Revenge of the Combinator
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4

The Combinator Programmer

After patching a CV output into one of the Combinator’s Rotary CV inputs, you’ll need to route the CV to one or more destinations in devices within the Combinator. This is done using the programmer window, as we’ve just seen. The devices in the Combi are listed at left. After selecting a device by clicking on it, you can use the list of signal routings in the column on the right side to route CV signals to any of its available parameters.

The Programmer window gives the Combinator its modular patching prowess. Pick a device on the left, then pick a target and range on the right.

As you’ll see when you examine any of the pop-up menus that show up in the Target column, the parameters available as CV/Rotary destinations are basically the same ones you can automate in the Reason sequencer. For instance, you can modulate an envelope generator’s attack time, a filter resonance setting, or a mixer channel’s aux send level.

However, the parameters for individual samples in the NN-XT are not available, either for automation or for Combinator control. Technically, you could accomplish identical musical results either via Combinator CV control or by automating each knob, slider, or button separately in the sequencer. But in most musical situations, using automation would take a hundred times as much patience; when was the last time you tried drawing a good sine wave freehand with the mouse?

When using a synth module in a Combi strictly as a CV source, you may not want it to receive the MIDI notes that are playing the synth(s) you are listening to. If you want to use an envelope as a modulation source, triggering it from a Matrix rhythm is often a better approach. To shut off note reception, open the Combinator programmer, select the modulation source in the device list, and uncheck the Receive Notes check box in the lower left corner.

This Matrix sequencer is changing the Oscillator 2 waveform in a SubTractor synth, so we’ve disabled note reception. The Matrix output is connected to a Combinator CV input.

Each device in the device list can receive one signal from each of the Rotaries and one signal from each of the buttons. In addition, if you look at the bottom of the source list, you’ll see two blank boxes. These are drop-down menus from which you can select any rotary or button. So in total, it’s possible to use a single CV to modulate three separate parameters in a single Reason device. But once you’ve done that, the other Rotaries and buttons can modulate only one parameter each within a single destination device.

The same CV(s) can also modulate other parameters in other devices within the Combi, and the min and max values are separately programmable for each routing. As a result, it’s possible to use a single LFO, envelope, or Matrix curve output to modulate a dozen sound parameters in different devices, or two dozen, at the same time, and to control the range and direction of the modulation. (If the minimum is set higher than the maximum, the modulation will be inverted.)