Using the Phatboy with Reason
Setup
Make sure everything's correctly set up. The PhatBoy should be set to Mode III.
In Reason goto the menu Edit > Preferences. Select the MIDI setup page, and in the
Miscellaneaus area, select for Remote Control your soundcard midi input.
To make life easier, download the PhatBoy enabled default song.
Phatboy to Reason mapping
13 Phatboy knobs and about a hundred Reason parameters to control. So, how is it
done ? Well, simply by using the midi channels as parameter banks. In this way,
midi channel 1 (selected on the Phat Boy) controls the filter parameters of the
subtractor, midi channel 2, the subtractor amp parameters etc. The full mapping
can be viewed by clicking on the two tables below.
How to proceed
The main problem in Reason for using the Phat Boy mapping is that the programmed
knobs are only applicable to one device (e.g. one subtractor synth). If you make
a second copy of this device, the parameter mapping is not inherited. Moreover,
the parameter mapping is independent of the track that is selected for midi note
input. So if you would like to use more than 1 copy of a certain device, proceed
as follows :
For programming patches
Program the patch using the original Phat Boy'd device in the
PhatBoy default song.
Then, once programmed, copy and paste the device and use the copy (that
has lost the parameter mapping) for recording the tracks. You can now re-use the
original PhatBoy'd device to program another patch. The same goes of course for
the Phat Boy'd NN-19, Dr. Rex and Redrum modules. In summary, use the 4
pre-programmed devices for programming patches, but only use copies for your
tracks.
For live Phat Boy tweaking
Again, only the four original Phat Boy'd devices (plus the mixer) will respond
to phat boy input. For live tweaking of a certain device on a certain track,
follow the opposite approach to the one for programming patches. Let's take the
subtractor as an example again; you would like to control the filter cutoff of
subtractor nr. 3 in your song. In this case, copy the patch (not the device) of
subtractor nr. 3 to the phatboy subtractor, reroute the track temporarily to the
phatboy subtractor device and record the filter manipulations. Then reroute the
track to the original subractor nr. 3 synth.
If all this sounds a bit too confused, have a beer or two and repeat this action until everything is crystal clear (or go to bed).
Have fun....StartMan!