Monthly Archives: January 2019

There are many different ways to remix a song in Reason, but today I want to take about how to remix a song (or loop/sample) in Reason using Dr. OctoRex. Dr. OctoRex is a very powerful loop player, but by digging just a little into its other features you can really transform your source material.

For the purposes of remixing in Propellerhead's Reason, a lot of people first turn to high pass or low pass filters to isolate certain parts of the sound. For example, if you've got a drum loop, and you don't want the kick, you could use a high-pass filter to cut out all the lows. But this might affect the timbre of the snare. It's a tried and true technique.

And it can be great, but I want to talk about another technique you can use. Instead, I like to first experiment with Dr. OctoRex's ADSR envelope.

In an ADSR envelope:

• The A stands for Attack (how long for the sound to start)
• The D stands for Decay (how long for the sound to hold)
• The S stands for Sustain (how quickly the sound fades)
• The R stands for Release (how quickly the sound releases)

For our purposes, you really only need to worry about the Attack and Decay function. So if you want to make a loop have less attack, increase the Attack. Depending on how the loop is sliced, this could cut out entire instruments. Similarly, if you only want the attack, reduced the Decay. 

Watch the video to hear how the sound changes!