Grateful Dead Music Forum

Im wanting to buy a midi controller and program for my laptop. I have no idea about that stuff, and i was wondering if you guys know any good midi controlls/programs. Im looking for something that has the STS9 feel, lotus, eoto, etc. A program that has those good trancy effects. Thanks

There are a lot of really nice MIDI controllers out there from very simple to ridiculously complex. M Audio makes a lot of very reasonable, nice units that are pretty straightforward as well.

As far as software goes, I like Reason. I learned it in audio eng. school and really had a good time with it. Relatively easy learning curve. The Propellerhead website is pretty helpful as well and there is a lot of good Reason forums and stuff out there on the web.

Since you mentioned STS9 I'm pretty sure those guys have said they use Reason and Recycle in the studio and then trigger samples running it live.

Can you get synthy spacy sounds with reason? And can you controll it from the midi plugged into the computer? I basically want what murph from sts9 has.

try the oxygen8 keyboard and reason 4.0 . thats a good starting combo and you can do a lot with it, including buying more sound patches and such...

I was into that stuff for a while, but it aint as great as plucking the six string!

Basically you set up your MIDI controller to control various channels, sounds, loops, etc from Reason. This are the basics of sequencing. It can get complicated very fast.

In Reason, or any of the other software packages, you have access to a very wide range of synths, sequencers, filters, modulators, delays, all of that shit. You can pretty much create any sound effect you want if you really know how to use the tools provided. Reason comes with a bunch of nice sounds and I think if you want to get into this kind of stuff it's a really good program.

The hard part for me was getting used to what buttons and keys on my MIDI controller was controlling what and setting it up as I wanted to. But that's part of the learning curve as well. Like I said, lots of great resources out on teh web for Reason as it is very popular.

The more you get used to it, the better your samples,sounds and loops will begin to sound. After a while of working it you'll come up with some really nasty shit.

Do you know how much reason is off the top of your head?