I figured out how to do it using two virtual midi ports and one controller profile for Maschine in Reason's Controller Surface Preferences.

I loaded a instance of Bidule VSTi on Sound 1 and routed each Sound's Audio Input to the Bidule Sample Inputs.

Sound 2 > A1:S1-2
Sound 3 > A1:S1-3
Sound 4 > A1:S1-4
...
Sound 8 > A1:S1-8



Route the MIDI Output for Sound 2 to Plogue Bidule on Sound 1 and set the Channel for Sound 2 to CH 3.
Route the MIDI Output for Sound 3 to Plogue Bidule on Sound 1 and set the Channel for Sound 3 to CH 5.
Route the MIDI Output for Sound 3 to Plogue Bidule on Sound 1 and set the Channel for Sound 4 to CH 7.
Repeat this till Sound 8 which should be set to CH 15.



Note that MIDI is not being sent out on any of the EVEN numbered channels.
I have no idea why this is. Much love if someone could enlighten me.

In Bidule I removed the mixer added Reason as a ReWire device and synced it to the Bidule Plugin (Right-Click on Reason bidule > Sync to)



The Virtual MIDI port used (01. Internal MIDI) cannot be active in Maschine's Audio and MIDI Settings or Bidule will not let you add the MIDI Inputs and Outputs.

In Reason's Control Surfaces I added an <Other> MIDI Multichannel Control Keyboard and used the 'Find' button to confirm a connection by pressing a pad on the Maschine hardware. It should find 01. Internal MIDI.

Set Master keyboard input to Separated (Independent selection and master keyboard input)
Under the Sync tab set External Control Bus A: 01. Internal MIDI and Bus B: 02. Internal MIDI

I loaded an instance of each Reason instrument and a second Thor for testing and connected them directly to the Hardware Interface Audio Outputs:


Load an instance of CTRLR on Sounds 2 - 8 in Maschine.
For Sound 2 Click MIDI and set the Output Device to 02. Internal MIDI on Channel 2



Repeat the process for the remaining Sounds using the same Output Device (02. Internal MIDI) and using the next available channel.
Sound 3: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 3
Sound 4: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 4
Sound 5: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 5
Sound 6: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 6
Sound 7: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 7
Sound 8: (02. Internal MIDI) - CH 8

The Virtual MIDI port used (02. Internal MIDI) cannot be active in Maschine's Audio and MIDI Settings or CTRLR will not let you add the MIDI Output.

In Reason, expand the Advanced MIDI section, select Bus B (02. Internal MIDI) and set your Reason devices to channels you specified in CTRLR.


At this point Sound 1 will not generate sound but Sounds 2 - 8 plays notes and controls all parameters of each Reason device.
Select a different Reason device by using the 'SELECT' button (Maschine Studio).

I've included a CTRLR template that has 128 assignable MIDI CCs.
Check Reason's MIDI Implementation Guide to see which ones to use for what.
It's very basic as I haven't gotten around to making a custom CTRLR panel for each device which will be the next step for this setup.
With the default MIDI controls you'll have 16 pages of parameter controls and many of those will be empty.
One way to remedy this without creating whole new CTRLR panels is to add a second Controller Surface and select 02. Internal MIDI as MIDI input.
Now you can use the 'Edit Remote Override Mapping' and simply MIDI learn the controls from the Maschine.
Use the 'Pages' function in the Maschine software to label your control to see it on the controller.
Use 'Save As' in Maschine to save it as a preset.

I've noticed for some people CTRLR only exposes the first 64 VST index numbers and so only CC 0 - 64 are available.
To resolve this edit the Ctrlr.overrides file in the same folder you have BOTH your Ctrlr .exe and .dll, make sure the names are the same
(Ctrlr-x64.overrides in the same folder as Ctrlr-x64.exe and Ctrlr-x64.dll), and change this value: ctrlrMaxExportedVstParameters="256"

Maschine.mxprj
CTRLR.panel
Bidule.bidule

 

Last edited: Aug 17, 2016

This is sick! Does your template work with Reason 5? I haven't played with Reason in a minute but I had a collection of Multis that are some of the best presets I had ever come across.

Also, I had set up that bidule using Maschine and Ableton the other day and you're right it does work flawlessly in terms of keeping tempo

 

I made it on 9 but it should work with most Reason versions because the only settings you need to configure have been there since Reason 3 or 4.

Just a heads up. If you're like me and only use Reason for it's devices and do all your sequencing and recording in a separate DAW, you can install and use the Demo for Reason 9 which is fully functional. It doesn't let you reopen saved projects but if sequenced and used in another DAW you don't need to reopen Reason projects at all. Just save your instruments and devices in a folder with the DAW's project name and you CAN reopen those. If you get all modular and have multiple devices connected to each other, select them all and Combine them. They'll be loaded inside a Combinator which you can recall with all settings and connections intact. You do have to reconnect the device/Combinator to the hardware input when Reason opens as a blank document but it's really no different than plugging in actual hardware to your mixer. And the cool thing is not having to zero out the settings before and after.

 

Holy fuck! That's news to me, I have heard about this before but didn't realize it was that easy. I'm going to have to try this out soon =)

 

Also, the new Reason GUI totally looks slick as fuck!