At the top of the drop-down list you can select whether you want to use mono or stereo inputs. Depending on your selection, the LED meter switches to a stereo or mono display. Further down in the drop-down list you can select the audio interface input(s) you want to use for the track.
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When you are using the Propellerhead Balance audio interface, selecting any of its input channels in the drop-down list will automatically switch on the corresponding Ready LEDs on the Balance front panel. Also, if you have selected “Mono Input” in the Audio Input drop-down list, the Audio Track will show a CS (Clip Safe) symbol to the right of the LED meter.
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Before you start recording audio on the track it’s important to set correct input level(s). The input signal should be loud enough to minimize noise and provide high quality, but not so loud that it causes clipping and distortion.
If you’re using a 24-bit audio interface (recommended), aim at having the level of the input signal around -12dB on the track Input Meter according to the picture below. For 16-bit audio interfaces you may want to raise the level another couple of dB’s.
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If you are using the Propellerhead Balance audio interface you can use the special Clip Safe function to protect your recordings from accidental audio input clipping, see “Recording using the Clip Safe function in Propellerhead Balance”.
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If the input signal level should exceed 0dB (red clipping LEDs to the right) on the track Input Meter at any time during recording, there could be audible distortion in the recording:
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If the input level should clip, at any time, the red clipping LED(s) in the Input Meter will be constantly lit until you click on the Input Meter. This is to notify that there is, or has been, too loud an input signal present on the track.
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The input level cannot be adjusted using the Channel strip controls in the Main Mixer. The Channel strip controls are used only for adjusting the level and characteristics of the monitored signal and/or the playback signal of an existing recording on the track.
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If you use the Propellerhead Balance audio interface together with Reason Essentials, you will have access to the Clip Safe function. The Clip Safe function lets you record a mono signal with an additional “invisible” headroom. This is done by using both AD converters in Propellerhead Balance for the same mono signal, with the second AD converter dedicated to the additional headroom.
When recording with the Clip Safe function, Reason Essentials records the mono signal in parallel using both AD converters. The original AD converter records the signal at normal level and the second AD converter records the same signal “padded” at a lower level.
In practice this means that if the input signal should exceed the normal 0dB clipping level during recording, the program will allow you to use the “padded” signal from the second AD converter and replace the clipped/distorted audio. The padded signal will be amplified in Reason Essentials so that its level accurately reflects the original recording level. In other words, the resulting signal will be just as loud as the original signal - but without any clipping or distortion.
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A Clip Safe request signal is sent from the Balance interface to Reason Essentials. Depending on what audio inputs are selected on the record enabled Audio Track(s), the following happens:
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If the Balance 1/L or 2/R input is selected as audio input (Mono) on one single record enabled Audio Track, the Clip Safe LED on the Balance interface turns green and the CS symbol on the Audio Track is lit.
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When the Clip Safe LED on the Propellerhead Balance audio interface is green, the Clip Safe function is enabled. If the 1/L input is selected as audio input (Mono), the Right channel on the Balance interface is used for the additional headroom, and vice versa.
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If the Balance 1/L and 2/R inputs are selected as Stereo Input, the Clip Safe function is disabled and the Clip Safe LED on the Balance interface turns red. The CS symbol on the Audio Track also disappears.
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The Clip Safe function requires both inputs to be available. Also, if the Balance 1/L (mono) and 2/R (mono) inputs are selected as audio inputs on other record enabled Audio Tracks, the Clip Safe function is disabled.
See “Recording using the Clip Safe function in Propellerhead Balance” for more information about using the Clip Safe function.
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The input signal is monitored after the Channel strip and Master Section in the Main Mixer which means that all mixer parameters, including any Insert Effects, Dynamics etc., will also be applied to the monitored signal.
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Note that the Main Mixer parameters will only affect the monitored (and/or played back) signal - they will not affect the signal being recorded on the Audio Track.
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Depending on the technical specifications and/or settings in your hardware audio interface, the latency of the monitored input could become a problem. If this is the case, it’s probably better to monitor the input signal before it reaches the Reason Essentials program, i.e. directly on the external audio interface/mixer/preamp. If you don't want to monitor through the Reason Essentials program you should select "External" or “Manual” in the Monitoring section on the Audio tab in the Preferences dialog:
Each time you select and/or record enable an Audio Track in the Track List, monitoring in Reason Essentials will be automatically enabled. It’s possible to manually disable monitoring in this mode if you like.
This mode should be selected if you prefer to have manual control over monitoring, or when you are monitoring through external mixer or audio interface. In the latter case, you would select "Manual" mode and just don't click any monitor buttons.
When you select and/or record enable an Audio Track in the Track List, monitoring in Reason Essentials will be automatically disabled. It’s not possible to manually enable monitoring in this mode.
An audio track also features a built-in tuner function. The Tuner detects and displays the input pitch of a connected instrument - an electric guitar, for example.
