Reason 4 Mastering: How to get a Spectrum Analyzer in your mix with Ableton Live!

Quick video showing how to quickly setup Reason through Ableton via Rewire.
All versions of Ableton contain an audio plug in titled 'Spectrum'. This is a real-time spectrum analyzer that will show you what levels are being produced by each frequency band. My favorite is the 'Accurate Fast' setting for mastering. This allows a better reference when using the M-Class mastering suite to perfect the mix.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Reason
• Spectrum
• Analyzer
• 4.0
• Ableton
• Live
• Lite
• 8.0.9
• M-Class
• Mastering
• Combi

[tube4andy]

FYI, the Akai Live Lite edition doesn't accept plug-ins or Rewire (I think)...

[Antagonist2012]

@tube4andy

LOL kind of a redundant post... look at 0:14 , I created this video IN Akai Live Lite...

The analyzer isn't 3rd party - it's plug in that came with Live Lite, and obviously rewire is working as the audio is coming through the analyzer. 3rd party plug-ins do work, however, as I've used Antares Auto-tune and Rob Papen's Albino3 with Live Lite a few times.

[tube4andy]

@Antagonist2012

LOL - I was at work and I actually didn't even watch the video - I've been caught!

The reason I posted though, was because I have the Akai Lite Edition, and I wanted to download and use Samplelogic's Acoustix pack for live. I emailed Sample Logic and asked if I could use this pack on the Akai edition. The responded saying they'd spoken to Live who advised I would need to upgrade to at least the full live version... From that I assumed (wrongly) what I posted before...

Thanks!

[Antagonist2012]

@tube4andy

No problem. I would, however, suggest upgrading to the full version as well... reason being the limitations on live lite are the numbers of tracks... It's restricted to 4 tracks (not sure if it's 4 audio and 4 midi, or just 2 of each... been a while since I've used it), so if you're using it as a sequencer, it's going to show its limits very quickly.

[tube4andy]

@Antagonist2012 sure, I hear you. I just got Logic Studio instead of Ableton Suite and I'm wondering if I made the wrong decision there... setting up my Akai MPK88 would be much easier in Ableton... I do like the idea of scoring film which is supposed to be better in Logic... any thoughts before I install Logic and use that registration key?

[Antagonist2012]

@tube4andy

I will be sincerely disappointed if you decide to trade in for Ableton just for a bit of a break on the setup of your keyboard... Make your own custom preset on your MPK88! It's a pain in the ass, but it's truly worth it in the end... I don't know how it works with 3rd party VST's etc, but with reason it's beautiful to be able to just turn the control knob to 'reason' and push it in to set the patch.

Logic if you want to produce. Ableton if you want to make beats and mix.

[20tree]

nice one ! thanks for the info man

[Antagonist2012]

yeah, it's called rewire, it should be installed already if you've got both programs. The 'host' program (ableton in this case) should be opened first, and have an audio channel set up to rewire via Reason, then open your reason project.

[20tree]

can i use this to get my sounds basslines drums synth what have you into ableton after i made them in reason ?