Creating live sessions in Reason

Creating live sessions in Reason is very easy. You just stack up devices which have the RUN option and assign each to separate controller of your MIDI Surface. 

Even better approach would be to organize your segments into combinator patches and use the Run Pattern Devices button on each - that way it would be much easier to orientate yourself into the session`s setup, if you haven`t opened the file for a long time. You can also use one physical knob to control multiple effects.

Assigning midi controllers to the devices in Reason is easy – just right click on the desired virtual rotary / button… etc. and select Edit Remote Override Mapping… 

Then put a tick on Learn From Control Surface and just twist the physical knob / press the physical button… etc. that you wish to use for controlling it. If the  Input Control Surface Activity meter displays any activity, that means your selection has been recognized and the only thing left to do is to press OK. 

You can create folder for the live session which will contain all of the session`s segments (combi patches). It can be updated with new patches easily at any time. You just load one patch from it into the combinator, and then change it by selecting the previous or next option of it`s file browser. That way you can make extremely long sessions without tiring your CPU. You can also make separate folder for interchanging beats or effect patches (beat repeaters, global ECF, etc...).

Example combi patch setup.

You can set the controls for toggling the previous and the next combinator highlighted and for the previous and the next patch selection of the highlighted one to be made with specific buttons of your MIDI Surface as well - just go to Options -> Additional Remote Overrides...

When you play live sessions that way, you will need at least two combinator devices pointed at the same folder. While one plays, the other one loads the next patch. If you play the combi patches in order with the next option of the browser, you will notice that you are always having to hit next twice, which will double the loading time. It would be better to setup your segments in a way in which one combinator uses only previous, while the other uses only next, starting from the middle of the combi list and moving away from each other.

You can control the rotaries / CV inputs  of multiple combinators with a single one through CV. This can be done by routing the Thor Modifier`s CV signals to CV splitter and then to the combinator` CV inputs.

That`s basically it. Now you can setup your own unique live session template.