Creating Songs

Creating a new Song

To create a new song, hold down [Ctrl](Win) or [Cmd](Mac) and press [N], or select “New” from the File menu.

A new Song document window appears. By default, the new Song contains the following:

•	The Reason Essentials Hardware Interface.

•	The Main Mixer Master Section with its Master Section device in the Rack.

The Master Section device’s Master Out L & R are connected to the Reason Essentials Hardware Interface’s Audio Out 1 & 2.

•	The Transport Track at the top of the Sequencer.

Instead of creating an empty song each time you select “New”, it’s possible to automatically load an existing song to use as template for your new songs. For example, if you want to start with your own unique selection of devices, you can create and save a song and then instruct Reason Essentials to use this song each time you create a new song. See “Setting up a Default Song”.

An alternative to creating a new song is to use the “Create New from Template” command to open one of the factory made Template Songs. See “Creating a new Song from a template”.

Setting up a Default Song

It’s possible to specify a certain Song document which will automatically open as a “template” each time you select “New” from the File menu. The Default Song could be any Song you have created earlier, or a factory made Template Song. You can select this Default Song on the “General” tab in the “Preferences” dialog.

1.	Select “Preferences” from the Edit menu (Win) or “Reason Essentials” menu (Mac) and then click the “General” tab.

2.	Click the “Template” radio button in the “Default Song” section.

3.	Click the folder icon to the right and select the Song you want to use as a template when creating new Songs.

Each time you create a new Song (by selecting “New” from the File menu), the selected Song will be loaded and used as a template for your new Song. On Windows platforms, the Song document will be named “Document n” where “n” is an incremental number. On Mac OS X platforms, the document will be named “untitled n” where “n” is an incremental number. You can then save your Song with a new name.

Make sure the “Load last song on startup” checkbox is not ticked, otherwise the last song will be opened instead of the Template song!

Creating a new Song from a template

To create a new song from a Template, select “New from Template” from the File menu and then select one of the Template Songs that appear in the sub-menu.

The selected Template Song appears in a new document window. On Windows platforms, the document will be named “Document n” where “n” is an incremental number. On Mac OS X platforms, the document will be named “untitled n” where “n” is an incremental number. You can then save your Song with a new name.

You could also create your own Template Songs and make them appear in the sub-menu. See “Making a Song appear as a Template Song”.

You can also download more Reason Essentials Template Songs by selecting “Download more Template Songs” from the Help menu.