Just downloaded Reason 6.5 plus a couple of RE's from the shop...

[myrna]

They do what they do best. They make products how they want to make them. Many times customers are asking them for way cool complex features. They politely tell them that if they need additional functionality they might want to try a different product

Sorry, but I have a different point of view, because:
(1) name me one single company here which don't do what they do best. It's not a choice, it's a duty.
(2) it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

As far as I can tell, so many RSN users have asked for vst support (not "RE") in all these years... while fanboys claimed the old manthras ("plugins in reason? never!" etc.). Now, who listened they to? REs are neither real plugins, nor original reason racks for orthodox reason fans. They are "this and that": to the ones who asked for plugins: "you asked for them, we give you REs" and they should be happy. To fanboys and orthodox users: "don't worry, Reason remains Reason as ever". I call it marketing.

[Robert Randolph]

(1) name me one single company here which don't do what they do best. It's not a choice, it's a duty.

Steinberg.

(2) it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

It's plenty fair to make the product how they want. Do not purchase the product if it does not meet your needs.

Let me repeat this again, because it seems to be really unclear to a lot of people: DO NOT PURCHASE THE PRODUCT IF IT DOES NOT DO WHAT YOU NEED IT TO DO

The company owes you nothing unless the product is demonstrably broken. Reason is one of the least bug-ridden DAWs out there, so this is not an issue.

You purchased a product, that was very well described, with a nearly unlimited demo. There is no excuse to have purchased it if it did not do what you needed it to do.



Why is this concept such a mindfuck for people?

[drez]

(1) name me one single company here which don't do what they do best. It's not a choice, it's a duty.

Ah, but how many of those are being pressured to do things that are OUTside of what they feel they do best? For example, I don't recall anybody making a big stink to Urs about building a sequencer? He makes plugins so that's what he does. Native Instruments? no sequencer. PH have that same right, no matter what you or anybody else wants from them.

(2) it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

Well, I believe PH qualifies as pioneers
-Rewire which is implemented everywhere
-REX which is implemented everywhere.

So I guess they can do what they want.

As for:
Coherence - I opened up a tune I did in Reason 1.0 a minute ago in 6.5. It played back perfectly. Coherence has a picture of Reason next to it in the dictionary.

Clearness - I don't feel as I've ever been confused using their product it's paradigm is synonymous with hardware which most people have used at one point or another. Inputs and outputs make since, IMO. As far as direction goes, I think they are secretive as most people in the industry are. Ableton is no different, for example.

Listening to Customers - I think they have listened to their customers just fine. Have they implemented things exactly how some customers have asked? Absolutely not. We don't do that at our software company either. We listen to what they need and then we figure out the best way to implement that into our suite of products and we try to give them something innovative. Many times, we implement it in a way that our customer hadn't even thought of and they actually like it better than their own idea. Sometimes not. That's part of a business. A good example to me are the Audio/CV Spiders. Those are genius and super simple.

As far as I can tell, so many RSN users have asked for vst support (not "RE") in all these years... while fanboys claimed the old manthras ("plugins in reason? never!" etc.). Now, who listened they to? REs are neither real plugins, nor original reason racks for orthodox reason fans. They are "this and that": to the ones who asked for plugins: "you asked for them, we give you REs" and they should be happy. To fanboys and orthodox users: "don't worry, Reason remains Reason as ever". I call it marketing.

I guess we'll have to disagree, because like ttoz, I don't want VST's. RE's, IMO are better for Reason and that, after all, is what PH feels is in their best interest. It's hard to argue with their results.

Seriously, PH haven't had VST or MIDI OUT since they started. And they have been this successful. How do you explain that?

[krucial]

Seriously, PH haven't had VST or MIDI OUT since they started. And they have been this succesful

Exactly.

Reason is simply not for everyone. A lot of people including myself love it tho.

Anyway Korg Polysix Re is out. Fun fun fun.

