Ableton Forum

I use Live 8 with Reason rewired through it but from what I understand from other posts and my own experience that I can't assign midi controllers on my keyboard to Reason synths which is pretty annoying. I'm considering using VSTs instead with the hope of both simplifying the whole thing and putting less strain on my CPU and being able to midi map to VST synths. My questions are:
Would using VSTs instead of rewiring Reason ease up my CPU load?
Would I have any problems midi mapping VSTs in Live?

kobraki wrote:Would I have any problems midi mapping VSTs in Live?

I can't answer your other questions, but I can tell you midi mapping VST in live is REALLY easy

Turn your midi keyboard off in live in the preferences and make sure its on in reasons preferences, you cant use reason + vst at the same time its either one or the other, hope that helps

I suspect using VSTs instead of Reason will put more strain on your cpu.
Reason is very cpu friendly.

I don't know how many controls you have available, but there's always the possibility of setting your controller up to send
a selection of CC's through Rewire corresponding to Reason parameters (meaning that you only activate the controller in Live).
I've done this with my BCR: four knobs send the CC's corresponding to Reason's Combinator rotaries. This way I can simply
wrap any Reason device in a Combinator and control it that way. I basically do the same thing in Live: if I want tactile
control of a VST, I wrap it in a rack, and control the VST via Macros.

But of course, I have the luxury of a lot of knobs on my BCR, so there's plenty for Reason and Live to share...

Actually, henceforth, my BCR shall be known as Alotta Knobs.

I'm using an M-audio oxygen 61 so I don't have loads of kobs but enough for any one song that I might be playing live. How do I go about setting up CCs through Rewire? Will I be able to make quick changes on stage - like changing midi mapping when I change track in Live? I'm a bit of a novice with midi I'm afraid. I love this forum. very prompt and helpful responses.

kobraki wrote:How do I go about setting up CCs through Rewire? Will I be able to make quick changes on stage - like changing midi mapping when I change track in Live?

Nope - that's why you need to prepare this stuff in advance.
When you set up your controller directly in Reason, it's usually a breeze, cause it will connect to Reason via remote, so
it automatically maps to whichever device is in focus. Through rewire, on the other hand, you need to send specific CC
values (Thor's filter 1 will e.g. have one specific CC number, and the amp sustain will have another; see the
MIDI implementation chart). This is why I recommend wrapping stuff in Combinators, because you will only need eight controls (4 for the
knobs and 4 for the buttons) - they respond to CC's 71 through 78. Inside the Combinator, you hook up whatever parameter
you want to control to one of the Combinator's knobs, and you're good to go.

I'm assuming that the Oxygen 61 has the same controls as Oxygen 8v2 - i.e. 8 knobs. If I were you, I'd set up one preset on
the Oxygen with one set of CC's (let's say CC's 1 through 8 on channel 2 - it doesn't really matter what numbers you
use here), and another preset with CC's 71 through 78. Now you can set up preset number 1 for use with Live (i.e. use it
with instant mapping, which means that the eight rotaries will map to the eight macros of a Live rack, and these macros
you can in turn hook up to any VST parameter you'd like - just like in the Combinator in Reason - you'll find the info you
need in the "User Remote Scripts" folder in the Ableton application data folder). Preset number two will be for Reason.

having trouble finding the "User Remote Scripts" folder. I'm using Live 8 by the way.

What operating system are you on?
In Vista, the location is (user) > AppData > Roaming > Ableton > (Live 8.0.x) > Preferences > User Remote Scripts

In XP it's Documents and Settings > (user) > Application Data > Ableton > (Live 8.0.x) > Preferences > User Remote Scripts

Don't know the location on Mac OS.

kobraki wrote: Would using VSTs instead of rewiring Reason ease up my CPU load?

absolutely not. in most all cases ive heard or seen, reason will outperform VST when it comes to CPU

kobraki wrote: Would I have any problems midi mapping VSTs in Live?

no, not at all.

Couldn't find the application data folder for some reason but when I went into Run (I'm using xp) and typed "%APPDATA%" it opened. Gonna give stting this up a go now.

i quit reason and went suite for this very reason.

Jekblad wrote:i quit reason and went suite for this very reason.

Is suite really as good in terms of instruments though? I mean without having a degree in sound synthesis. The piano's and FX instruments in the combiantor are really good and are keeping me with reason to be honest.

i think so.

everything has a learning curve though...

kobraki wrote:Couldn't find the application data folder for some reason but when I went into Run (I'm using xp) and typed "%APPDATA%" it opened. Gonna give stting this up a go now.

it is hidden by default