APP
OF THE
DAY

Produce electronic music like a pro.

Reason Compact - Make Music

Your Pocket Music Studio

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Reason Compact is a high-powered synth at your fingertips. It’s full-featured enough for professional producers on the go but versatile and user-friendly enough that even Music Theory 101 dropouts can craft perfect melodies, rocking chord progressions, and bouncing arpeggios without breaking a sweat (or breaking open a textbook).

This is what a digital synthesizer looks like. Don’t be scared. It’s easy to use.

To start playing around with Europa, the app’s digital synthesizer, begin a new project and swipe through the built-in sounds. Try Synth Heaven to get space-y ethereal tones, or Pump Chords if you’re trying to bring the house down.

Swipe through the settings to dial your perfect sound; control the distortion, reverb, and delay while tweaking LFOs (low-frequency oscillators) and envelopes with the swipe of a finger.

(Don’t know what an envelope or LFO is? Reason Compact will tell you: Tap the question mark in the corner of each setting for an easy-to-understand explainer.)

The interface uses almost the entire screen, giving you room to create with just a few out-of-the-way icons at the top.

Simplicity really is the key here. To make a richly textured chord progression, trigger the sounds in a cleverly named “chords” setting. Then activate the arpeggio setting to bounce through those chords one note at a time. Swipe over to the grid mode and lay out melodies just by dragging and tapping. Congrats: Your subway commute just turned into a studio session.