Wow, Rack Extensions are expensive

[headquest]

I'm not sure why those of us who do not use Reason have to kvetch about the cost of the RE's here. I doubt that it is going to sway those who bought into it in the first place...

Well I bought into it in the first case, and encouraged many students and other musicians to do the same. I've used Reason for years and invested a lot of money and time in it. But this is one of the point that has certainly swayed me. I think the cost of being a Reason user is going to absolutely rocket.

[xh3rv]

I was hoping that the limits/features of the RE SDK would essentially make any RE editions so different that it wouldn't truly be the same as any ported VST. This would then kill the arguments/worrying about coupons and cross over discounts for existing users.

Think of all the possibilities with CV wires going everywhere.

I want to challenge the idea that the devices need to be so different, 'only-in-Reason' to take advantage of the rack environment. Since the Reason environment is modular a lot of the magic doesn't have to be in a device. It's a simple metaphor under which novel arrangements of devices is more workable than the average VST/AU host. Modularity may even imply a given device needs less features, since one can rely on features implemented already in the rack. The non-windowed GUI and vanilla CVs and cabling already do a lot to make something Reason-able.

Take the FET compressor for example - audio in, audio out, and a sidechain isn't so interesting and definitely not only-in-Reason, but probably a *lot* more fun than side-chaining in other hosts. I know in Ableton it would have to be done via a dummy track and sorting through routing in *horrible* drop-down menus. But it's not something Softube really has to think about design-wise, it's just Reason's functionality.

Not much on the RE shop is only-in-Reason, this is evidence that "only-in-Reason" isn't critical for REs. But I think the better, more telling evidence for my point here is that many Reason devices don't pass the 'only-in-Reason' test as well. So I've concluded that only-in-Reason functionality can't be fundamentally necessary. Of course desirable and intriguing for some things, but not necessary for everything.

(Less logically, it feels to me like it's turning out to be less about allowing developers to do something inspired by only-in-Reason than forcing them to do something crippled by only-in-Reason.)

[headquest]

The developer video that Propellerhead released has a lot of things in it that don't ring true to this developer, and don't seem to conform to the experiences of those that have actually developed RE plugins. The "15 minutes to get a plugin up and running" concept seems to be a meme that Propellerhead has heavily pushed. I have heard this concept (15 minutes, 4 hours, whatever) quoted and repeated numerous times on the Propellerhead forum and elsewhere. It is hard to view this concept as anything other than marketing spin, that is aimed towards Propellerhead consumers rather than developers.

Sean Costello

True. I've seen it plainly stated by CEO Ernst and subsequently repeated over and over as well.

I know that all companies do their best to put a positive spin in their marketing. Obviously. But some companies go further than that. They venture beyond any semblance of truth in their claims.

Propellerhead have sadly taken this route for some time. The negativity of their implications and statements about the rest of the industry are at time astonishing, and I find it weird that people let them get away with it to be honest.

Ten years ago Propellerhead were genuinely at the top of their game. ReCycle, ReBirth and early versions of Reason changed the whole computer music game forever. REX, Refills and Rewire because industry standards...

But that was then: this is now. The reality is that its been several years since Propellerhead came out with a game changer, yet in the meantime they seem to have become increasingly arrogant, ever more reliant on hype, to a point that has become absurd. And, distracting though it is for the rest of the industry, companies have a commercial responsibility to at least look into whatever Big Idea they've come up with next.

I genuinely wonder how much longer they will be around, because when you consder the cyclic patterns in business and innovation it seems to me that Propellerhead has some time ago peaked, and is now just desperate to get publicity and stay in the game a little longer with each new scheme they come up with.

[headquest]

Not much on the RE shop is only-in-Reason, this is evidence that "only-in-Reason" isn't critical for REs. But I think the better, more telling evidence for my point here is that many Reason devices don't pass the 'only-in-Reason' test as well. So I've concluded that only-in-Reason functionality can't be fundamentally necessary. Of course desirable and intriguing for some things, but not necessary for everything.

I would love to be able to use some decent orchestral samples in Reason. It's possible in every other music software, using VST. But there's really nothing industry standard available with Reason for putting together even a simple demo of a soundtrack.

Routing isn't necessary for any of that of course. Just cooperation with others.

A Kontakt Player in the Rack would go a long way towards helping, but my guess is Propellerheads won't be so interested in that, because the third party sample sets for Kontakt are available from other vendors and stores, so they wouldn't cream off their profit.

[KevWestBeats]

I don't have any issues with the pricing of RE at all. Maybe its because most of them do not interest me but I also do not think that they are that pricey until you start buying all of them. I don't know why one would need to buy every RE available. At this point there are 2 or 3 that I would buy today. I am waiting to see instruments though.

[hibidy]

Too many plug in choices. I'll stick with the past...........vst 2.4

[eXode]

But in terms of using RE in a creative way (and you would be one of the absolute top blokes to do that!!) ... this is no longer possible. You will have to either use your RE devices and understand other users don't own them, or stick to using Reason's stock devices and waste the investment you make in RE... !!!

I don't really see how this would make sense for somebody in your position ;)

Cheers.

Yes. I've actually already responded to a thread in the props user forum that there isn't really a device today that I feel makes sense to develop patches for. That might change when/if we get more advanced synths in Reason (Predator springs to mind). I mean I can do a Predator RE refill and still mix all the stock devices and layer several Predators in Combi's and all that usual Reason stuff, but it would still be refills specific for a certain RE. I wouldn't dream of doing a refill that is dependent of more than one RE either.

