Reason is by no means a mastering tool, it should be used for composition and mixing, after which you should render the audio files at the highest possible bit depth and sampling frequency your software and hardware can handle, for further processing outside Reason. Having said that, Reason does feature the tools required for advanced EQ:ing and compression - this can be useful if you're a fan of the RPS publishing format and want to add that 'finalized' quality to songs played straight out of Reason. You will find that many songs in the song archive utilize a single COMP-01 as master compressor and a PEQ-2 as master EQ. However, a single compressor might not produce satisfactory results, especially not on extremely intense material. Since it works over the entire frequency spectrum you will often get a "ducking" effect - i.e. one sound pushes other sounds out of the way. For example, a dominant ba** drum that looms high above the rest of the soundscape will prompt the compressor to inflict heavy damage on every beat, to the effect that all other sounds disappear out of 'hearsight' everytime the ba** drum is triggered. To overcome this problem you need a multiband compressor - it works like a battery of compressors, each handling its own slice of the frequency spectrum. Three bands (low, mid and high) is usually more than enough. Thanks to a couple of new devices in Reason 2.5, you can now build your own multiband compressor in the Reason rack. The procedure is as follows:
Create a 14:2 Mixer.
Create a Spider Audio Merger & Splitter. This will be used both to split the stereo signal from the master mixer output and to merge the signals
Create three BV512 Vocoders. Hold down Shift to avoid auto-routing (Reason will not guess right here).
Set all three Vocoders to Equalizer mode, 512 bands (FFT).
To divide up the three frequency ranges, use the sliders on each BV512's display. You need to cut all the bands except the ones that the Vocoder/EQ will be handling, so for the low range unit, leave the leftmost third (e.g. bands 1-10) as-is and pull the remaining sliders down to zero.
Repeat step 4 for range a**ignment of the mid- and high range BV512 units - a**ign the bands on the middle of the display (e.g. bands 11-22) to one and the remaining bands on the right side of the display (e.g. bands 23-32) to the other. (see illustration and .rns example below)
Create three COMP-01 compressors.
Create a Spider Audio Merger & Splitter.
Routing time: Mixer out to Spider Audio split input / Spider Audio split output 1-3 to BV512 #1-#3 carrier inputs / BV512 #1-#3 outputs to compressors #1-#3 inputs / compressors #1-#3 outputs to Spider Audio merge inputs 1-3 / Spider Audio merge output to Hardware interface.
For variation on this theme, try adding another pair of COMP-01 and BV512 and you get a multiband compressor with four bands (for example, low + low midrange + high midrange + high).
Or, you can try replacing each COMP-01 unit with a Scream 4 set to the Tape preset...
As a bonus, you can of course adjust the EQ bands on the Vocoders - together they serve as a master equalizer.
..from Propellerheads.se
