So after being a registered Renoise owner for over 7 years, I’ve FINALLY been messing around with using Rewire between Renoise and Reason. It’s a lot of fun, and I’ve already finished a track. But I have a specific question that I hope someone can help with.
So basically, let’s say on track 1 in Renoise I’ve assigned (I’ll make up some fake patch names) “ReWire: Reason - Lead 1” from Reason’s Thor and I’ve programmed a synth line. But then I think “Hmmm, I wonder if this part would sound better using the patch ‘Lead 2’ instead?”
Since the track in Renoise is not just assigned Thor the instrument, but the SPECIFIC patch (Lead 1), the only way I can figure out how to change the patch and be able to hear it in Renoise is to (Step 1) change the patch in Reason to Lead 2, and then (Step 2) go to the MIDI tab in Renoise and change the Output Device to “ReWire: Reason - Lead 2.”
Is there some way I can set this up differently, so if I change a patch in Reason I can still hear it playing in Renoise… without having to take the extra step of assigning it all over again?
Argh! Nevermind, I figured out a solution to my own question. If I put the Reason synth in a combinator and assign “ReWire: Reason Combinator” to the track, then I can change the patch whenever I want and it obviously keeps playing in Renoise.
I am currently thinking about purchasing a Renoise license. As I wanted to use it in combination with Reason, I found the issue described above really annoying. In every other DAW in which I tried Rewire with Reason, the midi connection “is not lost” when changing the instrument patch in Reason. The midi device is automatically reconfigured so that the connection persists.
Well, actually this workaround is not really satisfying, because there still remains one problem. What if I want to swap the whole combinator patch?
I investigated this a bit further today. My basic workaround for now is to rename the device once it is loaded into the rack, e.g. I rename a Subtractor device (on the left side) into Synth Bass. In this way, I can freely swap instrument patches within the existing device without losing the midi connection in Renoise. It is even possible to change from the mentioned Subtractor to a Combinator patch.
