One of the things I am quite interested in learning to do is a sort of atmospheric music, or like an atmospheric soundscape. It's because I am also an animator, and I would like to try and create some music to play in the background for my films ... an inspiration I got was the background music from games like Hitman or Metal Gear Solid which has some little beats, but they don't take all the attention, and most of all create these 'moods'.

If this is something I want to use Reason for, which devices would be of special interest in learning? I can imagine that it would be some devices that imitates the sound of violins perhaps or other tones. Most of the tutorials I have found mostly explains how to make beat-oriented-songs but not a special mood with the music.

I think, this is not easy to answer. I have made some chillout music like "Café del mar" (if you know this). What I can say is, that nearly every Reason device could be useful for this. For violins and other orchestral sound the best thing of course is the NN-XT and some orchestral presets (the standard orchestral refill which is shipped with Reason is a good start). But I also used many synth sounds. Another thing is inspiration and ideas: When I do beat oriented techno productions, I can start with no idea and create good stuff just by playing around and experimenting with all the possibilities of Reason. But when I want to do some athmospheric stuff, I need an idea (a melody or something like this) BEFORE I start. Maybe, this is only with me so.

Thank you. I will try to walk along the path you pointed out and see what I find out. This whole world is totally new to me.

I am a great fan of ambient music myself, and I tend to use the synths to create those sounds. Even if you take a lead voice and change the attack you can get great pad sounds. There are also some nice combinator patches that are great for atmospheric sounds.

Of course the samplers can achieve the same effects, I just prefer using the synths; the Thor is amazing IMHO

Hmm... what are these synths exactly? I am VERY new to this, so I only think in "Ok, add Redrum, make beat, yup, add some device, maybe a matrix for it, create a melody, put it all together ..." It seems that these synths is a special group of devices?

I have never tried Thor, since I have only experimented with Reason 3.

You have the Subtractor and the Malstrom synthesizers in reason 3. The subtractor is easier to play around with for a start. If you need any help, I am available on msn in some evenings, mrjimi@passport.com

Is anyone familiar with Biosphere or Robert Rich (maybe even Beyond Sensory Experience ) to give a setup hint for such direction (long shot but I guess is not a sin to ask) !!

charos,

yes, I know boisphere, and you need loads of nice pads, FX s and some industrial patches and set bpm to between 80 and 120

I myself haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking about taking a few subtractors or maelstroms and throwing them in a combinator with fx and different amp envelopes. Still getting my feet wet

Thanks for the info m8.Well , my problem is that I cannot figure properly the chain effect (to link) the FX and pads to delays,rpg's,ecf's etc. and it seems very challenging. Bitword Wavefront refills seem a good starting base for pads and FX but I am still trying to figure out a good chain !