Basic Audio Routing

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After adding the SubTractor synth to the empty rack, flip the rack around to the rear view and see how Reason has automatically routed the SubTractor's output to Input 1 on the Audio In device. This is the most basic form of audio routing.

NOTE

A little reminder: By pressing the Tab key, the rack will also toggle between the front and rear views.

Keep in mind that the Audio In device represents your audio card outputs, and if you have only one stereo output, then you have only two channels. If SubTractor is taking one of them, how will you route audio from other devices you load into the rack? You need a mixer, and, luckily, Reason includes one called Mixer 14:2.

Next you'll learn to load the mixer into the rack and take a look at how to route devices with it.

As you can see, the mixer is not connected to any device. First you need to connect the SubTractor to the mixer.

Now you can connect the mixer to the Audio In device.

NOTE

Two cables will automatically appear. This is because Channels 1 and 2 of the Audio In device are a ganged stereo pair, and any device with a stereo output that is connected to either Channel 1 or 2 will be automatically routed in a stereo pair.

NOTE

You can also route by clicking and dragging cables. This is done by clicking and holding the end of a cable, dragging it to the desired location where you want to make the connection, and "plugging" the cable in by releasing the mouse button.

In most cases when working in Reason you will want to have a mixer loaded in the rack before loading any other devices. That way, when you do load devices, they will route to the mixer automatically. You could simply try to remember to load a mixer first, or to make it simpler, you could create a template song that has only a mixer loaded into an empty rack.

NOTE

Remember that you can then set the template to be your default sound when you start a new song (see "General Program Preferences" in Chapter 1).

Now you can route more devices to your audio card's outputs by using the mixer. In fact, you can load as many mixers into the rack as your CPU will allow (this goes for all devices in Reason). You'll learn about more advanced routing in Chapter 8, "Advanced Audio Routing with Effects."

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