a brave topic starter i suppose at kvr but anyway...ok,i purchased LOADS of plug ins years ago and spent prolly a couple of thousand pounds worth of gear including different DAWS,i went back to reason around 2007/8 around the time of the birth of my son and my marriage,i DIDNT go back to reason for an all in one solution or to put a stop to my plug in buying habit to finance my newborn but im totally glad i did go back as ive written loads more music over 5 years and i must admit i do now like the all in one solution that reason has because honestly my money stays tight instead of the never ending buying of plug ins that honestly i prolly wouldnt need...hey,dont get me wrong there are alot of plugs ins that sound amazing such as omnisphere and diva but unless your getting paid for making music is it all really worth it?

reason continues to get better(with and without RE) and for me its a serious no brainer if ever ive seen one

I left Reason long ago, but ... I think you make an important point

Whatever tool helps YOU make the most music is the best

People get so hung up on Logic vs Cubase vs Pro Tools vs Reason vs Whatever. It's just crazy. I've seen talented musicians create an entire album in Garageband, recording piano using their laptop mic. And yes, the music was fantastic, and that's what counts.

that's the thing, i seem to be making plenty of cool muzak lately so.. i have to give reason it's props for that

(pun completely intended)

The main point i pull out of this, is that you said that you have written loads more music since you switched back to Reason. I always found Reason to be the most easy to get into music production tool, the times i tried it. Especially for a beginner it has loads of stuff to dive into. If you're not so much into synth programming yet, you can always play around with the sampler, load a loop, or create a beat with Redrum, or now Kong, which pretty amazed me when i tried Reason 5 demo.

So, really lots of stuff to get started, which doesn't overwhelm you with millions of parameters to be handled, more straight down to music making. I don't know if Reason is the perfect option financially but it is very, very good value for money.

For what it offers it should cost half the price. Of course you can do masterpieces with anything, reason included. Chopin just needed a broken piano. But this is not the point. Reason has a very "swedish" price.

Hey Myrna,

I'm not clear. Do you not like Reason?

You're as dependable as a baby crapping its pants when it comes to fussin' over Reason.

i am interested in reason as a musician who has used it for 10 years. Alas, in 2012 it lacks too many features. And it costs too much. Of course it is a great piece of software, but i am not a fanboy, so I can judge better, without "wows" and all those fan screams "fantastic", "better and better" etc. For me it is not true: it has become worse, an hybrid daw without the quality of a real daw... the best version was reason 4. They had to leave it as it was and develop record as a real daw, with vst support and reason devices as "REs"... In this way we could have two nice products, rather than one hybrid.

P.S. Just wonder if Native Instruments made a DAW out of Komplete, but closed like reason, without external plugin support and all the other lacks... claiming "it is all you need"... For sure, lots of NI fanboys would scream "better and better", "wow", "shut up hater" etc.

I think Logic Pro is probably the perfect option from a financial / value perspective. And, no I'm not an active Logic user (I was though). For $199, you get a TON more than Reason (and most other DAWs for that matter) - both in terms of highly usable content and synths, but also in terms of functionality. And if you happen to want to spend more money, the AU library available is way bigger than REs will ever be.

for what it offers, Logic Pro should cost at least double the price.

I think Reason is way too expensive. Especially since I regard Recycle as part of the package as I think a slicer is a must have tool. $698 (PH's shop) for both of them is a very steep price.
I don't care much for most of PH's own devices in Reason and that's why I have been considering buying Reason Essential which isn't that bad since they've included RE support.
But everytime I try to make something in Reason I think the rack is a mess just after adding a few devices. Cables hanging everywhere, the need to scroll in every direction. It got a coolness factor and it's fun to play around in, but most of what I wire is an LFO from that to that, add a delay to this, sidechain that.. most of my vst's got this already.
I don't think I could finish a track in it, but would use it to sketch out ideas and to make small loops etc. and for that it is definitely too expensive.

There my subjective opinions

It costs way more than the asking price when you consider it has the worlds most expensive dongle.

I'm sure if Microsoft bought Propellerhead, you would see Reason being sold at the same price as Logic.

that's it.

What exactly are you comparing it to? Reason has loads of instruments, sampler, loop players, and loads of effects on board. Ok, the sequencer part might not be as sophisticated as many other hosts', but that's about the only thing which Reason might lack a bit in comparison. Alone the included instruments would probably cost you the price of Reason if not double the price, when bought to use in your host plus the price for the host. Kind of a bargain if you ask me.

I will have to compare it to the two hosts I own then, Logic & Orion. Both pretty feature packed for their price.
I used to own Cubase Studio (known as Artist today I think?) and I consider it to be a more valuable package than Reason, for far less money. Although it doesn't come with a sampler, there's a ton of free instruments and fx out there ready to be used in it, including samplers. That goes for the other hosts as well. Ok, maybe not that many free AU's, but anyway.
As I said, I don't like most of the internal Reason devices and think you can find just as nice and even better free vst alternatives for many of them.

This starts to sound like I dislike Reason, I don't. It's a very unique product with no direct competition for what it is. It's just my answer to the topic and since some argument for it I have to argument against it. Or being a "Devils advocate"
I do of course understand that this is business and for the consumer it's love it or leave it.

Wait: are you telling me you make computer music on... on a PC?!

(joking, LOL) By the way I was referring to the original price (when i bought it), it was about 500$. The $199 price is only logic (without all the rest: appleloops, mainstage etc.). I guess it is still 500$. If they (re)ported Logic to PC with vst support I would pay extra money immediately. Logic is the perfect daw for me. Only lacks are those stupid AUs instead of VST. But this is not Logic's fault, it's apple's bullshit ("we are different", "we are better" and such crap).