I'm a Reason 6 user, this year getting a free upgrade to 6.5
As I have never used Cubase I have to ask that what would I notice when making music compared to Reason 6? Would I be dealing with more professional software?

You'd experience more expensive temptation beyond refills, in the way of VSTs.

You'd find you could send MIDI *out* to external equipment.

You'd find things more confusing to start, and less capable routing between instruments later on.

You'd maybe find that you achieved less, having more choice.

You'd sound more professional when you said you used Cubase - your music wouldn't really be affected in that way.

If you're sensible, you'd use both for their strengths

Personally, if I only had used Reason up to this point, I'd be staying put and seeing what happens with the Rack Extensions. Now is definitely not a time to start branching out into VST for the first time, unless you have a definite need.

Alright, this is what I expected to be said. I agree, ReRack is coming and this opens a lot for my game, I like Reason but sometimes I need to know how things are going for other apps.

I'm in the same boat as you. I love Reason, and I'm pumped for the Rack Extensions, but I'm also saving up for a Macbook for college/production and Logic is starting to look tempting for many reasons, no pun intended.

I'll probably use Reason as an instrument in Logic with Rewire as the sequencer in Reason can rub me the wrong way sometimes. Nothing wrong with having choices!

With the Record mixer and the new rack extensions I can't really see the point in swapping to something else if you're used to reason.

I think that ultimately you can achieve better results outside the confines of the Reason environment, but only if you spend a LOT of money on the very best plugins available, and even then you'll have to really know what you're doing and the differences won't be huge.

Not said, but, IMNSHO important, is that, given how reason is now, you will experience a huge convenience boost in mixing, not necessarily in editing. Adjusting EQ, for example, is a pain in Reason, it's drag a curve in other hosts.

In my experience, you will also have to get used to a lot of crashing. Cubase crashes are the reason I tried reason in the first place.

Not a single crash since Cubase 4 here.

Its mainly rogue plugins that cause hosts to crash.

Reason 6.5 gives me hope that i won't have to use Logic ever again.

Sorry for off-topic, but did you try Minimogue VA? It always crashes my Cubase, like any of the Stegner plugins, Arppe2600va too...

Other people report that also, but, I'm not talking about just a "few" crashes, I'm talking about I couldn't finish a session without a crash. On the same hardware, Reason never crashed. I switched to reason because people claimed that VSTs were often the cause and I wanted to just write music.

I got fed up with Reason limitations after a while and decided to try other hosts again. Cubase, still buggy, even after several updates, other hosts, much more stable.

So, on the same hardware, other hosts are much much more stable using the same VSTs.

BTW: I'm talking about version 5 to 5.5. I'm not going to spend money on 6 after my experience and I've never used anything prior to version 5.

ymmv

my exp. with Cubase is SX2 and C5, up to 5.5.3 which only rarely crashed and I was pushing it when it did. Hasn't in a long time.
SX2 crashed a lot but I barely met minimal recommended system specs at the time.

You seem to be blaming a host for unstable VSTs to me.

Amusingly enough a high percentage of my crashes in Cubase have been Steinberg's own plugins . . . Hypersonic2, XPhraze, Virtual Guitarist 2.

When I was x86, cubase 5 crashed constantly for me. What I was unaware of was that I was using more ram intense plugs and despite my attempts to quell going overboard, I was indeed exceeding ram limits and cubey was unforgiving. Was it cubey's fault? Probably not. But if you are x86 and on win7/vista, you'll have little to no room for any toys.

yes, I noticed that I was pushing the RAM when it was less stable. I've had crashes that didn't owe to that but too much live automation too quickly with a lot of audio open, not really best practice...

Now I use VE Pro for almost all plugins hosting, still using x86 on my master and C5. It's just very stable now.

The theoretical RAM limit is pretty much higher than what will get you in actual trouble, note well.