How to use ReWire in Studio One

This article contains information regarding ReWire and Studio One

ReWire is a protocol that (among its other talents) allows two DAWs to be used together, so they act like one program — essentially, an entire DAW can become a plug-in (the ReWire client) for another DAW (the ReWire host). However, a quick glance at comments like the ones below hints that maybe people don’t quite understand why ReWire is so useful:

• “I sure wish Pro Tools had Ableton Live‘s cool looping and clip launch features, but I’m not about to switch over to a different DAW.”
• “I’m so happy ACID Pro is back, and that Magix included some “plug and play” instruments — if only it had some fabulous synths and drum computers.”
• “Ableton Live is great, but I really need to be able to work with notation, too. Maybe someday…”

Yet there are solutions for all those issues:

• ReWire Ableton Live into Pro Tools.
• ReWire Propellerhead Reason into Magix ACID Pro.
• ReWire PreSonus Notion into Ableton Live.

That’s all there is to it. For general information on ReWire, check out the article Upgrade Your DAW with ReWire. In this article, we’ll dive into a specific-use case — how to ReWire Propellerhead Software’s Reason into PreSonus Studio One. You’ll find most other programs implement ReWire perhaps not identically, but similarly.

As to the reason for focusing on Reason, no matter how good your DAW’s bundled instruments are, Reason is a worthy addition because of the rich roster of instruments that have been added over the years. It provides an entire backline of synth-heavy virtual instruments and effects.

By the way, you don’t need to learn everything about Reason to use it as a ReWire client for a ReWire host. All you need to do is send MIDI to Reason’s instruments and send the instrument audio outputs to Studio One’s mixer. Neither is difficult. There are actually several ways to access the tools in ReWire, which is maybe why some people find it confusing — so we’ll cover only what you need to know to have ReWire do what you want.

Loading ReWire Instruments

In Studio One, you’ll find the available ReWire clients under Instruments > ReWire. Drag a ReWire device to the Arrange view as you would any other instrument. In the dialog box that appears (fig. 1), you’ll have the option to Allow Tempo/Signature Changes and have Multiple MIDI Outputs (I check both). 

Figure 1: When you insert a ReWire device in Studio One, a dialog box appears.

Then, click on Open Application in the dialog box. With ReWire, you need to open the host before the client, and close the client before closing the host.

Using ReWired Instruments

There are two main options.

• Treat the ReWired instruments like any other virtual instruments — trigger sounds from a MIDI controller, or note data in Studio One. As with other virtual instruments, you can transform Reason’s instruments into audio tracks.
• Generate patterns within Reason, and record them into audio tracks. For example, maybe you’ve come up with a cool ReDrum loop that complements Impact and want to turn it into an audio loop for Studio One.

ReWire adds a slight overlay of complexity to Studio One, because you need to decide what workflow is best for you. This can involve a little head-scratching, but once you’re set up, it’s straightforward.

Important: We’ll make a few assumptions.

• You’ve opened Studio One and Reason.
• You have a working MIDI controller.
• You’ve loaded the instruments you want to use in Reason. For our examples, we’ll choose Malström, Thor, and SubTractor. (I created a Reason document specifically for ReWiring that opens with nothing in the rack except the Hardware Interface, with the Audio I/O open, and Master Section.)
• Reason’s Master Section output goes to Audio I/O audio outputs 1 and 2. This mixes all instruments down to a single stereo output, but we’ll find out how to mix and process instruments individually within Studio One.

The Simplest Option: Reason as a Collection of Virtual Instruments

This is simple and easy when you want to lay down Reason instrument tracks fast — e.g., you’re in the creative throes of songwriting. It takes advantage of the instruments showing up in the MixL+MixR output in Reason, which appears in Studio One when you ReWire Reason into it.

1. Because dragging Reason into Studio One created an Instrument Track, for the Instrument Track output choose Reason and the desired instrument as the Instrument output. In this, it's Malström.
2. Also choose the desired MIDI controller as the Instrument input. In this example, it's Native Instrument's Komplete Kontrol keyboard (KK MIDI in the screenshot above).
3. Play your controller, and the track meter should show activity.
4. In Reason, click on the associated sequencer track for the virtual instrument you want to hear. This prevents triggering other instruments.
5. Record the Instrument track note data in Studio One. Edit as desired.
6. Right-click on the track in Studio One's Arrange view Track column, and choose Transform to Audio Track. Unless you're sure you won't need to edit the Instrument track at some point, check "Preserve Instrument Track State".
7. To play a different Reason instrument, insert another Instrument track in Studio One.
8. In the Instrument track, choose Reason and the desired instrument as the Instrument output.
9. Repeat steps 3 through 8.

Note that when you transform an Instrument track to audio, Studio One creates a new mixer channel for the audio output. Also note that in Step 6, you can transform an Instrument track to audio by dragging the note data into an audio track. However, this doesn’t mute the Instrument track automatically, so it will trigger the instrument and you’ll hear the audio unless you mute the Instrument track. I usually prefer Transform to Audio Track.

Assuming you checked Preserve Instrument Track State, all the Reason instrument audio tracks can be transformed back into Instrument tracks if you want to do more editing. To do this, right-click on the track in the Arranger view track column, and choose Transform to Instrument Track.

