Recreate a beat - part 1

This is the first part of a 3-part lesson where you will be remaking the beat to "Dumb It Down" by Lupe Fiasco.

First, listen to the song to get familiar with it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Et1siZhTk

What kinds of sounds are being used here? Specifically, how would you describe the drum sounds?

OK, so let's take a crack at this...

1. Launch Reason and create a new session (File>New)
2. Right off the bat, let's give this a file name ("Dumb It Down_your name") and save it into our folders:
(File>Save As>My Documents>ADP Audio1 Chris Runde>Reason Stuff>Dumb It Down_your name)
3. Now let's set the tempo to 95 BPM.
4. Make sure that you have a Mixer 14:2 in your rack. If you don't, then create one by either clicking on it in the Tool Window, or going to Create>Mixer 14:2.
5. Once you've got a Mixer 14:2, then go ahead and create a Redrum Drum Machine.
6. Now let's load some drum sounds into the machine. You can load sounds into each of the 10 slots on the Redrum by clicking on the Browse button in each one. This will bring up a window where you can search for the audio files. All of the sounds for this project can be found under
Reason Factory Soundbank>Redrum Drum Kits>xclusive drums-sorted.

Here are each of the four files I want you to load into the first four slots of your Redrum:

Slot 1 - BassDrums>Bd3_Riot.aif
Slot 2 - Bass Drums>Bd_Xtc7.wav
Slot 3 - SnareDrums>Sd2_HardKnox.wav
Slot 4 - HiHats>Hh_Xfile2.wav

7. Now that we've got our sounds loaded, we can begin to build our first drum loop. Let's start with the snare...

• Press the Select button at the bottom of Slot 3 (Sd2_HardKnox).
• In the sequencer section of the Redrum, click on squares 5 and 13 and hit play to listen.
• Next, hit Select on Slot 1 (Bd3_Riot).
• In the sequencer, click on squares 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, and 12. Starting to sound like an actual beat, right? Now, for the final touch let's add some hi hat...
• Hit Select on Slot 4 (Hh_Xfile2) and in the sequencer, click on squares 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, and 16. Sounds fairly close to the real song, right? Sorta? Kinda?
  

8. OK, so it's cool that we've got our beat happening in the drum machine itself, but what we need is to get the loop down into the sequencer window. Do this to make that happen:

• First, set your Loop Markers (the L and the R). Put the L marker on the 1, and the R marker on the 2.
• Now click on the Redrum track on the left of the Sequencer window and make sure that it is highlighted.
• On the Redrum machine itself, find where it says Pattern and click on the number 1 (it should already be lit up).
• Now go up to the top of the screen and go to Edit>Copy Pattern to Track. If you've done all the above steps, you should see a colored box appear down in the Sequencer window. Yes?

9. Hit play and listen. Does it sound a little funky? It should, because Reason is actually trying to play back two versions of the drum loop at the same time. Let's turn off the one playing from the drum machine's onboard sequencer; click the box that where it says Enable Pattern Selection.

10. Save, save, save!!! (File>Save).

Alright, congratulations! You just your first Reason drum loop and completed the first part of the Dumb It Down beat. Move on to the next lesson to learn how to switch the beat up...