How does Rewire work for Renoise and Reason?

I just downloaded the demo for Reason as it seems like it’s full of synths and effects that would be fun to play with. I looked at the manual and I saw the pictures and information on Rewire but I don’t really understand all of it. Can samples played in Renoise be sent to Reason for processing? Can I sample sounds created in Reason? Is it only MIDI related? I saw that I could automate synths in other DAW’s. How does this work in the context of Reason, since it is full of all those patch cables and all?

Ty as always

Resaon can only work as a rewire slave, therefore you can not send audio into it from renoise via rewire, you can hover send it externally as an audio input in Reason, which can be done in software but the result wont be very pretty to work with.

The idea od rewire is you have a rewire master daw (rewire mixer) and rewire slaves (rewire instruments) that can be controlled with midi.

I just downloaded the demo for Reason as it seems like it’s full of synths and effects that would be fun to play with. I looked at the manual and I saw the pictures and information on Rewire but I don’t really understand all of it. Can samples played in Renoise be sent to Reason for processing? Can I sample sounds created in Reason? Is it only MIDI related? I saw that I could automate synths in other DAW’s. How does this work in the context of Reason, since it is full of all those patch cables and all?

Ty as always

Funny, I just logged in to ask a question about using Rewire between Reason and Renoise, and saw your question. I have only made one track with the 2 programs connected so I may do a poor job of answering your question but… I hope not.

Anyway. In my opinion, the best way to look at it is like this: when you use Rewire to connect these 2 programs, you still (have to) do all of your programming, composing, arranging, and automation in Renoise. Reason’s synths will be external MIDI instruments, so you can kind of look at it like you have Thor, Subtractor, Maelstrom, blah blah as VST instruments to use in Renoise.

So, you rewire them together, go over to your Reason window and load an instrument and patch, and then you go back to Renoise to play it, program in your parts, etc. But like gova said above, Reason can only act as a Rewire slave here though, so you can’t send your Renoise samples and patterns into Reason and compose the song there.

With all that said though, you can add Renoise’s “Instrument MIDI Control” device to the track where you’ve assigned one of the Reason synths, and that will allow you to automate/tweak things right there without having to go back to Reason. For example… if you load up Thor in Reason and are programming a bassline in track 1 of Renoise using said Thor, you can use the “Instr. MIDI Control” device in that track (while still in Renoise) to change the filter cutoff (or whatever).

I hope that made sense - definitely didn’t intend for it to be 4 paragraphs. heh

You can have midi and automation data in both daws running, not just the master daw, each controlling their own instruments.

If you’re running renoise rewire slave though, do to the initial Chase phase of the song position, you may loose the first line from playing and a pre-roll from the master daw will be required, as renoise does not preroll.

You can have midi and automation data in both daws running

Thanks for mentioning this, gova! I had no idea that automation in Reason would still work when Rewired, but I just tried with a filter and it works (of course). It clearly makes sense, now that I look at it: it’s the final output of the entire mix channel that is being passed through to Renoise, so since the automation is affecting a filter that then goes into the mix channel, you’d obviously still hear the automation. This is awesome - thanks again.

13^2, I hope you pop back into the thread. Good stuff here.