I'm very glad you asked the question. Even though you have directed it to Graham I am going to chime in until he replies. Likely we both will learn something.

The first thing is to approach Reason as an instrument. Imagine that it is a bunch of hardware sitting in front of you and it is a bunch easier to get your head around it. Propheads make that quite easy as everything is presented to you as knobs, sliders, and switches, complete with patch cords in the "back."

In terms of working with BIAB, I basically use Reason as a glorified General MIDI synth. Unfortunately Rewire has not yet been implemented in PG Music products, although I have told that they are taking a hard look at it. Instead I create a MIDI file from my BIAB production and import it into Reason.

From there a bunch of hand work is involved. You have to select or create instruments and assign them to the various MIDI tracks. This is pretty straightforward except with drums. GM drums are only partially implemented in Reason, so I have had to do some fiddling about to get everything to work. I won't go into specifics here, but it's not too difficult once you figure out how. Reason has a kick-ass MIDI editor that works quite well.

The biggest problem is choosing patches and effects from the near-infinite possibilities that Reason offers. No matter what patch you start out with it is always possible to imagine something better. The trick is knowing when to stop.

Reason is as big and complex as you want it to be. Start small and work up from there. It's all worth it IMO. Now that Reason is a complete recording suite you can take everything from BIAB and Real Band and work on virtual instruments and audio in Reason. (They have a great set of mastering tools, too.)

The next task in mastering the advanced functions of Reason is to learn how to use the Combinator, a virtual rack that lets you create complex instruments and effects, or combinations of the two, and use them as modules which can be used in other creations as well.

Good luck,

R.

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."