Advanced routing tips and tricks

Chaining Send effects from Redrum or Mixer devices

The Redrum Drum Module and the Mixer 14:2 and 6:2 devices have separate Send FX connectors where you can add send effects individually for each device. The Redrum and Mixer devices also have separate Send FX level pots for each drum/mixer channel so that you could set the send effect levels individually for each drum/mixer channel in the device.

Let’s say you want to add a Redrum device and use two of the Main Mixer’s Send FX, but with individual settings for each of the Redrum device’s internal channels. In the example below, we’re going to chain the two Send Outs from the Redrum device to two send effects in the Main Mixer:

1.	Create two extra Mix Channel devices - one for each of the send effects we’re going to chain.

In this example we name the Mix Channel devices “FX 1 Chaining” and FX 2 Chaining”.

2.	Activate the Send FX bus you want to use in each of the mixer channels and also activate the corresponding Pre-fader button.

In this example, we activate the Send FX 1 bus on the FX1 Chaining channel and the Send FX 2 bus on the FX 2 Chaining channel. The Send FX 1 has a reverb connected and the Send FX 2 has a delay connected.

The PRE buttons should be activated because we don’t want the mixer channel faders to affect the Send levels.

3.	Lower the “FX 1 Chaining” and “FX 2 Chaining” mixer channel faders to zero.

This way, the effect signals won’t be mixed with the rest of the Main Mixer channel signals in the mix bus, but are kept isolated in the Send FX busses. Now, our setup should look like this in the rack and in the Main Mixer:

The device setup, plus two new Mix Channel devices added. To the right, the channel strips with activated FX Send busses.

4.	Connect the Send Out 1 and 2 of the Redrum device to the Left inputs of each of the “FX 1 Chaining” and “FX 2 Chaining” Mix Channel devices.

Now, you should have a setup that looks something like this:

The Redrum Effect Sends chained to one Send FX bus each of the Master Section, via two new Mix Channel devices.

5.	Set individual Send levels for each of Redrum’s internal channels.

Now, you have individual send levels for each of the Redrum device’s internal channels - and are still able to use the Send FXs in the rest of the Main Mixer channels like before.

Using compression sidechaining

Compression sidechaining is a feature which lets you control the Compressor, not from the internal channel signal, but from an external signal. A typical use case would be to let the signal from a kick drum channel control the compression of the bass channel. The result would be that the bass signal is compressed each time the kick drum signal is present on the sidechain input, allowing the kick sound to momentarily suppress the bass sound.

Compression sidechaining from an external channel

The example below shows an audio track with a kick sound that is tapped from the Kick Audio Track device’s Parallel output and routed to the Dynamics Sidechain input of the Bass Audio Track device.

•	The Key button is automatically activated when you connect a signal to the Sidechain Input.

This will force the Compressor to be controlled from the Sidechain input signal rather than from the internal signal.

Compression Sidechaining of the Bass audio track from the Kick Drum audio track.

About compression sidechaining of several channels from one source channel

If you want to use compression sidechaining of several (destination) channels from a single source channel, there are some options of doing that:

•	If you are already using both Parallel outputs for sidechaining, tap an additional sidechain signal from one of the Insert FX “To Device” outputs of the source channel.

This is useful if you are not using both “To Device” outputs for insert effects in the source channel.

•	Use a “Spider Audio Merger & Splitter” device to split the sidechain signal from the Parallel outputs and/or Insert FX “To Device” output into several signals.

Each of these signals can then be individually routed to each Sidechain Input of the desired destination Audio Track/Mix Channel devices.

•	Create an Output Bus (sub-mixer) and route all (destination) channels you want to control to this Output Bus. Then, route the sidechain signal from the source channel device to the Sidechain Input of the Output Bus Mix Channel device.

See “Output Busses” for information.

About internal compression sidechaining

Another typical application for compression sidechaining is to use the internal signal of the channel, filter it, and then feed to the compressor via “internal” sidechaining. This type of internal sidechaining can be used for de-essing, for example. No additional patching is required for this; you only have to activate the “Filters to Dynamics Sidechain” button in the Filter or EQ sections. See “About the Filters To Dynamics Sidechain button”.

Using the Mix Channel and Audio Track devices’ Direct Outs

The Mix Channel and Audio Track devices feature Direct Out connectors. By patching cables into these outputs, you break the internal signal chain from the device to the Master Section, and can route the channel output signals directly to the Reason Hardware Device’s outputs. This is a very nice feature if you want to use outboard mixing or summing - or if you’re using ReWire (see “ReWire”) to route individual channel signals to another application.

The example below shows how to route the Direct Outs of a number of Audio Track devices to separate outputs of the Reason Hardware Interface:

Direct routing of individual channel outputs to individual outputs on the Reason Hardware Interface.

Using the Direct Outs will break the internal P-LAN routing to the Master Section device. This is indicated by the red dashes (---) in the Audio Output display on the Audio Track/Mix Channel devices.

Creating an input channel for recording with effects

When you record on an audio track, the input signal is routed “dry” to the audio track. Then, when you play back the recorded audio, the signal goes via the channel strip, with all its settings and any Insert FX etc. However, there might be situations where you want to record a processed signal to the audio track. For example, if you record an electric guitar, you might want to record it with distortion effects or similar.

The example below shows a typical setup where a separate Mix Channel device is used for processing the input signal before it’s routed to the audio track for recording:

1.	Begin by creating an Audio Track device and a separate Mix Channel device.

The Mix Channel device is going to be used for housing the effects we’re going to record with.

2.	Create the effect(s) you want to use and patch them as Insert FX in the Mix Channel device.

In this example, we use a Scream 4 distortion device and an RV7000 reverb device connected in series.

3.	Connect one of the Audio Ins of the Reason Hardware Interface to the “Input L” of the Mix Channel device.

This manual patching from the Hardware Interface is made to route the input signal directly to the Mix Channel device, where we have our effects.

Direct routing of an Input signal from the Reason Hardware Device to the Mix Channel device.

4.	Flip the rack around to view the front.

5.	Click the “Rec Source” button on the Mix Channel device.

This makes the Mix Channel device selectable as input source for the Audio Track device.

Rec Source enabled on the Mix Channel device.

6.	Finally, select the Mix Channel device as Input on the Audio Track in the sequencer (or in the Audio Input selector on the Audio Track device in the rack).

This will route the signal from the Mix Channel device’s output directly to the input of the Audio Track.

The Mix Channel device selected as audio input on the Audio Track in the sequencer.

Now, you can begin recording on the Audio Track according to the standard recording procedures described in “General recording procedure”. The signal will be processed by the Insert FX of the Mix Channel device before being recorded on the track.

With this setup, you will always hear the sound of the input processed through the Amp device - just as if you had a real hardware amp turned on and mic'ed in the studio. If you don't want the “Lead Gtr Rec Input” Mix channel to be heard, just mute it in the Main Mixer.