[Charlie_M]

Ya the pencil allows you to draw in little lines into the drum lanes in reason. Every time there is a mark in the drum lane that drum gets triggered at that time. Take this in the right way but you seem new to this (so am I ) so I’ll suggest a few basic things that helped me to at least get things off the ground using redrum.

First of all I’d imagine that the sequencer (I think it’s called a pattern generator within redrum) requires a lot of skill and quality time spent with it to accomplish anything fancy, but for a straight simple rock (or other) groove it definitely offers a simplicity and precision that I found hard to duplicate using a midi controller (or the pencil!)

I thought I could put down a simple drum track using a keyboard input device. I tried that once and it sucked. Initially I avoided the sequencer because I didn’t want it to sound like a machine, but when a drummer friend of mine told me that sounding like a machine would be a step in the right direction compared to my initial drum track with the midi input device, I had to go back and have a rethink on that one. Sequencer is what I use now.

As far as actual use of the pattern generator in redrum: Once you get a pattern in there that you like, line up the L and R markers in the sequencer window with the exact beat where you want the pattern to begin and end. Then, with pattern selection enabled on the redrum device, right click on it and you’ll get a menu that offers you the option of copying the current pattern to trach. Select that and the pattern appears in the sequencer window between the L and R markers.

I’m still very much in learning mode with redrum. All of what I have said here, I know to be correct because I’ve done it (in the windows version – mac may or may not be the same). There may however be better ways to do all these things. Maybe a more seasoned reason user can chime in on that.

From your remarks I take it that you know how to get reason output into protools via rewire. If not, basically it goes in there as a plugin (under “instrument” plugin submenu). You do need to select an output within protools for the channel in order to hear anything (like any other channel in that respect).