When the input pitch is detected, the Tuner lights up and indicates how far the pitch is from the displayed note value to the right of the Tuner. The center LED on the Tuner Meter indicates a perfectly tuned note pitch. The green arrow LEDs on either side of the Tuner Meter indicate how the connected instrument should be tuned. The left arrow LED means raise the pitch and the right means lower the pitch.
The main purpose of the Recording Meter floating window is to provide a good overview of recording levels and/or tuner values when you are located some distance away from the computer screen. The Recording Meter mirrors the information from the input level meter and Tuner of the currently selected record enabled Audio Track.
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If you are using the Propellerhead Balance audio interface you can also press the Meter/Tuner button on the front panel to toggle the Recording Meter window on and off:
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If you have manually record enabled several Audio Tracks in the sequencer, you can choose which track to display in the Recording Meter window by clicking the right/left arrows on either side of the Audio Track name.
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See “Using the Tuner” for more information about the Tuner.
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When the recording is finished, the audio clip on the track shows the recorded audio as one or two continuous waves inside the clip, depending on whether the input was in mono or stereo:
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If you are recording using the Propellerhead Balance audio interface, you can utilize the Clip Safe function to protect your recordings from any accidental input signal clipping. The program can then take care of and heal any input signals that accidentally exceed 0dB.
See “Using the Clip Safe function with Propellerhead Balance” for more details.
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Note that the Clip Safe function can only be used when recording in mono (single audio input) and only on one record enabled Audio Track at a time.
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The Clip Safe LED on the Propellerhead Balance audio interface turns green. The CS indicator to the right of the input level meter on the Audio track is lit:
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We strongly recommend that you aim at -12dB maximum recording level, even if you are using the Clip Safe function. Recording high input levels will result in very loud audio on the track, which could be problematic to mix with the rest of the instrument tracks in your song.
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When the Clip Safe function is active, the Input Meter on the Audio Track, as well as the level meter in the Recording Meter window get their red LEDs replaced by yellow ones. The Recording Window also gets a Clip Safe symbol to the upper right:
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The red vertical line(s) at the top of the of the audio clip indicate that Clip Safe was activated since the input level exceeded 0dB. The selected audio clip also gets an additional Heal (CS) button on its upper right hand side:
You should hear this when the playhead passes over the red vertical line(s) in the audio clip. Sometimes, though, if the clipping is moderate it might not be audible.
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To permanently heal the audio clip and use the Clip Safe audio in the recording, click the Heal (CS) button to the upper right-hand side of the audio clip. Alternatively, select “Heal Clip Safe Clips” from the Edit menu or audio clip context menu.
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Now, the clipped/distorted audio have been replaced by the “padded” Clip Safe audio and the recording should not clip or distort anymore. The area above the audio clip disappears, as does the Heal (CS) button.
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If you like, you can zoom out using the Waveform Zoom Level buttons to view the resulting waveform in its entirety in the Audio Clip (see “Waveform Zoom Mode”).
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The healing operation can also be performed on several selected audio clips in one go. Just select the desired clips and click a Heal (CS) button on one of the clips.
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If you want to remove the Clip Safe parts and keep the clipped/distorted parts, just undo the healing operation using the standard [Cmd](Mac)/[Ctrl](Win)+Z command.
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If you want to permanently delete the Clip Safe audio and keep the clipped/distorted audio, select “Delete Clip Safe Audio” from the Edit menu or audio clip context menu.
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In Edit Mode, the audio clip will have the same graphical appearance (the clipped/distorted parts indicated by red vertical lines, plus the Heal (CS) button to the right in the Clip Overview).
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Recording audio in Loop mode is very useful if you want to record alternative takes of the same part of the song. For example, let’s say you want to sing a couple of takes of the chorus part of your song to later create The Perfect Chorus by selecting the best parts of the different takes.
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When the Song Position Pointer has reached the Right Locator, the recording starts over from the Left locator again and you can now record a second take. The audio recorded in the previous take won’t be heard but is saved in the “background” on a Comp Row.
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When the recording is finished, the audio clip on the track shows the last recorded audio take as one or two continuous waves inside the clip (depending on whether the input was in mono or stereo).
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If you recorded the last loop cycle throughout the entire clip length, the audio clip will be a Single Take clip. If you stopped recording the last loop cycle somewhere in the middle of the clip, the clip will be a Comp Clip.
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Otherwise, it opens in the Comp Editor right away. In the Comp Editor, you can see that there is one Comp Row for each of the recorded loop cycles (Takes):
From here, it’s easy to assign the best parts from the different takes and comp them into a final clip. See “Creating a comped audio clip” for details.
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If you have recorded using the Clip Safe function with the Propellerhead Balance audio interface, any clipped parts are displayed with vertical red lines above each Comp Row. If you decide to heal the audio clip using the Heal (CS) button or “Heal Clip Safe Clips” from the Edit menu or context menu of the selected audio clip, the recordings on all Comp Rows are healed in one go.
