KVR Audio

blueSky · Post by **blueSky** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:18 am

Hey!

I don´t know whether i am right in here or not. But i have one simple question for all user in here:
What do you think of Propellerhead Reason 3? Is it worth buying? I welcome every single opinion. Tell me whats great about it, or whats bad...

greetz
blueSky

fliffo · Post by **fliffo** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:45 am

I think this is a question that no one can reply, unless you tell what music you wanna make, if you want to play live or not, if you wanna spend some time learning the music app. functionalities or you wanna go for something you more "on the fly" and intuitive, and so on.

Reason IMO is a great proggy but it has some limitations...you can find those limitations frustrating or inspiring but that's up to you.

hvaring · Post by **hvaring** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:56 am

blueSky wrote:Hey!

I don´t know whether i am right in here or not. But i have one simple question for all user in here:
What do you think of Propellerhead Reason 3? Is it worth buying? I welcome every single opinion. Tell me whats great about it, or whats bad...

greetz
blueSky

Why don't you download the demo and see for yourself?

Main limitation of Reason for me is lack of audio recording and VST support. But that can be solved in an affordable way by running Reason in ReWire mode under a budget VST host, such as FL Studio, Orion, Tracktion etc.
Or Live or Cubase if your wallet permits.

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:16 am

I think KvR is split at about 50-50 on Reason...
I like it a lot.

waiting man · Post by **waiting man** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:21 am

blueSky · Post by **blueSky** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:26 am

Ok.
I just would like to hear about your experiences with this application, only to get a little response. I downloaded the demo and I think it´s pretty nice.

The music i would like to produce is:
1. some electronic stuff (drum'n'bass, rnb, hip-hop ...)

2. some orchestral stuff (e.g. movie soundtracks)

So, what do you think, is Reason a good decision?
Better solutions?

- I played around with FL-Studio some time ago, is it really possible to include Reason into FL-Studio by Rewire or something?

greetz
blueSky

Meffy · Post by **Meffy** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:36 pm

IMO Reason is the best bunch of sound-making gear you can find for the price, and it gets better with each new version. I use several hosts and a heap of plug-ins, and love them all. But if I had to choose just one music program to keep, this would be the one.

D&B, (modern) RNB, hip hop: Sure. Those are among the genres most popular among Reasoners. It's a natural choice for trance and other dance genres, and you can make very good songs using nothing else besides Reason.

Orchestral soundtrack: In previous versions this wasn't quite as strong. But as of Version 3 there have been big improvements in the included sound banks. I believe the Orkester has been beefed up significantly.

For complex songs you might want to use Reason along with a Rewire-capable host program such as Sonar or Cubase or Live. Sonar handles the stuff that's not in Reason, such as tempo and time signature changes, support for other plug-ins, audio recording, and a traditional staff view. Live's impressive loop and sample manipulating power makes it very popular among Reason users, and it too lets you use VST instruments and effects.

I don't know anything about FL, can't tell you about that side of things.

Stupid American Pig · Thu Aug 18, 2005 12:36 pm

Im 50/50 split on version 3. I really like the combinator, and it makes reason a more modular environment. However, I really really really dislike rewire. I would even go so far as to say I FECKING HATE rewire. The fact that I have to maintain 2 files for every project SUCKS. The fact that you have to close rewire beore closing yer project also sucks. That said, I will still update it when reason 4 comes out.

rounser · Post by **rounser** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:11 pm

Sidle over to Reasonstation, and you'll notice by the thousands of songs that Reason users appear to be the most productive producers on the net...I think this is directly related to the lack of plugin hosting (and the overall stability, tight integration, familiar toolset and true total recall the app offers).

But I might be wrong. Is there an app which has more prolific writers than Reason users?

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:21 pm

rounser wrote:Sidle over to Reasonstation, and you'll notice by the thousands of songs that Reason users appear to be the most productive producers on the net...I think this is directly related to the lack of plugin hosting (and the overall stability, tight integration, familiar toolset and true total recall the app offers).

But I might be wrong. Is there an app which has more prolific writers than Reason users?

Quality and quntity are 2 different things. I will say that I realy like the way reasons sequencer quantizes things. It just seems natural...

Algorythm · Post by **Algorythm** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:32 pm

Stupid American Pig wrote:Im 50/50 split on version 3. I really like the combinator, and it makes reason a more modular environment. However, I really really really dislike rewire. I would even go so far as to say I FECKING HATE rewire. The fact that I have to maintain 2 files for every project SUCKS. The fact that you have to close rewire beore closing yer project also sucks. That said, I will still update it when reason 4 comes out.

I agree. I like the reason as a sampler and as a studio enviroment with some great peripherals like the new mastering bundle, but, i don't like the ancient subtractor engine..Even with many subtractors connected together as a supersynth in combinator, you can easily recognise that subtractor sound..not character..just the ancient software filters and oscillators.In v.3.0.3 propellerheads could have this synth upgraded with a better engine, but they didn't..Personally i didn't need the combinator in v3.(even if it is a great feature).I needed better sound from the existing one and only subtractive synth. Ok, if you tweak it, push it, lift it, drop it, you will make a good sound in the end,but the best instruments are those which don't need "patents" and rewirings and combinators to make a good simple sound..I don't like connecting, reconnecting, and then adjusting the synth.I like just to program it.Simple and effective..If you want a veery good all in one package and extra inspiration booster, then v3.0 is very good.It's just this subtractor thing that is getting into my ears badly..

rounser · Post by **rounser** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:32 pm

Quality and quntity are 2 different things.

That is true, but we also know that practice makes perfect, and they're getting plenty of that...

waiting man · Post by **waiting man** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:38 pm

I made more tracks with it than any other program I've used

performing, drawing, editing automations is so smooth and easy

the modular structure will give endless wicked start points for electronic tracks, you can modulate almost everything. and that was before the combinator, so now it's even better.

a huge collection of refills. and lots of'em are free like the great ElectroMechanical, Peff's, Lizard's etc. (check combinatorhq.com). and you can load soundfonts. plus refills have a space-saving lossless compression.

you'll be able the preview tons of patches on the fly with few mouseclicks, while the song is running, with no glitch.

Malstrom synth may sound a bit thin and digital but if programmed well is the ultimate resource for dnb pads & glitches

Redrum is the simplest yet more complete samplebased drum machine.

Scream4 is a mean multiuse fcuker distortion.

Subtractor (through fx beefing) is a great all-rounder synth.

(little plug, follow the c.d.p. link in my sig, in the music section I got 3 tracks with at least a 60% of Reason)

rounser · Post by **rounser** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:41 pm

i don't like the ancient subtractor engine

I've heard the difference between a good filter and an average one (trying to reproduce a V-Station patch inside of Renoise using the unfiltered waveform, for instance...those amazing envelopes make up for it though), and it matters for about the last 10% of shimmer and quality. However, as was pointed out to me, once the mixdown starts and the EQ starts carving that's going to get lost anyway.

There simply isn't that much difference between one square wave, sawtooth or sine wave and the next, and the moment your Subtractor goes through a Scream 4 (which I can't find anything nearly as useful as in the VST world) all bets are off.

I mean, you may have a point, but I think it's way overstated, and by far too many people. And it's not as if the Subtractor's filters are dodgy anyway; I've heard dodgy filters, and they can't do a decent Rebirth impression (which the subtractor can).

blueSky · Post by **blueSky** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 1:41 pm

Thanks to all of you. It was very helpful.

greetz
blueSky

Propellerhead Reason 3 - your opinion