rsRemote FAQ’s

No. rsRemote is a "remote control" for Reason Studios Reason running on your Mac or PC. It gives you the ability to control Reason's transport, select the current sequencer track, mute and solo that track, plus some Reason Main Mixer channel editing operations, all using the iPhone or iPod’s touch screen instead of your computer's usual mouse and keyboard. It does not replace Reason.

rsRemote is a type of "control surface" for portions of Reason's Main Mixer, some sequencer track operations, and transport functions. (Note: It only controls these parts of Reason). Reason includes support for a variety of hardware devices that provide direct control over its Main mixer faders and buttons to control playback, recording, muting, and other common recording functions. rsRemote allows your iPhone to become a "hardware controller" for many of these types of Reason functions.
rsRemote works with Reason Studios Reason 6.5 through 11.3 or Reason Essentials 1.5 through 10.4
rsRemote uses MIDI to communicate directly with Reason so you must have a MIDI connection between the computer where you are running Reason, and your iPhone/iPod touch. This can be a wired MIDI cable setup if you have a USB interface that works with your iPhone/iPod touch, OR a "network MIDI" setup.

If you use network MIDI, you must have a Wi-Fi connection between your computer and iPhone. If you wish to use network MIDI and are running Reason on Windows then you must install a third party network MIDI driver on your PC. Mac users do not require this additional step since network MIDI is built into OSX. See the "Connecting to Reason" section of the Getting Started chapter of the user manual for more information about MIDI setups.

You also need support files that are a type of "Reason control surface codec and maps". These are available free from Delora Software and can be downloaded from the rsRemote product page (tap “Requirements and Setup”) on this website. Once downloaded, unzip the archive, then double-click on the installer file within the folder that is appropriate for your computer (.pkg for Mac, .msi for PC's) to run the installer. NOTE; DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE FILES ON YOUR COMPUTER, NOT YOUR IPHONE.
No. rsTouch and rsRemote are considered 2 uniquely different control surfaces by Reason. They can be used together but you must perform the setup steps as described on this website and the user manuals for each of these apps. This includes downloading and installing their separate codec/support configuration files. Once properly configured Reason has two sets of control surfaces installed, one for rsTouch and one for rsRemote.
rsRemote requires a CoreMIDI compatible iOS USB MIDI interface. However some iOS USB MIDI interfaces have issues handling MIDI SYSEX data. The "language" that rsRemote uses to converse with Reason makes extensive use of short-length SYSEX messages that are sent to and from the iPhone. Under fully loaded conditions, such as when a song is being played, quite a number of these messages are sent from Reason to rsRemote. This can stress an iOS MIDI interface with weak SYSEX handling to the point of failure.

A few iPhone MIDI interfaces have reportedly suffered from overall SYSEX compatibility issues. In general we recommend confirming full MIDI support for any iOS MIDI interface by testing it with the apps you wish to use before investing in it.
No. Network MIDI requires a local area network and the iPhone and computer must be on this same network.
The only difference is if you want to use a network MIDI connection. Mac's have network MIDI built-in and you can set it up with the Audio Midi Setup application. For PC's, there is a third party application, rtpMIDI, that may provide this capability (see the bottom of the rsRemote “Requirements & Setup” page of this website). However PC users must also have Bonjour installed and working on the PC and network. Bonjour is part of the standard iTune's installation so if you have skipped that you will need to install Bonjour yourself.
If you are running Reason while you setup your MIDI interface, Reason may not be able to find your connection. Quit Reason, get the MIDI port working, then restart Reason and they should now be showing.
rsRemote requires some setup actions. See "Requirements and Setup" on the rsRemote product page on this website or the user manual.
The info tab shows a red circle when it is unsuccessful connecting to Reason. This could be because the computer it last connected to is no longer on, or the Wi-Fi network or Reason may not be running. It may also involve general Wi-Fi network problems.

Tap on the info tab. The Connect text button will be red for a problem, yellow for a warning. Tap on it to see the MIDI Connections screen. Messages at the bottom will give some clue as to what is wrong.

