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3 Recording and FX > Quantization
Quantization
I hope you saved your recorded material from Chapter 2. Remember that I had you play some stuff for four measures? What I’d like for you to do now is listen to what you played along with the Click. Does it sound like it’s in perfect time with the Click, or does it sound sluggish? Could it be better? Worse? Okay, regardless of the situation, I’d like to show you a trick that can save you a lot of editing time.
Remember when I had you move around and then delete notes in Chapter 2? This exercise was obviously helpful, but what if you could speed up your workflow even more and have Reason do some of the work for you?
Well, it can! The Quantization function is simple in the sense that you tell Reason what kind of notes you were playing (16th, 8th, 32nd, and so on), and based on what you tell it, it tries to take all those played notes and put them in the timing of the notes that you suggest.
Tip: If you’re new to music and don’t know the difference between the timing of a 16th note and an 8th note, let me fill you in on a secret: It’s almost always 16th! It’s true—if you listen to most pop songs, you’ll notice that there are never more than 16 notes played between each kick and snare beat! In fact, Reason is always set to quantize at 16th notes by default. So, odds are, quantizing anything you play will most likely set it up in perfect timing.
Here’s an example of using Quantize: I play some drums off my MIDI keyboard. While I’m playing, everything sounds great. Once I click the Stop button and play back my recording, I notice that the timing, while close, is very erratic. Maybe my hi-hat is a little lazy, my snare is a little fast. Also, I want this to sound good quick! In this case, I’ll do a drag-select around my played drums. Notice how the notes played appear to be slightly off the grid lines in Figure 3.1.
I’ll select the drum notes in need of help; then I’ll go to the Edit menu and select Quantize (or press Command+K on a Mac or Ctrl+K on a PC). Notice that now the notes played are perfectly lined up with the grid lines in Figure 3.2.
