Dr. Rex - working with slices

It seems like everyone is pretty comfortable these days with using the Dr. Rex and putting loops into their songs. Now let's take this all a step further and check out another way to work with Dr. Rex...slices!

Take a look at the main window of the Dr. Rex. What you are seeing is a waveform or picture of the actual sound wave of the sample you are using. If you look closely, you will see that this waveform is broken up into different sections. Each of these sections is called a slice.

When you hit the To Track button, Reason puts all of these slices into your song in order, so the whole sample plays back. BUT, if you want to, you can just play back the slices that you like using your keyboard.

When you load a sample into the Dr. Rex, the keys starting with C will all each have a slice assigned to them. You can play them the same way you would play the notes of another instrument.

So, today you're going to make a beat by playing the sounds from a Dr. Rex loop live. This is sort of complicated to explain, so we're going to work in a couple of steps.

Step 1

1. Start a new Reason file.
2. Create a Redrum drum machine
3. Make a SIMPLE drum beat using only a bass and a snare/clap.
4. Use Copy Pattern to Track to put the beat into your song for 2 bars (L marker on Bar 1, R marker on Bar 3)

Step 2

1. Now create a Dr. Rex
2. Find a drum loop that has some sounds you like and load it into the Dr. Rex (Reason Factory Sound Bank>Dr Rex Drum Loops)
3. Now find the keys on your keyboard that play the kick and snare from this loop.
4. Hit play and listen to your original Redrum beat.
5. Practice playing the kick and snare from the Dr. Rex along with the Redrum. The idea here is to play your drums at the same time as the ones in the Redrum.
   
6. When you've got it down, Record yourself playing along for 2 bars.
7. Quantize your performance to fix the timing.
8. Now MUTE the Redrum so that you only hear the Dr. Rex playing.

Step 3

Now I want you to fill out your song using the Dr. Rex. You can do this in a couple of different ways:

• You can make a more complicated beat from the drum loop you've been working with
• You can Create another Dr. Rex and load an Instrument Loop. Try playing different parts of the loop with your keyboard.

Save this as (your name)_drrexbeat.rns.  Put a copy in the Dropoff folder.