Reason 13.1 Operation Manual
DAW | Rack Plugin
ID8 Instrument Device
The ID8 Instrument device is a synth module packed with great sounds - ideal for quickly creating nice complete arrangements. The sounds have been extracted from various Reason devices and ReFills to guarantee supreme audio quality.
#The Sounds
The ID8 contains 36 presets divided into nine categories, with four sounds in each category. The categories are these:
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Piano
The Piano category features a grand piano, an upright piano, a dance oriented piano sound and vibes.
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Electric Piano
The Electric Piano category holds two classic electric piano sounds plus a digital FM type piano and a Clav.
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Organ
The Organ category contains two classic tone-wheel organ sounds, one transistor organ sound and a pump organ.
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Guitar
The Guitar category sports an acoustic steel string guitar, a clean electric guitar, a half-acoustic jazz guitar and a dulcimer.
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Bass
The Bass category features one fingered and one picked electric bass, an acoustic upright bass and a synth bass.
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Strings
The Strings category holds orchestral strings, arco strings, a small string section and a choir sound.
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Brass-Wind
The Brass-Wind category features Fat Brass, Brass Section, French Horns and Flute.
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Synth
The Synth category contains two classic monophonic synth lead sounds and two characteristic polyphonic pad sounds, one with fast attack and one with slow.
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Drums
The Drums category sports four extensive combinations of drums and percussion instruments aimed at different musical styles. Each “drum kit” contains between 53 and 65 different instruments, so there is plenty to choose from!
See “Velocity mapping” for information about the velocity mapping of some of the sounds.
#The ID8 and Standard MIDI Files
The ID8 device is used by default when you’re loading a Standard MIDI File into the Reason sequencer. For every MIDI track in the imported file, you will get an ID8 device loaded with a sound that resembles the original sound. This serves as a starting point to be able to play back the imported MIDI file. However, you could of course change sound, or replace the ID8 with another instrument device afterwards.
#Selecting Sounds
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Select Category by clicking the Up/Down buttons to the left of the Display.
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Select Sound in the selected Category by clicking on any of the A-D buttons, or by clicking on the Sound name in the Display.
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Click on the Category name in the ID8 Display to bring up a pop-up where you can select Category or replace the ID8 device with another device.
At the bottom of the pop-up, you can also choose “Browse Instruments...”. Selecting this allows you to replace the ID8 device with another instrument device and load a new sound in that device.
#Controlling Sounds
#Parameter knobs
Each of the Sounds in the ID8 have two preset parameters assigned to the Parameter 1 and 2 knobs. The parameter names are shown in the small displays to the right of the corresponding knobs, and are different depending on the selected Sound.
#Pitch Bend and Mod Wheel
To the left on the ID8 front panel are the standard Pitch Bend and Mod Wheel. The Pitch Bend range is +/- 2 semitones and is the same for all sounds. The Mod Wheel is assigned a little differently depending on the selected Sound, but usually controls vibrato. In the Drums Category, however, the Mod Wheel has no effect, except on the Electronic Drums where it controls the cutoff frequency of a lowpass filter.
#Performance Controllers
The sounds in the ID8 also respond to the standard Performance controllers “Sustain Pedal”, “Aftertouch”, “Expression” and “Breath Control”. The parameter assignments can be a little different depending on selected sound. However, “Sustain Pedal” always controls sustain and “Expression” always controls volume.
#Velocity mapping
A lot of the sounds in the ID8 are multi-sampled. They also have several velocity layers to faithfully reproduce the original instruments. Some of the sounds also use different types of samples for the highest velocity layer. This means that instead of just sounding louder, they will also sound different. For example, the Jazz Semi Guitar as well as the Finger, Pick and Upright basses have glissando or sliding notes in the highest velocity layer. The Arco Strings have pizzicato (picked) notes in the top velocity layer.
#About saving edited Sounds
Since the ID8 is designed as a “preset” sound module, there is no dedicated function for saving edited Sounds. However, any edits you have made of the parameters in a Sound are automatically stored with the song (document) when you save the song.
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You could also include one or several ID8 Instrument devices in a Combinator device and save the Combinator patch. Doing so will automatically store the settings of the ID8 Parameters in the Combinator patch. See “The Combinator” for more details.