If you have previously used rsRemote successfully, make sure that rsRemote has been "locked" to Reason's Main Mixer for the song you are currently working on. See "Assign/Lock Reason's Main Mixer to rsRemote" in the Getting Started chapter of the user manual.

See the Troubleshooting chapter of the user manual for more diagnostic information.
If you have performed the assign/lock sequence for this song before and saved the song, you should not have to do it again. Also, if you perform the assign sequence in a template, save the template, then use that template to start new songs, those songs "inherit" the lock setting. This is a convenient way to ensure that your Reason projects are always "rsRemote ready".

Why is locking/assigning necessary in the first place? Reason control surface support defaults to controlling the "currently active device". Usually this is the synthesizer you have assigned to the current sequencer track. When you change to a different sequencer track, Reason automatically switches the control surface to that track’s device.

rsRemote’s “Mixer” section is a different kind of Reason controller. Instead of offering generic control of any Reason device, it is specifically designed to control Reason’s Main Mixer. However for this part of rsRemote to function, Reason’s “Master Section” must be the actively selected device. The way to do this is to have Reason “lock” its Master Section to the rsRemote control surface.

Reason offers a simple way for you to manually "lock" rsRemote to the Main Mixer. Once locked, rsRemote continues to control the Main Mixer, regardless of the selected track or rack device. Locking is a very simple procedure, and can be done in any of three different ways, each described in the Getting Started chapter of the rsRemote user manual.
This should be a rare occurrence, but if it happens, tap on the info tab, and tap on "Refresh Controls" at the top.
If automation is enabled on that channel in Reason, that takes precedence over rsRemote. If it is annoying or not allowing you to make the changes you want, turn off automation on Reason for that channel when using rsRemote.
Reason provides a way for you to change the Big Meter's "VU offset" but it does not send the value to the control surface, nor does it "listen" for this value from the control surface. If you change the VU offset value on rsRemote only, or change it on Reason only, it will not show up on the other. You must manually change it on both if you wish them to be in sync. This setting is not something that normally requires changing, and for most users Reason's (and rsRemote's) default value of 12 dB works well.

Note: Changing the VU offset changes that setting for the Big Meter and channel meter.
Double tap on the Big Meter on the Main screen. A popup will show.
Yellow indicates that there is some problem but it should not prevent you from using rsRemote. Think of it as a reminder that you need to correct the problem before you next use rsRemote.

The most common cause of this would be if you are trying to use an old version of the Reason support files with a new version of rsRemote, or an old version of rsRemote with new Reason support files. In either case the remedy is to simply install the most recent versions.

Sometimes you will see the yellow warning if your MIDI connection is experiencing occasional errors. This can happen with Wi-Fi network MIDI if you are in a marginal signal area, or there is some type of interference.
These symptoms may occur if you have Bluetooth enabled on your iPhone/iPod touch during an rsRemote session. Go to the Settings application on the iPhone, tap on "General", and set Bluetooth to OFF. When your rsRemote session is over, you can turn Bluetooth back on if you wish.
Typically the firewall is operating in your network router or Wi-Fi access point that connects to the Internet. Those firewalls do not normally interfere with the local network traffic used by network MIDI.

However, if the firewall is one that runs on your Mac or PC, then the answer is probably yes. These "personal firewalls” do not usually pass the necessary network MIDI "traffic" until they are properly configured. If you are having difficulties connecting, then you should check if you have enabled the OS’s built-in firewall, or have another firewall application running on your computer.

Configuring the computer's firewall to properly pass network MIDI traffic can be a somewhat technical undertaking. Generally speaking, the firewall must be set up to "pass" the network port, and the one after it, that you assigned in your network MIDI set up. The details of this, however, depend on the specific firewall.

OSX's built-in firewall offers a straight-forward way to allow network MIDI to be used with the firewall. Use the firewall set up panel in System Preferences/Security & Privacy to set the firewall mode to "Automatically allow signed software to receive incoming connections". Then use the add application feature (the "+" button) and select Reason. Repeat this for Audio Midi Setup.