ReCue Help and Setup

Overview

ReCue marks named cue points on a song's timeline and jumps Propellerhead Reason's transport to them live. It is a standalone macOS companion app, not a Reason plugin and not something you load inside a Reason rack. It runs alongside Reason and talks to it over MIDI, the same way a hardware control surface would.

Install

• Open the ReCue disk image and drag ReCue.app to Applications.
• On first launch, macOS may ask you to confirm you trust the app. It is signed and notarized by Kraken Labs.

Connect to Reason

Before ReCue can jump cues, Reason needs to be told to listen to it as a control surface. This is the part of ReCue that talks directly to Reason, and the live transport jump is still the experimental piece of it, so read the note at the end of this section before relying on it on stage.

1. Install the Remote codec and map. Reason looks for Remote codecs and maps in its Application Support folder. Create a Kraken Labs/ReCue/ subfolder under each of these paths, then copy the matching file into it:

• ~/Library/Application Support/Propellerhead Software/Remote/Codecs/Lua Codecs/Kraken Labs/ReCue/ gets ReCue.lua, the Remote codec.
• ~/Library/Application Support/Propellerhead Software/Remote/Maps/Kraken Labs/ReCue/ gets ReCue.remotemap, the MIDI map.

Reason only rescans these folders on launch, so quit Reason first if it is already running.

2. Launch ReCue and open the MIDI port. Start ReCue before adding the control surface in Reason, since Reason's Control Surfaces list only shows MIDI ports that currently exist. ReCue opens a virtual "ReCue" MIDI port on launch by default. If that virtual port does not appear, use the MIDI destination picker in ReCue's gear panel to point at an existing port instead, such as an IAC Driver bus.

3. Add ReCue as a control surface in Reason.

• Open Reason, then go to Reason menu > Preferences > Control Surfaces.
• Click Add Manually.... Do not rely on auto-detect the first time.
• Set Manufacturer to Kraken Labs and Model to ReCue. If ReCue does not appear in the list, Reason did not find the codec: double check the install path above and confirm Reason was restarted after copying the files.
• Set both MIDI Input and MIDI Output to ReCue.
• Confirm and close. Reason should now show ReCue as an active, connected control surface, enabled by default. There is no per-song setup step, once it is added in Preferences it is available to every Reason song on that machine.

4. Verify the link. In ReCue, confirm the connection dot in the header turns green. Press Play in ReCue's transport bar and Reason's transport should start, then press Stop and it should stop. If the dot stays grey or transport does not respond, see Troubleshooting below.

Be honest with yourself about the jump. Transport play, stop, and toggle are the reliable, well-trodden part of Reason's Remote API and should work once wired up correctly. Landing exactly on a cue is the part still being proven out: ReCue either jogs Reason's transport toward the target using relative position steps, or sends an MMC locate message, depending on the jump mode selected in the gear panel. Both are workarounds, since Reason's Remote system has no guaranteed "go to this exact bar" command for outside devices. Test any cue jump ahead of a show rather than trusting it cold on stage. If a jump consistently lands near but not exactly on a cue, ReCue is still working, just not frame-accurate yet on your setup.

Marking and labeling cues

• Play or scrub to the spot in the song you want to mark.
• Click + ADD CUE @ playhead in the transport bar.
• The new cue appears in the list at its correct position, cues are always sorted by time.
• Double-click a cue's label to rename it, for example "Verse 2", "Drop", or "Outro".

Jumping to a cue live

• Double-click a row to jump immediately.
• Or select a row and click GO.
• Or use ◀ PREV and NEXT ▶ to step through cues in order.

Either the jog or the MMC locate mechanism runs under the hood depending on the active jump mode. See the note under Connect to Reason above about how reliable each one currently is.

Saving and opening cue sets

Cue sets are small project files, .recue, saved per song. Use the File menu to save the current set or open a different one. ReCue also auto-saves your working session, so it reopens where you left off even if you never explicitly save.

The demo limit and registering

Unregistered, ReCue caps you at 5 cues per project. Once you hit the cap, + ADD CUE disables and shows "Demo limit, 5 cues. Register to add unlimited." with a link to buy a license.

If you load a project that already has more than 5 cues, for example from a registered machine, the extra cues still load. They show greyed out with a lock glyph, cannot be jumped to, and will not be deleted. They unlock automatically the moment you register.

To register: buy a license at the ReCue page, then open ReCue's gear panel, paste the key you receive into the field, and click Apply Key. This is the same registration flow as SyncFrame. The panel should show "Registered" and the cue cap is gone immediately. Use Remove Key in the same panel to deactivate a key on that machine, for example if you are moving to a different license.

Troubleshooting

Reason is not responding to jumps or transport commands.

• Check that "ReCue" is added as a control surface under Reason's Preferences > Control Surfaces, and that it is pointed at the same MIDI port ReCue is using. The virtual port or named destination must match on both sides.
• Check ReCue's gear panel: the MIDI destination picker should show the port you expect. If you are using the virtual port, make sure it is open, it is created automatically when ReCue selects it.
• Confirm the Remote codec and .remotemap are installed at the paths listed above. A missing or outdated codec is the most common cause of Reason silently ignoring the control surface.
• If jumps land near but not exactly on the cue, the jog is working but the reported position feedback may be stale. Try again once the connection dot has been green for a few seconds.

The connection dot never turns green.

• Quit and relaunch Reason after installing the codec, it only rescans Remote codecs on startup.
• Make sure no other app, or another instance of ReCue, already has the virtual "ReCue" port open.