Another thing that can be a problem is "utility" RE's. Imagine if someone makes an awesome CV processing RE that still costs money. I don't think that anyone except sound designers may see benefit for something like that, yet it leaves you helpless because why bother making patches if people won't ever buy that RE. I think we have that problem with Pulsar now, because it's only free for a limited period of time. That throws me off completely because that means that not every 6.5 user will have it.

And this leads me to my last (at the moment) concern about RE. Will we stop seeing devices with major upgrades of Reason (and only RE?). I don't know but I seriously hope not because there's comfort in knowing that every user of i.e. version 7 has the same basic tools. I just hope it doesn't stop with what we got last in R6.

Mabybe there will be a transition phase, maybe not. Only time will tell.

[kmonkey]

I don't have any issues with the pricing of RE at all. Maybe its because most of them do not interest me but I also do not think that they are that pricey until you start buying all of them. I don't know why one would need to buy every RE available. At this point there are 2 or 3 that I would buy today. I am waiting to see instruments though.

Yes that's really interesting point which is also my opinion. I mean i do not like several RE crucial rules (actually i think some are disgusting) but i don't understand why people expect these plugs to be below 30$ and why people think that they need all? I am seeing people are using total sum of all RE plugs in a shop as a negative stand point.

For example at the moment in RE shop only thing which i could need is Softube TSAR reverb (and FET) because it is only decent reverb plugin for Reason and that is just my subjective opinion. Other may disagree but i think that Reason reverbs are poor (just playing with demo). Heck i even like older reverb better then their supposedly great RV7000 but reverbs are really subjective anyway. In future i might be interested in better synths.

So my point is that i don't understand why people think they need to have everything from shop?

There is a demo, you try it, if you like it buy it...seems simple?!

[Crackbaby]

I know why people would like to have them all ...

....

Imagine a simple synth like charlatan with a nice amount of cv inputs. You could assemble whatever effects and modulation inside a combinator and have a monster synth. You could even stack several of them for more oscillators!
I think that's the big advantage of a modular environment. You don't need a ton of features on a synth.

[kmonkey]

I know why people would like to have them all ...

....

Imagine a simple synth like charlatan with a nice amount of cv inputs. You could assemble whatever effects and modulation inside a combinator and have a monster synth. You could even stack several of them for more oscillators!
I think that's the big advantage of a modular environment. You don't need a ton of features on a synth.

That's a joke right?

[Crackbaby]

None of it was a joke, not sure which part you mean

If i were to go back to Reason i would to replace what i have now as vst's. Only the three new plugins introduced in 6.0 feels worthy of keeping (not counting spiders etc). Anything else would feel like loading up old plugins like Pentagon I.
While i maybe wouldn't need "every" RE plugin, there's a lot of tools to replace, some of which have no representation in the shop yet.

Etch Red, Ozone Maximizer, Roughrider, RM1, FET Compressor, TSAR 1R, DC2 (maybe, depends on how good the 6.0 delay is), AF4 and ABL2

452€ ... and that's without a descent synth! This is without all the cool effects like beat repeaters and glitchers.
I've been asking who the target group is a couple of times. Someone with a lot of cash for sure Maybe there's this odd guy or girl who uses Reason and think they only need one advanced ring modulator and that's it.
If you're into one genre and one genre only maybe you can streamline it and go on with just a few. I change genre about once every two months..

[kmonkey]

None of it was a joke, not sure which part you mean

That about charlatan synth. My apology then

[Crackbaby]

Oh lol, i should have replied to the other one then:lol:
Naturally i want to see more advanced synths as well, with more exotic controls Diversion and Blade are my favs for a reason

[VitaminD]

Of course, perhaps the market is willing to embrace the current attitude.. look at Apple for example..

(A point only an iZombie would make:) Apple invested in some open-source tools to get there. GCC/LLVM and WebKit (which is notably beneficial to most smart-phone and tablet makers - Google/Android, BlackBerry, Amazon) come to mind immediately. A notable result of this is streamlining some things for developers. It sounds like Propellerhead made choices that did the opposite. [e] (And it seems like these were made more in the later SDK versions? Dunno, I'm assuming there was at least "confusion" though)

The comparison is different enough that it's unfair in a lot of ways. Apple simply has a lot of weight to throw around. But all the same a lot of things that could be more black or white for developers are now 50 shades of gray.

When I mentioned Apple.. I meant.. closed system supposed to 'just work' with incredibly inflated prices.

In that respect, it is completely fair and accurate.

[xh3rv]

When I mentioned Apple.. I meant.. closed system supposed to 'just work' with incredibly inflated prices.

In that respect, it is completely fair and accurate.

Well, Sean Costello's response* noted that the app store deflates prices of the individual apps. Both might be true though - the iPhone platform certainly isn't the economy choice, while the apps are. I think this doesn't exactly correlate to REs anyway, though.

If I should restate my point - Apple did some things that aren't closed and even benefit direct competitors, but still is obviously successful. They don't have the highest market share in cell phones at this point even, but for smart phone web browsers I think WebKit is most of them, everything but Windows phones. (It's also not trivial given how many apps are not far removed from just being web browser bookmarks ...).

With REs in their current form I wonder if too many choices may have been made with locking out competitors in mind. Some of these seem direct (no crossgrades). I have to wonder how locking out competitors might figure into their thinking on future-proofing as well, which I gather is where the difference between the RE preview at Musikmesse (sure, port VSTs in 15 min, 4 hours, a week) and RE launch (how did this take 2 months?!?) figures in. Propellerhead may be ahead anyway, but making things more difficult just to stay isolated blows back on developers and users as well, meaning a lot of missed opportunities IMO.

Just an opinion from the peanut gallery.

*Sean Costello said things about RE a couple months ago that are turning out very true and represents an actually informed opinion