Musikmesse 2012: Propellerhead to share "exciting news"

[headquest]

Those three effects are pretty unique in the way they work with features and all. IMHO of course

...
Edit: oops

I agree. But also many of the effects by Audio Damage... or for that matter Waves.... are unique.

Hopefully Reason users will soon get to experience the power of some of these amazing tools.

[liquid wind]

It's good that all Rack Extensions will come with a lengthy free trial period so users can sort the garbage out from the keepers in a real world use senerio... It's this way with most current VST's though, no?

Most VSTs don't give you a lengthy period of time to use them completely uncrippled, most have noise intervals/silence and such from the get go or after 10 minutes. 30 days is even probably excessive, I'd take a week or two as a huge improvement over what most VSTs give you for a trial. Having a few days to really use them and even put them in your music would give a much better idea than it giving you a few minutes before it becomes dysfunctional, which really makes it seem like they're trying to sell you on the presets alone...

[EnochLight]

If someone is negative they will interpret everything negatively, it is evidence of our own close-mindedness and defensive posture over our chosen positions. Most of us don't know any better

True, but I tend to be a "glass half-full" kind of guy at heart. Regardless of everyone's position on this thread's subject, it's happening whether we want it to or not.

Me? I'm looking forward to the results.

[EnochLight]

It's good that all Rack Extensions will come with a lengthy free trial period so users can sort the garbage out from the keepers in a real world use senerio... It's this way with most current VST's though, no?

Most VSTs don't give you a lengthy period of time to use them completely uncrippled, most have noise intervals/silence and such from the get go or after 10 minutes. 30 days is even probably excessive, I'd take a week or two as a huge improvement over what most VSTs give you for a trial. Having a few days to really use them and even put them in your music would give a much better idea than it giving you a few minutes before it becomes dysfunctional, which really makes it seem like they're trying to sell you on the presets alone...

That's good to know, and I guess at least one positive thing that RE users can look forward to. I've always hated crippled trial periods or short periods of time to try before you buy. An unrestricted fully functional period of 30-days is a pretty solid trial period, IMHO.

[eXode]

Those three effects are pretty unique in the way they work with features and all. IMHO of course :P

...
Edit: oops

I think that you need to be a tinkerer to fully enjoy Reason. Out of the three effects I think that the Alligator is the least exciting (personal opinion) but the Pulveriser and The Echo are bloody brilliant. I put the Pulveriser on almost everything to give the source some character, not to mention all the stuff you can do wit it.

Non-Reason users won't care but the fact the the envelope follower on the Pulveriser acts like a lag processor with individual attack and release if you connect an external CV signal to it, or that you can have the follower modulate the rate of the lfo, or that the lfo goes high up in audio range (12 khz) so when modulating the volume at very high rates you get sample rate reduction. It's like a swiss army knife tool for sound processing and mangling.

Then there's the Echo. I love the "keep pitch" function it carries and that you can build a combinator that makes it behave like a beat repeater that is triggered by your keyboard, and that you can set it in such a way so that the beat repeat timing increases the higher you play on the keyboard (think atomizer on the access virus). I really like the sound of the roll function as well, great for instant dub goodness!

There's always more than meets the eye! :)

[headquest]

That's good to know, and I guess at least one positive thing that RE users can look forward to. I've always hated crippled trial periods or short periods of time to try before you buy. An unrestricted fully functional period of 30-days is a pretty solid trial period, IMHO.

Agreed.

Of course it's ultimately about freedom of choice - the Propellerhead approach sets a standard in terms of this demo policy, not to mention the ease of distribution, installation, etc. They have definitely hit the mail on the head in a very positive way.

But it would be quite wrong to assume all VSTs have it wrong. And it all really depends on the vendors who buy into their scheme, and the quality of the end product. As somebody who has used both Reason and Live (with VSTs) for years, I would say without hesitation that the quality of Reason's built in effects do not come close to that offered by top end developers such as Waves, PSP Audioware, UA, fabfilter, etc. In fact they struggle to compete with the built in effects that are bundled with the big hosts such as Logic, Cubase, Sonar, etc, quite apart from the high end VSTs.

IF the Re store can offer quality devices from those vendors, with the added benefits that Propellerhead offer, then they will have a lot of customers without doubt, and Reason will gain a lot of credibility

but on the downside.... most of those big names already have sales, distribution, copy protection, etc all worked out. So the deal on the table from Propellerhead might not have the same attraction as it would to a smaller or newer developer.

