Installation Guide

SETTING UP

Reassigning the Function Keys in

macOS

When you work with Reason, you will do a lot of navigating between the three main areas - the main mixer,

the rack and the sequencer. The quickest way to switch between these areas is to use the function keys

F5, F6 and F7 (see “Navigating between the areas” in the “Common Operations and Concepts” chapter in

the Operation Manual and Help system for details). Also, the F2, F3, F4 and F8 keys are shortcuts for

showing and hiding the Spectrum EQ window, Browser, On-screen Piano Keys window and the Tool

Window, respectively.

However, on many Macintosh models (especially MacBooks), the function keys double as hardware

control buttons. For example, they might control the volume of the built-in speaker, the display brightness

or keyboard backlight. To make these keys actually work as function keys for software such as Reason,

you need to hold the "Fn" key while pressing them.

This can work perfectly OK, but to get the best workflow in Reason we recommend that you change this

behavior, so that pressing e.g. the F5 key actually sends "F5" to Reason (and you hold down the Fn key to

get the hardware control functions instead). Here is how you change this:

1. Open the System Preferences in macOS and select the "Keyboard" item.

The "Keyboard" preferences are shown.

2. Select the "Keyboard" tab and make sure the checkbox "Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as stan-

dard function keys" is ticked.

Now you can use F2-F8 for controlling functions in Reason. To use hardware control features such as

volume and display brightness, you need to hold down the "Fn" key before pressing the function keys.

Some function keys might also be pre-assigned to macOS keyboard shortcuts, which will have priority over

software such as Reason. This is easily changed:

3. Click the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab in the “Keyboard” window.

The Keyboards Shortcuts Preferences window shows lists of keyboard shortcuts assigned to system

functions. For example, [Cmd]-[F5] in the Accessibility group is assigned to turn VoiceOver on or off. In

Reason, this is the keyboard shortcut for detaching the main mixer into a separate window.