How to ReWire Individual Reason Instruments into Logic Pro
Reason doesn’t offer users the greatest control over sound processing. The built-in reverb, compressor and so on will do the trick when you want to start composing a new song, but what about when the composition is done and it’s time to mix?
In this tutorial, we’ll go through the steps required to get your entire Reason rack routing into individual channels in Logic, a simple, handy process, but one that’s a dark and mysterious art to many newcomers.
Step 1
Open Logic and set up a new project. Once that’s loaded, you can fire up Reason. Open the apps in this order. Do not change the order around because the Rewire host needs to be loaded before the client.
Step 2
Create a Redrum unit and an NN-XT synth in Reason. Try making some sound with them—you won’t hear anything because Reason has detected that a host is present and set up a Rewire connection.
Step 3
In order to hear anything, we need to finish that Rewire connection on Logic’s end. Click on the Mixer tab and add two new stereo auxiliary channel strips (this option is under the Mixer’s Options menu). Set the input of one to Reason’s channels 3 & 4 and the other to Reason’s channels 5 & 6.
Step 4
In Reason, press Tab to flip to the back of the rack where you’ll see the wires connecting the inputs and outputs of various devices in the Reason rack.
Move the left and right output wires of the Redrum device out of the mixer and attach them to channels 3 and 4 on the rack device marked “Hardware Device” at the very top.
Do the same with the NN-XT’s outputs, attaching them to 5 & 6.
Step 5
You should now be able to hear these instruments. If not, check your faders in the Logic mixer. If you’re going to use Reason like this without recording the instruments to straight audio later, right click on the two aux tracks in the mixer and click “Create/Select Arrange Track” to have the channels appear in your main Arrange window.
Step 6
You can now apply inserts on the auxiliary tracks so you don’t have to use Reason’s terrible reverb unit or any other effects. Select the track in the Arrange window and you’ll see the channel strip settings bar on the left.
Under Inserts, click and hold an empty slot until a menu appears with the various plug-ins available to you.
If this is enough for you, you can stop here. If you’d rather commit the Reason instruments to audio once the samples have been selected and the instruments all sequenced and finalized, go on to the next step.
There are quite a few reasons you might want to do this, though keeping your sequenced audio in the sequencer is best unless you have a specific reason. It’s still important to learn how.
Step 7
Create two audio tracks using the Track > New menu option. Set their inputs to bus 2 and bus 3 (these are arbitrary numbers, of course).
Now go to your aux tracks for the Redrum and NN-XT and set their outputs to bus 2 and bus 3 respectively.
Step 8
Under Project Settings, go to the Record tab and select “Record pre-roll” with 0 seconds, instead of the count-in option. Count-in wrecks the ability to record from Reason if you’re starting from the first bar of the song (at least for me).
Press record to commit your Reason instruments to audio and you’re now able to edit and chop them up just like any other recorded audio.
If you’re wondering why one would route individual instruments through Logic in order to mix them, listen to the difference in this audio sample. The first four bars are straight out of Reason, and the second set of four bars plays the same audio with Logic’s much better effects processing the signal.
It’s clear that Logic’s audio processing is far better than Reason’s.
Comparison between Reason & Logic processing
Enjoyed this Post?
Subscribe to our RSS Feed, Follow us on Twitter or simply recommend us to friends and colleagues!
By Joel Falconer
Join our newsletter!
Create a Tutorial, Get Paid!
Have something to teach the world? Want to earn money doing it? Tutorials, screencasts, and articles published here on Audiotuts+ are largely contributed by readers just like you! We'll pay you great money for good content. Find Out More
this is good stuff to know for sure! I rewire ableton live through logic and cannot believe the difference…as soon as my track are playing through logic, its like hearing my mix in 3-D!
Thanx for this article, I had almost given up Reason and consigned it to the bin until now.
The sound output from Reason is awful on its own. I use ableton now as it rewires easliy and is great for drums and live cut samples. Logics sound engine gives a nice boost to most instruments and makes Reason usable again without having to increase velocity, gains and volumes too much. I am glad I found this site, the info is great.
This great stuff i was alittle confused on how to do this. Now i can use reason and logic pro tomake my tracks and still record vocals. Thanx big time.
I just switched from using Reason as a primary production app to Logic Pro so I appreciate this worlds! Thank you.
Hi there… thanks for the great tutorial and the site in general!
Maybe you’d like to control your reason instruments midi-wise through Logic as well. Here is a video tutorial I found on youtube that tells you how…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Lou-KCEQQ
cheers,
t
I’ve just found out logic!
I needed ’bout that!just great!!
Is there a way to control Reason as a midi instrument through Logic 8. I am trying to recreate a song from Pro tools(created with reason) in Logic without re-recording each track as audio, but rather midi?
thx
I succeeded in playing through Logic and even making audio tracks that worked. But I couldn’t record them as the button was missing. It was there if I changed the Input of the audio track to keyboard/midi but when I was trying to record the input from the auxillary tracks onto the audio the button disappeard. Maybe it is my Mac problem :(
but nice tutorial thanks.
magic! i can usually find my way. but logic has me boggled sometimes. this really helped me. i cant thank you enough.
great! i just got a little problem… i can’t rewire my reason, i’ve loaded the apps in the right order but reason still loads with the built-in audio instead of rewire. Is it because i’ve got Reason 3 or may be my Mac’s problem??? what can i do?
thankx
great information lots of articles that really are helpful and to the point every body is helpfull and learn from each other
peace and continue success
Great Post. THanks
This explanation helped me many times but on the occasion I am kinda stuck as I have already a project near complete in Reason but jus want to use Sylenth in Logic. I have my 2 aux channels set up in Logic and jus need to finish off the wire but not sure what to put into 3/4 and 5/6. Is it my mastering suite or my 14:2??? Please help I am pulling my hair out !
I keep coming back to this article, its brilliant and gives me reason to use Reason!!! Thanks for such a well written, clear article! Happy producing to you all.