well, you already have 2 very good programs. With Reason you can learn just about all of the tricks of the trade as far as electronic music making.
Subtractor is capable of making some pretty sick basslines. Don't be afraid to play with matrix and subtractor, export a bassline and load it into cubase and tweak the bejesus out of it.
For a midi controller that is smaller and just so cool, get the 2 octave oxygen 8. (cheap) It's small enough to fit in your backpack, and you will learn to love it. Although sometimes you'll run out of keys. That's what they make the Octave button for. hehe I have two real studio setups.
1. Laptop, USB Hub (for usb dongles), Cubase , Reaktor Battery, Oxygen8. I carry laptop in one case on one shoulder and
the oxygen8 in another laptop case on another shoulder. It's great for when I have to stay at a hotel go to airport etc.. Unzip and portable studio, enough to wake up your next door neighbors.
2. Home studio with outboard FX -
K2000, and my favorite keyboard the monphonic Korg Prophecy.
I love the fact that I can take my laptop out and make music in a coffee shop or wherever.
Exporting stuff out of reason is my favorite way to use it. I have a terrible fear of using a loop from a loop CD and then hearing it in someone elses song. God that would be the worst. I pretty much steer clear of any predesigned loops for that reason. With reason you can make loops all day with all sorts of automation tweaks to drive the kids wild.
Of course to get some basic drum patterns I guess it is ok, but I tend to alter the hell out of everything before it actually ends up in a track.
As far as buying hardware, make sure that you buy something that you'll use in the long term. So many synths, drum machines and other equipment are marketable because they have phat patches that play well in the stores. Beware because those phat sounds end up in about 50 hit trance tracks in some form or another. I look for synths that have lots of knobs for tweakability. Lately I've been obsessed with coming up with sounds that don't really sound like anything but yet have an atmospheric quality. I'm the kind of guy that at any given period has owned about all of the keyboards out there. I used to make a habit of stopping at my local pawn shop every week after work just to see what would turn up.
To me the hardest thing about creating electronic music is finishing a composition. I have probably 10 hours of music waiting to be mixed down, but there is always something fundamentally wrong with the composition, and or I give up completely on the work as a whole.
Either way, welcome to the wonderful world of producing now. Some times I wish I could just go back to djing, but I know that I'm too far into it now to go back. heheh
Ok - I'm babbling again.
peace
