The Producers Conference

Had an excellent experience last week when Propellerheads came to town to deliver 'The Producers Conference' at Confetti Studios in Nottingham.

Starting the event Danny McMillan showed the crowd that you need to think 'big' in order to get a big sound. Racing through the Redrum machine he quickly laid down simple drum patterns, added EQ units, then produced multiple duplications on individual channels to create a thick blend of percussive hits. Some of the copies were laden with distortion, creating the option of a dry/wet mix. After a bit of tweaking he had a very respectable result with numerous options of adjustment.

Second on was James Bernard who clearly demonstrated that we didn't need to all sit twiddling our thumbs waiting for Reason 4. A man clearly obsessed with multi-band processing, he impressed the crowd using his box of tricks including a homemade 8 band compressor which gave staggering results in a before/after test. James proves that if Reason doesn't already have it, you can always make it yourself. I say 'thank God James has already done it so we don't have to'.

Last but not least Kurt "Peff" Kurasaki gave an impressive talk on synthesizer technology and how musicians can get more out of Reason by understanding 'how things work'. Of most interest to myself was his demonstrations using CV control. At one point Peff was using the LFO on a Subtractor synth to modulate a volume fader on a mixer. This is the kind of technique that will really help me to develop my instruments, as I previously thought I was restricted to only using samplers and the effects units. I was quite inspired.

Overall it was a very useful experience. I'm a big Reason fan and was looking forward to the event, although expecting a masterclass in dance music creation. I was really pleasantly suprised when all 3 speakers took such an experimental approach and demonstrated some really innovative approaches and techniques to using Reason which I can use to develop this project.