Combinator reveals Reason's weakness

[waveriderarts]

My observation despite all the patches available for the Reason instrument is Reason is a patch maker's enviornment at heart, and failure to apply patch design over multiple instruments used in a MODULAR RACK often results in the misinterpretation of Reason having a thin sound..

Well in part you are right, but if you like good synths and filters Reason is really a let down....

I agree that you can stack multiples modules and get a good sound, but if you like good sounding osc and filters you can't have that sound with multiple "fattening" copies.

I am sure you can get great sounds, again, but the sweet wound of 1 good sounding filter and enveloppe is what I am after. And do not get much of that in Reason.

Just the inclusion of one or two more instruments and fx could get me interested on the other hand.

BTW I like the weird sounds/pieces you do, for what I have heard anyway.

[AD80]

Sure, I've been layering synths for a long time as well, back to my AlphaJuno and Six-Track

It would be cool if Tracktion racks remembered synth and effect patch settings, I don't know if that's the case or not. EXT I have no idea about.

Both racks and EXT remember the settings of all the plug-ins routed within them. And you can save each of those as a separate preset to be pulled up later. EXT can even have other EXT's within itself.

[quincy]

I love EXT, but i didn't think i could easily set up a rack of VSTi and then have a single knob on my controller control multiple parameters of multiple synths at different levels of responsiveness (perhaps wrong word)

Actually to be fair, it is just as easy in XT as it is in Reason - gives you different levels of responsivness too.

No shit?

Well you live and learn!!

To be fair i am too busy with university to make music at the moment so this is all academic for me(pun intended) but if thats true then the reason 3.0 upgrade looks even less worth the wait than it did already.

2 years for what then? some functionality thats existed for ages in other hosts and few new FX. Dear me. Glad i leapt off that bandwagon a while ago, i'll stick with Renoise and EXT thanks very much.

[braj]

For anyone who thinks the Combinator isn't a big deal, imagine something similar in another host: the ability to layer 2 Minimoogs, a sampler, some effects etc and create a patch that can be called up without setting up and routing all those tracks, sends etc. Wouldn't that be a big deal?

No need to imagine it -- I do that using Chainer inside of Sonar and other hosts all the time. It's fantastic!

That looks cool, I'll have to check that out! Can you set it up to have your controller tweak different/multiple parameters in multiple VSTi at the same time? How easy is it to deal with?

[braj]

Sure, I've been layering synths for a long time as well, back to my AlphaJuno and Six-Track

It would be cool if Tracktion racks remembered synth and effect patch settings, I don't know if that's the case or not. EXT I have no idea about.

Both racks and EXT remember the settings of all the plug-ins routed within them. And you can save each of those as a separate preset to be pulled up later. EXT can even have other EXT's within itself.

D'oh! I didn't know that! Seems that would be a good for Mackie to advertise. Especially since the Combinator is out and people will have an easy reference to understand why it's a cool feature.

[Meffy]

There's entirely too much "to be fair" and "after you, Gaston" "no, after you, Alphonse" in this thread. It's supposed to be filled with flames, not reasonable discussion! What's the matter with you people? :-D Are you too smart to be trolled?

Meffy

[Mr. Slater's Parrot]

That looks cool, I'll have to check that out! Can you set it up to have your controller tweak different/multiple parameters in multiple VSTi at the same time? How easy is it to deal with?

Yes. In fact, Chainer provides midi-learn as well as direct assignment of midi cc's to any control of any (and all) VSTi or VST loaded inside of it. So you can also use it to add midi-learn to plugins that don't provide that feature themselves. And the mechanism is really simple. It also allows you to transpose notes for each loaded instrument.

You can also save Chainer presets and reuse them -- even in a different host. Or, in Chainer's standalone version, which, BTW, is a fast and simple tool in itself for creating layered instruments which can be played live or reused in another host.

[apflaum]

HAHA wow i forgot about that, haha, end of argument. chainer rocks

[hesnotthemessiah]

Guess no one's an Orwell fan here..

I thought that duck was dead.

[Sicklecell666]

BTW I like the weird sounds/pieces you do, for what I have heard anyway.

Thanks. I didn't use Reason for any of it.

[headquest]

I think that (personally) Reason 3.0's greatest new strength is the "Remote" controller integration, which few would deny is way out front of most other software.

I'm especially excited because I just purchased a more serious controller (the M-Audio Ozone) rather than just hooking up my Yamaha keyboard. All those sliders, knobs, etc instantly lock into the features on every Reason device.

I don't know yet of VSTs that can do this.

As a keyboard player this makes it a great instrument, and with the stability and low CPU it is also now ideal for live use.

[LBN]

For me, the new patch browser was reason enough to upgrade from 2.5. No more wondering what's in some obliquely-named refill and which of the dozen devices you have to open it in.

I didn't understand the usefulnesss of Combinator until I saw it in action. I too thought it was a stop-gap measure until they could develop some better sound generators. Now I understand that it's like being able to load Reason as a plug-in within Reason. It's actually very cool.

I'm now beginning to think of Reason as a very modular synth rather than just a softstudio. And even with the Combinator patches it's still incredibly CPU efficient. Most of the Combinator patches barely make a 2% dent on my CPU.

Now all I need is Tracktion 2 and then I'll finally be able to finish some music.

[Sicklecell666]

Now all I need is Tracktion 2 and then I'll finally be able to finish some music.

That'll be good to see. I've always wondered what your material was about..

[Squids]

The upgrade is $99? That's worth it just for the new sounds that come with it. But, the new effects are really nice too. Then the Combinator is the GLUE that turns all of the modules into SUPER modules depending on the programming. Sure, in VST-land you can do some great stuff with Chainer. I do too! But, in Reason you didn't HAVE Chainer before and now you have those kind of features and a lot more. Is it worth the upgrade price? YES! It is. If you don't use Reason then maybe not but if you do then don't miss it! Seriously. I've had the opportunity to work with it for a while and this is really, really good.

Harmony-Gardens, your question was not stupid. Actually, SampleTank DOES do synthsis including a granular type synthesis with Stretch and OF COURSE subtractive synthesis. Reason has analog type oscillators in Subtractor and granular waves in Malstrom. You also have Dr. Rex to play rex and the matrix for cool midi modulation. But, the main difference is that Reason is a stand alone app with its own sequencer and a rack that emulates a hardware wire up your studio approach. What I like about it is that you can throw samples in and out of it easily with the combinator you can mix samples with other synths and effects or play around with Rex files and now save the synth parameter editing you do with it (couldn't do that before without combinator). It's just a different approach but both are great.

[Hovmod]

I use Reason quite a bit, and one of the refills I use most is the Reason Drum Kits. To get that set up in a useful way, you want a setup with loads of outputs from the NN-XT, routed through loads of eqs and compressors to multiple channels in a mixer. Until now, you had to start your projects with a template song with this kind of setup. Now I can just load a combi patch, containing the nnxt with the kit of my choice, the comps, the eqs and a mixer with drum reverbs and effects, into any song at any point of development. And it only takes up 2U in the rack. And now, in 3.0, the eqs and comps are useful, too. The stacking of subtractors is a bonus, but not a selling point for me. There are lots of good synths out there.