No, I would make a rubbish inquisitor, because people just wouldn't get my silly cutting sense of humour. And I wouldn't wan't to be involved in more serious criticism, beyond making fun of things (including myself obviously)

i understand Headquest almost too well and i'm a bit scared about it: a strong story of love, excitement and finally: disappointment. anyway it was both: a fun read and the stupid and sad story behind it.
when i discovered Reason in 2002, i was so excited and some of my dreams came true at once. the excitement was gone, when Reason 4 came out. most of my projects are done in Reason 2 and 3. after 4 came out, i went on to Ableton Live and though Live 8 can give me headache and i have some cable nostalgia from time to time, i do most of my stuff in Live now. i had some cable fun last week again, but i couldn't even decide to buy one single RE. i bought Razor instead and Toontrack Roots Brushes ... and now the money's gone again.

But in PH forum i can read 6.5 has become as buggy and crashing as every other DAW out there. I see, Reason was "rock solid" years ago, not nowadays. And it has become complex. Once you just installed it, put the serial number and it worked. Now you need the dongle, internet connection, a powerfuo CPU (because of the "computer too slow to play song" message), a good audio board (because of the latency issue)... Let's face it: Reason crashes and people report bugs, expecially with REs. And REs are not "a new plugin format" but just a few third party reason racks made (infact they are 000,1% of the real amount of plugins a DAW can host). Let's say in a year or two there will be 100-200 REs? It will be 000,2% of vst choices. Besides, vsts can be free, while REs are expensive and don't work outside reason. You cannot resell them. Your choice is only among three-four instruments. And about the "best selling music application available"... i guess nr.1is still Magix Music Maker and nr.2 is Garageband. A better policy in my opinion had to be this: RECORD as the Propellerhead DAW (vst host) and REASON as it was in version 4. Plus reason racks sold as plugins, too. But, oh, this PH anti-vst obsession...

I haven't read about anyone having crashing. Computer too slow message yes. But not crashing as in shutdown of either Reason or RE's.

I am very curious whether the Props will continue to develop their own instruments and effects, or will they rely primarily on third party devs. I also wonder how this will affect future upgrades. I know it is quite a bit premature, but what could Reason 7 look like? If they include their own instruments and fx they might be cutting into the RE sales, which seem like more money for them with less effort than developing their own. If they do not include new instruments and fx in the update, then an update would probably require some radical rethinking of the workflow, which does not seem to be part of the PH DNA.

Just curious about what people think the future of Reason could be now that third party devs are their new cash cow.

Midi out?

That should be in 6.500001

REs are fine, but they'll NEVER be a vst alternative. I don't understand why people in PH forum ask for impossible things like "omnisphere, alchemy, kontakt, reaktor" etc. in RE format, as if RE could bear these monsters. RE is for light instruments and effects only. So, VSTs can stay well together with REs in Reason: infact they are two different things. RE is made for the modular rack GUI, it works mainly there. VSTs can simply bypass the modular concept and can be played directly in the Reason's MIDI tracks (the sequencer is infact the main environment in Reason, nowadays).

Re's and VST's are very different as the environments that they are used in are very different. Larger Re's with instruments such as the ones listed, will be part of the future of Reason. Maybe not these exact ones but something very similar created by the same developers or other 3rd party entries.

The Re technology is brand new. I'm not even sure that the SDK was even out of a beta form before developers started work. As the SDK evolves, so will the ability of the instruments.

This is a misconception. Just because the majority of the existing RE's are lightweight, doesn't mean that's the aim of the RE format. I'm sure eventually, once the SDK matures, we'll be seeing complex Omnisphere/Absynth/Reaktor style instruments in Reason. It'll just take a while.

Interesting comparisons.

One does hope they get it right this time. Or Re might fail as well.

Re VST...
It would not surprise me to see some kind of Re VST wrapper. I am guessing it is probably technically impossible or if it was possible the Props might block it. Ironically I think it would be the no. 1 selling Re if anyone dev could cook it up.

I think some of you are forgetting one huge premise and that is that the Props aren't against the instruments developed into the VST technology, they don't like using VST technology within Reason.

I would be SHOCKED to see any iteration of VST tech in Reason. Wrapper included.

There's a sizable minority of users that can't even take the time to read directions on upgrading and using Re's. Can you imagine the tech support needed to implement VST's in Reason for a small company that want's to remain small?

A few shocking additions were added though...

1. Props were adamant about not having Recording in Reason. They added it.

2. Props were absolutely convinced they would not open up reason to third party plugins. Now they have.

So IMO I really doubt that anything is not possible with Propellerheads if it makes business sense. If Re starts to gor the way of Record I would not be surpised if Props themselves code a VST wrapper for Re!

The dongle was also something they swore they would never have...

And while it appears to have been good at putting a stop to Reason pirate copies, it has been bad for users - many of the complaints and problems from users are to do with codemeter issues.
Last edited by headquest on Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:38 am; edited 1 time in total

While they did add those features, you're forgetting to add the fact that when talking about those features, they were talking about current technology that other developers had constructed.

While the fact remains that those features are in Reason now, it's not just a minor detail that the technology to use those features were developed by them.

Maybe they get together with Steinberg and co-develop a tech called VeSTRe.....who knows?
Last edited by PB2000 on Wed Jun 20, 2012 7:40 am; edited 1 time in total