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Back in the tape recorder days, overdubbing was used to record additional takes on additional tracks on the same section of the tape, to create a complete arrangement. For example, recording a vocal chorus part could be done by overdubbing the singer three or four times on additional tracks. Overdubbing in Reason Essentials works in a similar way, but with much better control, and much better editing possibilities afterwards.
This will create a new audio track with a duplicate of the original audio track settings, including the channel strip settings (with insert effects etc.). Now, you can continue recording on the new audio track as described in “Recording audio” and “Recording audio in Loop mode”. Afterwards, you can edit the new track completely independently of the original track.
Closely related to the “Dub” function, described in “Overdubbing audio using the “Dub” function”, is the “Alt” function. This function can be used to create a new audio track with an identical copy of the selected audio track’s settings. The only difference between the “Alt” and “Dub” functions is that the Alt function will automatically mute the original audio track.
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This will create a new audio track with a duplicate of the original audio track settings, including the channel strip settings (with insert etc.). Now, you can continue recording on the new audio track as described in “Recording audio” and “Recording audio in Loop mode”. Afterwards, you can edit the new track completely independently of the original track.
If you start recording over an existing clip on an audio track, the new recording will incorporate (replace, but not erase) the previous recording in the clip. When you open the audio clip in the Comp Editor afterwards, there will be one Comp Row for each of the takes, the same result as when recording audio in Loop mode (see “Recording audio in Loop mode”).
The new recording is made over the original clip. The recording in the original clip has therefore been incorporated into the start of bar 5 to the end of bar 6.
You can also see that the clip has become a Comp Clip, as indicated by the symbol (gray dots) at the lower right corner of the clip.
The new recording has incorporated bars 5-6 of the original recording. However, the original recording in bars 5-6 has been left totally unaffected. The entire original audio recording now resides on the “Take 1” Comp Row and the latest recording resides on the “Take 2” Comp Row. The resulting clip will now play back the “Take 1” recording in bars 1-4 and 7-8. Bars 5-6 will play back the “Take 2” recording.
See “Creating a comped audio clip” for details on how to extract parts from individual takes and comp into a final clip.
Besides recording external audio from the inputs of your audio interface, it’s also possible to record audio internally from the outputs of Mix Channel or Audio Track devices. Typical applications for this could be re-recording of an audio track with effects applied, or recording when playing back an instrument or audio track while making live manipulations of effects or parameters.
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If you want to record the audio from an Instrument track onto an audio track, without making any live manipulations, you can also use the “Bounce Mixer Channels” function - see “Bouncing Mixer Channels”.
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The example below describes how to capture and record the audio from an ID8 device, but the general method can be used for other recording scenarios as well:
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You won’t actually be recording on the instrument track in this situation. However, you will need the instrument track to be able to play the instrument device from your connected master keyboard.
The “Rec Source” button on Mix Channel devices is used for real-time audio recording of devices connected to the Mix Channel device.
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All Mix Channel and Audio Track devices that have their “Rec Source” button enabled will appear in the list. In this example, we only have the Rec Source button active on the “ID8 1” Mix Channel.
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Select the instrument track, in this example the ID8 1, so that it has Master Keyboard Input (red frame around the device icon) and disable the “Record Enable” button.
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Don’t set Master Keyboard Input to the audio track - only click the “Record Enable” button on the audio track! This way, the ID8 1 instrument track will still have Master Keyboard Input.
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Play the master keyboard and set the input level to the audio track by adjusting the Level Fader on the ID8 1 Mix Channel strip in the mixer.
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A Volume setting of -0.0 dB on the instrument device and a Level Fader setting of -0.0 dB on its corresponding Mix Channel strip in the mixer is often the optimal setting to avoid audio signal clipping. As when recording external audio, it’s the track’s Input Meter that should be observed for any clipping.
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By using the recording method described above, it’s also possible to record the audio from previously recorded note clips on instrument tracks.
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Another useful feature is to record a real-time mixdown of several previously recorded audio tracks onto a new, additional audio track. This is sometimes also referred to as recording stems or sub-mixes. Let’s say we have four backing vocal tracks that we want to mix down and record on a new audio track. We can do this as follows:
This is the track we’re going to use for recording the mixdown. We name the track “Mixdown” to make it easier to distinguish.
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Locate the four backing vocal Audio Track devices in the rack, or their corresponding channel strips in the mixer, and click their “Solo” buttons.
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Since we’re going to record the four backing vocal tracks through the outputs of the Master Section, we only want the backing vocal tracks to sound. All other tracks in the song should therefore be muted.
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Selecting “Stereo” makes it possible to pan the backing vocal tracks in stereo before recording on the mixdown audio track.
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During recording, you might want to perform real-time adjustments of the backing vocal tracks’ channel strip parameters to create a “live” mix.
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Before you play back the song with the mixdown track, remember to un-solo the four backing vocal Audio Track devices/channel strips. Also, mute the four original backing vocal tracks in the sequencer to avoid “double” sounds.
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