RUN buttons in the Mixer or Sequencer

[Darchon]

Hello all - old time lurker since Reason 1. I first want to thank everyone here over the years for their insightful and spirited discussions.

Including this first post in Reason General rather than Feature Requests, since I'm interested in discussion of the concept and don't see this materializing.

Is there interest to include dedicated track-specific RUN buttons in the Mixer or Sequencer? How about in the hardware world beyond our beloved DAW? To clarify, I don't mean clip launchers. I'm not asking for it to be automatable. I just want a button that starts/stops all of that specific track's pattern devices and players without being in the rack.

If you can forgive my GIMP skills and taking some liberties with Dr. Rex:

Reason Mixer Run Concept.jpg (411.17 KiB) Viewed 1036 times

As a Reason hobbyist, I just like to sketch generative, ambient, downtempo trance ideas without knowing a lick of theory. I enjoy getting some devices together and then performing "live" as the moment happens. Occasionally I'll record the audio live. More rarely I'll send notes or pattern changes to the sequencer. The point for me is to be spontaneous and let the magic happen without "fixing it in post."

So as I'm spacewalking, I want better control over the devices than just muting tracks from the mixer which negates in-line FX.
I end up scrolling up and down the rack to find that one device, player or combi and hit that RUN button which is uniquely situated on each. I rarely make it in time. Definitely not when simultaneous stops are needed. Alternatively I could indirectly automate RUN buttons through some contrivance:

I love players but I absolutely hate the RUN button.

I would love a feature inclusion where you can target the "Run" button on the Pattern devices directly

I've seen this frustration play out but here but I haven't seen this concept in software or hardware yet.

Again - thank you for your wonderful community.

[deigm]

How would this differ from solo > play?

[Darchon]

Let's say I have a pad playing. If I mute the track in the mixer, the sound cuts off immediately including any in-line effects like reverb tails. With a STOP (RUN) the instrument stops initiating, but the pad can finish evolving from the instrument, including any reverb tail.

Same deal starting up. If an instrument is playing and I unmute the track, it just goes full volume without any attack. With a RUN button, the instrument can start on the bar (if selected) and follow it's ADSR.

In a real band you don't manage a song by muting the musicians at the board; they hopefully stop and start playing at the right time. If not, well then we have that mute button!

I might not be the best at explaining, but I hope that helps explain the difference.

[selig]

Doing this from the mixer is not going to be easy since there isn’t a one to one relationship with mixer channels and pattern devices. Multiple Mix Channels may be connected to one pattern device (ReDrum), some won’t have any, and others may have multiple pattern devices going multiple places (triggering side chains, triggering other pattern generators, etc.

One solution may be to put each collection of “run” devices into a Combinator and add a big consistent RUN button to the front panel (in the same place on all). Then, if all Combinators are closed and placed logically in the rack you could possibly keep rack and mixer views open and work from there.

If you had even simple hardware with assignable buttons you could assign the run buttons to hardware (so you could run/stop from any ‘view’), but I can imagine just having one consistent and obvious button for each instrument(s) in the rack would be super helpful in itself for what you’re describing.

[dioxide]

You could Keyboard Map the Run buttons to keys 1-9 on your keyboard. That way with a single key press you can start or stop the Players while in Mixer view. You won't actually have a visible button but apart from that it will work the same.

[Darchon]

You could Keyboard Map the Run buttons to keys 1-9 on your keyboard. That way with a single key press you can start or stop the Players while in Mixer view. You won't actually have a visible button but apart from that it will work the same.

I love this idea and I will try it out! I think it would be faster than trying to custom wire a CV network for each project. I was looking to Hamu Newtrol and Enlightenspeed Launcheon REs to stay organized in a combi.

For the bigger concept, it's about having this level of track-dependent CV control baked in from the start. Similar to the CV flow thru players.