Next Propellerhead Reason upgrade (9.5) to include VST support

[incubus]

Please take the ReWire tech you developed, and enable Reason to leverage it's full capability and/or extend the ReWire tech more. Just like Ableton Link, the industry will quickly adopt and leverage great tech. You have that opportunity.

Well said.

Developing Rewire into the modern era, with both Reason and the other DAW hosting VST, they will gain sales, no doubt about that.

But people have made music perfectly fine w/o this (snotty tone)

As for "the modern era" they won't. VST isn't enough of an excuse to use it. What was great about reason was the fast self-contained music making experience. VST's = more crashing and cpu issues. They are still not optimized well any longer as it is. Not hard to get crackles and for the engine to quit because if you go over 3 bars in the meter, that's more than it can handle for a huge portion of users.

Well, it damn sure is for me! I much prefer reason for getting my dance tunes off the ground. I still prefer Cubase and Reaper for everything else that isn't so pattern oriented and pretty much all mixing and mastering, but this is going to be great for me.

I'll say it again, (and I'll be ignored again) ....

Hosts are so 2007. Now, you mentioned reaper and yeah, it's bad-ass. It's stable, it does a ton and it's the best CPU efficiency BAR NONE. (by a lot actually) But it's a mess unless you are the tweak head of tweak heads, and even then, it's not quite right. By the time I figure out what I want, I'm bored and don't feel like making music anymore.

Bitwig is great. I use it every day. I could never do a project in it though. Too remedial in many aspects, but I like it.

And then reason rounds out my DAW's. It was my A #1 for a long time, but the performance "issues"* and lack of workflow improvements have left me cold.

I'm interested in WORKFLOW ENHANCEMENTS more than anything else with any host. ARA? PWEWY! Panning of midi notes? (for built in synths) SPIT!

Cpu optimization, workflow, being able to get from point a to b easier. Everything is so wrapped up in nonsense it seems to me.

*Before some dinglberry starts giving me a rough time, it's not dreadful but considering that many people start experiencing drop outs with 3 or more bars, it's not me. Sorry, my expectations are to hit max bars before that happens. Don't shoot the messenger, look at that one stress-test. Almost NOBODY gets good results with it, even with a good computer.

[machinesworking]

The irony of watching ignorant and arrogant people keep repeating that VST crash when we're all hanging out in a forum that wouldn't even exist if VST was an unstable format is truly a marvel.

Really glad people like that are about to get schooled once and for all.

Do you ever have crashes? Have you ever had any?
What do you think they come from?

I'm asking because actually you're the one being ignorant. Yes, most VSTs these days are done well, but a big fat resounding no to the idea you seem to have that VSTs are not the reason for instability in a system.

I own hundreds of VSTs from dozens of manufacturers and without a doubt, the main reason for any DAW I use to crash is instability with a particular VST or VSTi. The most tenuous relationship between the various software that we use to make music is the one between your DAW and VST; AU; AAX; etc. No, it's not that bad anymore, but years ago it was, that was why Reason with ReWire became a standard for a while, it could run more instruments and FX without issues, than hosting similar ones in your DAW.

Just pointing out, it's not like their concern isn't unfounded, 10-15 years ago Reason was the only rock solid app out there, largely because of it's closed environment.

[bungle]

Actually their concern was garbage at the time, sandbox the plugin and only the plugin can have any instability, oh wait, that's exactly what they have done.
This is all the same as GOLs "64bit is not needed" BS, right up until they implemented 64bit.
Not to hark back to Reapers developers too much here, but their arrogance is a bit better vein, their replies are more like "No we aren't going to do that because we don't want to do" just as harsh to an end user but non the less honest, something a lit of developers struggle with when the $$$ flash before their eyes.

[incubus]

The irony of watching ignorant and arrogant people keep repeating that VST crash when we're all hanging out in a forum that wouldn't even exist if VST was an unstable format is truly a marvel.

Really glad people like that are about to get schooled once and for all.

Do you ever have crashes? Have you ever had any?
What do you think they come from?

I'm asking because actually you're the one being ignorant. Yes, most VSTs these days are done well, but a big fat resounding no to the idea you seem to have that VSTs are not the reason for instability in a system.

I own hundreds of VSTs from dozens of manufacturers and without a doubt, the main reason for any DAW I use to crash is instability with a particular VST or VSTi. The most tenuous relationship between the various software that we use to make music is the one between your DAW and VST; AU; AAX; etc. No, it's not that bad anymore, but years ago it was, that was why Reason with ReWire became a standard for a while, it could run more instruments and FX without issues, than hosting similar ones in your DAW.

Just pointing out, it's not like their concern isn't unfounded, 10-15 years ago Reason was the only rock solid app out there, largely because of it's closed environment.

Are you trying to speak common-sense? You of all should know better.

As for crashes, it's common-knowledge that most host crashes are incompatibility from host to plug, which is why sandboxing is supposed to be a thing (yet another excellent idea that isn't really catching on much because people love 2007 )

[ShawnG]

Actually their concern was garbage at the time, sandbox the plugin and only the plugin can have any instability, oh wait, that's exactly what they have done.

Thats what is done now, that multi core and 64bit computing is he norm rather than the exception, but its hard to sandbox on a single thread

Yes, the stability argument is oversold, But even still, and even now. Reason/re is more stable than "random daw/random plugin". Its just not that big of an issue any more for most people. Probably on May 29th the stability of reason/vst will = random daw/random vst, or maybe slightly less.

