouncing audio to MIDI notes

It’s possible to convert Single Take audio clips to note clips. This is especially useful for monophonic audio that can be edited in Pitch Edit mode. But if you like to experiment you could try it on polyphonic audio as well. The result in any situation will be a monophonic note clip on a default Subtractor instrument track.

Select one or several Single Take audio clips in the Arrange View and select “Bounce > Bounce Audio Clips To MIDI” from the Edit menu or context menu.

A Subtractor instrument track is automatically created for each of the audio tracks. On the Subtractor track(s) a note clip for each of the selected audio clips are created.

Alternatively, drag one or several Single Take audio clips and drop onto an Instrument track.

The audio clips are automatically converted into note clips as you drop them on the Instrument track. Once dropped, you could play back the note clips using the present Instrument sound.

•	Clips that have “Vocal” Stretch and Transpose Type selected will generate Note clips with different MIDI notes in them.

•	Clips that have “Allround” or “Melody” Stretch and Transpose Type selected will generate Note clips with only MIDI note C3 in them. In other words, you will basically only get a “rhythm” played by note C3.

This can be very useful if you, for example, want to bounce drums to MIDI notes. You may then have to move the MIDI notes to the correct notes in the generated Note clip afterwards.

If you drag Single Take audio clips from several audio tracks, you will need the same number of Instrument tracks to be able to drop all clips. As a rule of thumb, always create the instrument tracks right below the respective audio track.

Normalizing audio clips

Normalizing means increasing the overall audio level so that the loudest peak in the sound touches 0 dB. Normalizing can be made on any audio clip, regardless of if they are Single Take clips or Comp clips.

1.	Select the Audio Clip(s) in the Arrange View, or in the Clip Overview in the Comp Editor.

A comped audio clip selected in the Clip Overview in the Comp Editor.

2.	Select “Normalize Clips” from the Edit menu or context menu.

A new Comp Row is automatically created at the top and named after the Audio Track, with the extension “(normalized)”. The new Comp Row contains the “bounced” normalized audio and the Audio Clip has also automatically switched to Single Take Mode. The original audio is preserved on their original Comp Rows.

Only the audio within the Audio Clip boundaries will be normalized. Any masked audio will be disregarded.

Note that normalizing a clip that contains audio that already reaches the full headroom (touches 0 dB) won’t have any effect.

When you normalize a Single Take clip, Reason automatically re-analyzes the audio and distributes new Slice Markers at the detected transients.

Reversing audio clips

Reversing an audio clip means playing it backwards, from the end to the start. Reversing can be made on any Audio Clips, regardless of whether they are Single Take clips or Comp clips.

1.	Select the Audio Clip(s) in the Arrange View, or in the Clip Overview in the Comp Editor.

A comped audio clip selected in the Clip Overview in the Comp Editor.

2.	Select “Reverse” from the Edit menu or context menu.

A new Comp Row is automatically created at the top and named after the Audio Track, with the extension “(reversed)”. The new Comp Row contains the “bounced” reversed audio and the Audio Clip has also switched to Single Take Mode. The original audio is preserved on their original Comp Rows.

Only the audio within the Audio Clip boundaries will be reversed. Any masked audio will be disregarded.

When you reverse a Single Take clip, Reason automatically re-analyzes the audio and distributes new Slice Markers at the detected transients.

You can also reverse Note and Automation Clips (and individual events in these), see “Reverse”.