Eight Track LR

Miscellaneous files for music production setup Eight Track LR.

With Eight Track LR, we combine the best of both worlds of the two DAWs Ableton Live and Reason. We use the superior sequencer and unique session mode of Live to control rack devices in Reason via MIDI messages, to use Reason's exellent collection of virtual instruments and effects.

Why not just use the Reason VST in Live?

There are two advantages over just pluggin in the Reason VST in Live:

Ability to connect Reason rack devices across tracks

One of the features that make Reason stand out is the ability to freely connect rack devices with virtual audio and control voltage (CV) cables. If you use Reason as a plug-in in Live, you cannot easily connect devices between separate instances of the VST plugin on different tracks.

With Eight Track LR this is very easy. Because you only have one Reason rack, you can connect devices freely with audio or CV cables, just as you would be if you used Reason's built-in sequencer.

Ability to use different Reason devices (or even songs) within the same track

If you use Reason as a VST plugin with Live, by default you will have only one or two instances of Reason per track—one instrument rack, perhaps one or two instances or Reason effects rack.

What if you wanted to combine several Ableton Live Sets into one big Live Set, each set with its own Reason VSTs? If you used Reason VST, this will be tedious work. You will have to find a way to switch between different Reason racks per clip, e.g. by wrapping the Reason racks in drum racks.

With Eight Track LR, it is doable with less hassle, using Bome MIDI Translator Pro. On a Mac, you create several IAC MIDI ports to route MIDI messages from Live to Bome, and 4 ports to route messages from Bome to Reason. Bome takes care of routing the messages.

This way, you can have clip 1 on track 1 play one Reason device in stand-alone Reason and clip 2 on the same track plays another Reason device.

Because Reason allows you to open several songs simultaneously, you can even have clip 1 control the rack in Reason song 1 and clip 2 on the same track controls the rack in Reason song 2.

You can use up to eight different Reason devices or songs per Ableton Live track.