[incubus]

Say wha??????

Who has sandboxing other than bitwig and (is it logic??? ) ??? It's not a long list, I can assure you of that.

[ShawnG]

no, not a long list at all. Logic has AU validation which attempts to eliminate crashes while using the program by making it crash on launch instead (wish I was joking) Bitwig has it, Steinberg has ASIO guard which helps with audio dropouts, but isn't really sandboxing per se. I "think" Props had sandboxing or something like it working for RE's.

[Distorted Horizon]

Say wha??????

Who has sandboxing other than bitwig and (is it logic??? ) ??? It's not a long list, I can assure you of that.

Reaper has had sandboxing for ages.

[incubus]

I was not aware of that. What I am aware of (unfortunately, and why I complain about hosts being so "2007" ) is that they STILL don't have PDC.

I bitched about live not having this and then they added it, now reason is one of the only hosts w/o it.

2007 DOES NOT = 2017

[incubus]

Say wha??????

Who has sandboxing other than bitwig and (is it logic??? ) ??? It's not a long list, I can assure you of that.

Reaper has had sandboxing for ages.

???

I mean, I'm glad, but I haven't heard anyone talk about it.

Oh wait, I see a pattern.......

[ShawnG]

iirc it's an option to run a plugin as a separate process in reaper. I don't think it's an "always on" thing. But it's a terrible feature for that particular DAW for me, since most of my time in Reaper is spent hoping that it crashes...

[ShawnG]

I was not aware of that. What I am aware of (unfortunately, and why I complain about hosts being so "2007" ) is that they STILL don't have PDC.

I bitched about live not having this and then they added it, now reason is one of the only hosts w/o it.

2007 DOES NOT = 2017

Along with the VST support, they announced PDC for this version as well, automatic with a manual option. we can all speculate about whether it really works well or not until we can try it, but it's an advertised update.

[jjpscott01]

Well thats it. Reason has always my favorite DAW to work with and now after all these years I have 0 need to go outside of it for plugins. I'm pretty blown away still to see that this has happened! Now time to go have some fun...

[keyman_sam]

The irony of watching ignorant and arrogant people keep repeating that VST crash when we're all hanging out in a forum that wouldn't even exist if VST was an unstable format is truly a marvel.

Really glad people like that are about to get schooled once and for all.

Crashy and buggy VSTs exist. So does cancer and poverty. Humanity still exists doesn't it? But it sure would be great without it.

Likewise, VSTs aren't the greatest thing on the planet and count me in the camp that says reason should NEVER open itself to that can of worms. It is the only program in my arsenal I can count on. Just bloody open up rewire and unleash tje beast already. No need for this VST nonsense. This coming from a guy who has collected tons of VSTs from the top devs over the years (NI, Waves, spectrasonics, etc)

[sellyoursoul]

I mean, I'm glad, but I haven't heard anyone talk about it.

Oh wait, I see a pattern.......

Question is, why is the pattern so prevalent here at kvr?

Reaper is far from perfect (like any other daw), and I'll point out without hesitation that it needs some feature completions in a number of areas and quite a bit of overall polishing up. But in the scheme of things, Reaper is a badass daw, with no real match in it's collective strengths.

Back on topic...

Someone above mentioned bi-directional audio for Rewire and Reason acting as a Rewire host. Those things would be good for Reason, and I have argued for those features in the past. But then I saw Jack and session management on Linux. Jack acts as a patchbay for audio and midi applications to pass streams bi-directionally to one another. And session management allows for saving and recalling complex multi-application setups in one shot, unlike where with Rewire you must save each project in the host and slave separately and recall them separately. Jack and session management is stuff from the linux world, which is advanced beyond the plugin or rewire paradigms. Imagine a future audio/midi environment in which you use a virtual patchbay to route your daws, browser, media player, hardware, all to one another as you wish, do your work, save everything as a session, and recall it all in one shot. That is something that we should be getting excited over, not so much a daw finally getting support for a plugin standard which has been around for decades. I'm not knocking Reason for finally getting vst support. As others have been saying, it is about time. But in 2017, we should be getting excited by those developers who are looking at the bigger picture of audio/midi application interoperability. Plugin support is a step. Bi-directional Rewire is another step. Virtual routing and session management between applications is a huge step and it is where things should be right now in 2017 (it is on linux). And this is one of my arguments for why linux support is important in the current age, not 20 years down the road when the future has already passed Reason by, as did support for vst plugins.

Now take it further and imgaine what this interoperability and session management means on a fundamental level: modularization. Imagine for a minute, breaking Reason into pieces. Sometimes a user might just want to use the rack of instruments and effects, with another daw, with other instruments and effects, with other applications. And sometimes a user just wants the whole of Reason to get down to creating a song. Or a user might want to use just the mixer with other components for a session.

See, the problem in transistioning from the hardware world to the virtual world is that the paradigm changed for the worse. In the hardware world, a user can use any instruments, effects, mixer, recorder, and other tools in any variety of his choosing. But in the software world, the paradigm changed to a large degree, all or nothing, especially early on. And Reason stayed behind in that old paradigm. And most other daws are still half into that paradigm. But in the meantime, the paradigm has changed back to user choice of which components are used together, in the linux world.