My Reason History

Yo, I thought I would start this blog out with a little history and then, next time, talk about my Reason 4 set-up. Since part of my aim with this blog is to further the hip-hop game through Reason, I thought that I'd better explain how I get down in case some new cats wanted to follow along.

Back when I started in '91 or so, there were no DAWs, at least so far as I know. It was all about gear and records and actual studios. I used tactile gear for the longest and eventually my apartments started to look like used gear shops. Plus, I was always broke because I was always gear-chasing and buying records and studio-time. I've been through them all, MPC(s), MV-8000, EPS, E4K, Triton, RM1-x, RS-7000, whatever. When DAWs came out I was like, "nah." Yup, I was one of them dudes that whined about the sound not being the same, the swing not being the same, wanting to bang on pads, yada-yada.

One day I bought a laptop with Reason 2 already installed on it. A year or so later, I actually opened it and played with the Redrum and thought, "Yo, this sounds kinda crunchy!" Soon after, I MIDIed up my MV-8000 to it and started using the sounds. Eventually it got to be too much of a hassle and I started looking at the Reason sequencer. Yo, that was it son! I copped Reason 3, then 4 and I ain't looked back since!

In the last couple years, cats have been saying the same thing when we talk beats. They ask me what gear I use and I tell them just Reason 4. A lot of them assume that I'm using hardware and some mastering software because of the "authentic" hip-hop sound that I get. The only reason that I can come up with is that I had my ears trained using all that old hardware. When I started using Reason I just naturally pursued that sound. I never heard all that mess about Reason just being for techno so I didn't get swerved. I hope to show interested parties some of the techniques I use when I do beats..

I think we're just about done here for now!