Cinematic Sound Design in

Propellerhead Reason
Hollin Jones on Mar 20, 2015 in REASON 0 comments

Creating effective sound design for film or TV doesn't require you to

have the most expensive instrument libraries. In fact, Propellerheads
Reason has more than enough for your atmospheric needs.
When it comes to designing sounds for film or TV projects, you might think that you need top-end
virtual instrument libraries, but its quite possible to do it with your copy of Reason and a little
creative know-how. Of course, there are all kinds of film music and we cant cover all of them, so
were going to look at the classic minimalist, atmospheric tones that are popular these days and how
you can use Reasons modules to create them.

No Video Playback
Reason doesnt support video playback natively yet, which is a little frustrating and obviously a
decision taken by Propellerhead because technically it cant be hugely difficult for them to
implement if they wanted. However, since you can load your movie in QuickTime Player or
Windows Media Player, you can run it alongside Reason as you compose. There will be added steps
at the end when you have to layer the music into the video file using a movie editing package but
thats just how it goes at the moment. Load up a blank project and set a tempo. Even if youre not
using rhythms yet, pick a BPM anyway. You can change this later.

Atmospheres
Load your movie in your media player, on a second screen if at all possible. If its a scene or clip it
might be worth looping it so you dont have to keep restarting it. Now load up a synth and reset it to
zero. We have started with the Malstrm because its good at atmospheres. Dial in a couple of
waveforms into the two oscillators and mix them together using the blend controls until you find
something that sets the mood. Its important here to work with the ADSR envelopes for each
oscillator because they control the way in which sounds come in and fade out. Soundtracks often
require sounds that drift in and out, and setting the Attack, Sustain and Release sliders is crucial to
getting this right. Spend some time on your synth sound. Its usually better to have fewer sounds but
ones that work perfectly for the atmosphere youre trying to create.

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Effects
Your sound will initially be completely dry but you can use effects just like you would when
writing songs to make the sound more immersive. In scoring this is crucial to setting the mood. In
this case were going for menacing and dark so we have added an RV7000 reverb with a medium
density reverb patch and then dialed the dry/wet down a little so that the signal has some space but
also doesnt get swamped in reverb. We have then added a Scream 4 distortion and loaded up a lo-fi
preset, and this time turned the effect blend down pretty low so that just a small amount of warming
and shaping is taking place. By adding just these two effects we have already made the sound much
more cinematic.

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Drums
You might want to add some rhythm to the part, but not necessarily the kinds of drums you would
use for a regular song. Either of Reasons drum modules is good, but here we have used Kong since
it is particularly good at brooding electronic percussion sounds. After loading an electronic kit,
identify which pads contain the kinds of sounds you want to include. To a click, punch in some
sparse beats over your synth part. They dont have to match up like a normal song would; the
important part here is the feeling. So while the beat should be in time with itself, it doesnt have to
syncopate exactly with the synth textures. Use Kongs editor section to tweak each pad sound, its
levels and effects to get the right feel.

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Using Conventional Instruments

Even conventional instruments can be used to make weird soundtracks. Here we have loaded up an
NN-19, one of Reasons oldest and simplest modules, and loaded a basic piano patch. To make it
more interesting, the sample start knob has been altered for a much slower attack, and the filter

section has been tweaked to take some of the sharpness out of the very high piano notes that have
been recorded. Then an Echo unit has been added with a spacy preset dialed in quite low to add
movement and depth, and finally another filter unit to roll off a little more of the harshness of the
sound. The notes played work in the context of the clip. Again, its about simplicity and
effectiveness rather than overwhelming the listener.

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Tempo Automation
One good tip is to use tempo automation between sections of music. Lets say you have several
scenes that all need music of differing style and speed. Rather than creating multiple Reason
projects, use tempo automation to vary the projects speed between scenes. This way you can export
the whole lot at once or at least minimize the number of different projects you need to create. When
youre done, use the Filemenu to export either a section of music or the whole track depending on
how you have put it together.

You might now need to send the music to your video editor or if you are doing the project yourself,
you will need to place the music into your master video project as Reason cant currently do this. At
a pinch, free basic movie editors are available and you can use QuickTime Player Pro 7 (though not
the newer QuickTime X) to paste a new soundtrack into an existing movie file. If possible though
you really ought to use a specialized video editor.

Just something I knocked up in a few minutes, but you can see the potential.

This has been a quick demonstration of how easy it can be to use Reason to generate some
cinematic soundscapes and music tracks. With a little synth know-how and careful sound selection
and tweaking plus the correct application of effects, the sky is the limit and you dont need to spend
a fortune to do it!