[headquest]

Non-Reason users won't care but the fact the the envelope follower on the Pulveriser acts like a lag processor with individual attack and release if you connect an external CV signal to it, or that you can have the follower modulate the rate of the lfo, or that the lfo goes high up in audio range (12 khz) so when modulating the volume at very high rates you get sample rate reduction. It's like a swiss army knife tool for sound processing and mangling.

Then there's the Echo. I love the "keep pitch" function it carries and that you can build a combinator that makes it behave like a beat repeater that is triggered by your keyboard, and that you can set it in such a way so that the beat repeat timing increases the higher you play on the keyboard (think atomizer on the access virus). I really like the sound of the roll function as well, great for instant dub goodness!

There's always more than meets the eye!

This is all great stuff to hear about, to try out, and for brilliant sound designers such as you to play and experiment with

...but you also need to remember the time this would take most users. Not everyone is quite so into the sound design side of things. For an "ordinary musician" (lol, whatever one of those is!) there are plenty of VSTs out there that could probably do this stuff simply by selecting a preset.

Don't underestimate how fast a musician can get the sound they want from the latest VST effects. And don't underestimate how highly most musicians value that ease of use

in the meantime of course Reason users have people like you who offer a huge service through your tireless work on Refills, etc,

[sensorium]

A chat with Magnus

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2012/03/ ... rspective/

Interesting that props have been considering plugins for a few *years*. Looks like REs are long in the making.

[Crackbaby]

but on the downside.... most of those big names already have sales, distribution, copy protection, etc all worked out. So the deal on the table from Propellerhead might not have the same attraction as it would to a smaller or newer developer.

Those big names don't have to abandon their system. They'll just expand their target audience by, if profitable, making RE versions.

I thought of another thing. Now when at least some devs will make their GUI's uniform, do you think "racked" plugins will start to turn up as VSTs? Could it be that Props has some kind of deal you have to sign to not use the GUI anywhere else?
Racks are a comfortable GUI format.

[sellyoursoul]

but on the downside.... most of those big names already have sales, distribution, copy protection, etc all worked out. So the deal on the table from Propellerhead might not have the same attraction as it would to a smaller or newer developer.

Those big names don't have to abandon their system. They'll just expand their target audience by, if profitable, making RE versions.

I thought of another thing. Now when at least some devs will make their GUI's uniform, do you think "racked" plugins will start to turn up as VSTs? Could it be that Props has some kind of deal you have to sign to not use the GUI anywhere else?
Racks are a comfortable GUI format.

I agree. I much prefer the rack format with drop down sections for deeper editing to the current trend of giant vst gui's, not to mention being able to tweak the settings on more than one plugin without having to switch between windows.

Also, while some hosts, such as Reaper, provide accommodations for modulation, parameter linking, and other little things that are lacking within the plugins themselves, it would be nice to see something emerge in the vst (or new format) world that allows for better inter-connectivity between plugins.

I hereby give all of you developers permission to come together and work these things out.

[skipkent]

Almost every new feature you see in Reason since 1.0 appeared came at the request of users, and/or had already been planned anyway.

So tell me which assh*le asked them to separate the mixer from the rack?

Who asked them for three-windows instead of two?

I think they own initial design goals forced them to break out of the initial single rack design. I think it would be difficult from a design and implementation perspective to have put the SSL emulation console in the original rack. It seems they wanted to give the user a chance to make it as big and wide as they wanted for higher track counts.

If you think about it, Reason was always a '2 window' app anyways. Most folks chose to break out the editor page from the rack (I know I always did), so all Reason/Record did was make it official and then allow for an extra side-by-side rack space. As I said earlier, there was really no way they were going to squish the SSL into a single rack space, so why fight the inevitable? They embraced it instead.

3 screens now instead of the 2 we had before in all previous versions.

An alternative might have been to put the SSL in the rack with a scroll bar at the bottom to let it scroll side to side. Kinda fiddly, though.

Obviously, Props wants to change with the times and attract new users. Meanwhile, those old versions are still there. Long live 2.5!

[glokraw]

Obviously, Props wants to change with the times and attract new users. Meanwhile, those old versions are still there. Long live 2.5!

If the beancounters say change, or close the doors, that counts
as responding to the times. Lots of companies and individuals
have to do that. Every business wants new customers.

But maybe props are flush with cash, and just bored silly,
and need challenging expansion to keep the inner fires burning.

Maybe there's a 2.5 demo to try on an old CM CD/dvd

[fst]

Didn't see anybody mentioning it yet, but it's interesting to note that Kontakt's GUI is already based on a rack concept....

[liquid wind]

n/m

[sellyoursoul]

Didn't see anybody mentioning it yet, but it's interesting to note that Kontakt's GUI is already based on a rack concept....

But that isn't any good when dealing with plugins outside of Kontakt.