Tricks from the Pro’s 10: Your Soldering Iron May Not Help

Salutations and greetings BPMings! Let’s face it; the world is no good when people want to keep things to themselves. Sharing is caring. At least when it comes to the audio software community, most have opened up their world of wonders to as many different platforms as possible. You may be working on a synth/sampler program such as FL Studio, Reason, Ableton Live, and even the latest Sibelius. All these come with a virtual audio and MIDI router, in the form of something called ReWire. ReWire was developed by Propellerhead for the Rebirth program but has subsequently become a standard.

ReWire allows you to take an audio signal from one program and send it to an audio input of another program. Not only does it do this in audio, but it has similar functionality for MIDI channels. Commonly, this is used when you are working with a host platform such as Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Nuendo Adobe Audition, where you may want to take MIDI to the synth/sampler and then take that audio back into your host program or another synth/sampler program. As long as it has ReWire compatibility and audio/MIDI inputs and outputs, you should be able to get signals from one program into another without too much hassle. The two programs then synchronise with each other and your playback acts as though it is one program.

Here’s how it works: firstly you need to understand that ReWire acts where one program is the host (your general digital audio/MIDI editor) and the other the slave. The slave will pass its audio to the host program, and the host MIDI to the slave. So, start the host program first (very important) and then the slave program, which should indicate it is running in ReWire slave mode. After this, you’ll need to load up an audio or auxiliary track in the host program and insert the ReWire plugin on it. Enable the “record-ready” button (if its an audio track) and if you play something from the ReWire slave you should hear the audio coming from the host’s audio/aux track.

Routing MIDI is similar; create the virtual instrument you want to control within the slave program then create a MIDI track in the host. Route this MIDI track via its MIDI In port to the instrument within the slave – it should pop up as a new MIDI channel in the selection menu. Record enable this MIDI track and you will be able to play the slave’s virtual instrument with the host’s MIDI track. ReWire that instrument’s audio into the host and you now have an endless amount of possibilities for recording via a multitude of music creation programs!

Play long and prosper!

Resistance to better sound is futile!

Jonathan Shaw is a professional record producer who has worked with a multitude of artists and record labels in a freelance capacity. Outside this, he lectures music business at the University of the Witwatersrand and provides business consultation to the music industry. jshaw@smstudios.co.za