Using as Real-time Virtual Instruments

Now that we have audio tracks, we can work with them individually. However, you may not want to render to audio after recording, but use Reason’s instruments as real-time, virtual instruments. In this context, you might want to automate their parameters, or do other tweaks, prior to transforming them to audio (or just leave them operating virtually).

To do this, you need to bypass Reason’s Master Section and patch the outputs of instruments you want to use to Reason’s Audio I/O section in the Hardware Interface module. Don’t let the name confuse you; as far as Reason is concerned, Studio One’s ReWire channels are hardware. Here’s how to patch instruments to Audio I/O.

1. Flip Reason’s “rack” around by hitting Tab, and then click on the Audio I/O button (outlined in orange in fig. 3). This reveals 16 available audio outputs, and after inserting the instruments, you can patch the instrument outputs to any of these. For example, in figure 3, Malström goes to 1+2, Thor goes to 3+4, and SubTractor, which has a mono output, goes to output 5.

Figure 3: Reason instrument outputs are being routed to the Audio I/O section.

2. In Studio One’s Instruments panel, under Reason, check all the channels you want to use — in this case MixL+MixR (which are Channels 1 and 2), Channels 3 and 4 for Thor, and Channel 5 for SubTractor, which has a mono output. Now all these outputs will be available in Studio One’s mixer (fig. 4).

Figure 4: Check the channels in Studio One’s Instrument panel for the channels you want to have appear in the mixer.

• Note 1: The only stereo channel that Reason exposes is MixL+MixR. You cannot, for example, take channels 3 and 4 and send them to a stereo mixer channel in Studio One; Reason’s outputs other than MixL+MixR are fundamentally mono. So in the mixer, you need to pan the two mono channels (3 and 4) left and right for stereo. I recommend naming the mixer channels to avoid confusion; because Studio One combined Reason Channels 1 and 2 into mixer channel 1, Studio One’s Channel numbers will be one less than Reason’s channel numbers.
• Note 2: When you bounce an instrument to audio or drag the Instrument track note data into an audio track, this can indeed result in a stereo audio track. At that point, you can hide the Instrument tracks or delete them if you don’t think you’ll use them again.
• Note 3: If you hear double-triggering with MIDI notes, turn off the Monitor function for the track on which you’re recording.

3. Now that you’re set up, record your tracks. Follow the same procedure as in the first example — insert an instrument track, send its output to Reason and the desired instrument, click on the instrument track in Reason’s sequencer, and then start recording. This time, though, don’t transform the track to audio.

If you eventually do want to render these tracks to audio, I find the most efficient method is to right-click on the Note Events and choose Bounce Selection or Bounce to New Track. This adds an audio track, creates an audio mixer channel, and mutes the original Note Events. You can unmute these later and redo the parts if you want to edit the parts further.

Recording Sound from Reason into Studio One

This is a somewhat more complex ReWire task: capture audio created by a sequence in a ReWire client. Suppose you’ve called up the Redrum drum computer, which is very much like those Roland drum machines of yesteryear, and created sequenced drum patterns that you want to record into Studio One as audio. Here’s how to do it.

1. In the Hardware Interface, patch Redrum’s left and right outs to a pair of Audio I/O channels (e.g., channels 3 and 4). This gives us a stereo out. Redrum also has individual drum outputs; using those is basically the same as what we’re doing, except you need to patch into more Hardware Interface outputs and create more channels in Studio One.

2. In Studio One’s Instruments panel, check Channels 3 and 4 (fig. 5, outlined in orange). Channels appear in the mixer for Reason’s output. Remember to pan them left and right to create a stereo image.

Figure 5: Redrum’s audio output goes to Reason interface channels 3 and 4. Tracks 2 and 3 record this audio into Studio One.

3. In Studio One’s Arrange view, use the Add Tracks command to create two mono Audio Tracks for Reason outputs 3 and 4. Assign their inputs to Instruments > Channel 3 and Instruments > Channel 4 (also in fig. 4, outlined in yellow). Turn off the Monitor button in the new tracks this created in Studio One’s mixer, otherwise you’ll hear the output that’s being recorded, as well as the output from the virtual instrument.

4. Record-enable the tracks, and you can record into them. Because the transports in a ReWire host or client are synced, if you start recording in Studio One, you’ll record whatever Redrum is playing.

After recording, you can mute the virtual instrument tracks or remove the Instrument track altogether so that you need deal only with the audio outputs.

More About ReWired Instruments

You’ll be happy to know there’s nothing you really need to learn in terms of automation — recording automation for the Reason instruments works the same way as recording automation for any virtual instrument. Just move the instrument knob or switch you want to control, then drag the hand down from Studio One’s Control Link section (which will show the parameter you selected) to either the track for track automation or the Edit view’s Part for part automation.

Finally, don’t forget that in addition to using insert effects in Studio One to process the instrument sounds, you can also patch Reason’s processors between the instrument outputs and audio I/O.

And that’s pretty much all you need to know about how to ReWire Reason into Studio One — but Reason is only one of many applications that can augment ReWire hosts. I think you’ll enjoy having an even bigger palette of potential sounds that integrates into the host like a super-plug-in!