[simesf]

You're talking of the 14/2 mixer. That thing is borderline terrible for a mixer. Tiny little knobs, no way to make accurate adjustments, very skimpy routing, and the eq is junk. It is fine for summing a few devices, but not very useful for much else. The SSL has it's own woes, though. It eats up a lot of screen space, and the 3 tier thing is annoying on a laptop screen. But, the routing is good, and the eq and comps are very usable.

So the 14:2 is too small and the SSL is too big..? Try the little bears porridge; that's just right.

[Jace-BeOS]

Coherence - I opened up a tune I did in Reason 1.0 a minute ago in 6.5. It played back perfectly. Coherence has a picture of Reason next to it in the dictionary.

This exact scenario has burned me several times with Sonar and VST plugins. One version goes by of a couple plugins and the project file won't open due to "missing plugins." Nightmare. Granted, until just recently, there were no audio tracks in Reason, so choosing Reason or not didn't matter any way.

[simesf]

Just noticed that the PolySix is in the RE store for 39 euros.

[Thunderchief]

Just noticed that the PolySix is in the RE store for 39 euros.

Looks good, and sounds good. but its rather disappointing when you flip the rack, only two CV inputs, and no audio input to the filter which would have been nice. But then its is pretty cheep, and has a nice character quite different from the Props synths. Over all I'm tempted, but I'll wait for my demo to time out before buying.

Simon.

[myrna]

(1) name me one single company here which don't do what they do best. It's not a choice, it's a duty.

Steinberg.

Steinberg?! He started it all. If it wasn't for Steinberg we had no vst, and no propellerhead, too. And not even KVR, i guess. Karl Steinberg is the real hero, together with Dave Smith. They don't need to do the best, they are the best. They created all this. We owe respect.

[Dogboy73]

it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

What do you mean, 'it's not fair'?! Praise the Lord for companies like Propellerheads. It would be a very boring (music tech) World if everybody just towed the line. Props do like to do things their own way & all the better for it I say What they do is fantastic I think.

[myrna]

it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

What do you mean, 'it's not fair'?! Praise the Lord for companies like Propellerheads. It would be a very boring (music tech) World if everybody just towed the line. Props do like to do things their own way & all the better for it I say What they do is fantastic I think.

What I mean is: there are not only the brand new customers ("if you don't like it, don't buy it"). Most of the users are fond, loyal customers. I, for intance, was a reason registered user since 2002. It is almost 10 years. Years ago not only we had no dongle, no audio tracks and no RE, but the CEO himself claimed all these things would have never be done, because it was against the "reason concept" and not in their attitudes and aims. They talked about "trusting loyal users, so a SN is more than enough for us"; they said "we don't want Reason to become an audio recorder", they said if they ever introduced plugins in Reason, it would be a mess for users, because of the different instruments and effects in every song. Things like that. So, i know well I can choose wether to buy it or not if it does not give me what i want. Infact I sold it in may, after 10 years of unheard requests and "sorry, we claimed that but now we do this, if you don't like it bye bye". I don't like this policy, that's all.

[mrdr]

LOL, indeed "a vendetta against propellerhead"

[saturdaysaint]

Coherence - I opened up a tune I did in Reason 1.0 a minute ago in 6.5. It played back perfectly. Coherence has a picture of Reason next to it in the dictionary.

Which leads us to perhaps the most amazing promise of RE's, without precedent in the VST world - that Reason will handle all backward compatibility. If Reason works, your REs work. So instead of having every plugin I own be a bottleneck to upgrading my OS or computer, I just have to wait for Props to give the go-ahead. Just another reason why REs have exponentially greater value to me - they become a permanent part of the host in a way that VST plugins never will.

It's not hard to see why developers are lining up to make REs - this is an absurd savings in time, both development and administration. If it's possible, yoou'd almost be crazy NOT to put something in RE format.

[saturdaysaint]

Also, in terms of "coherence":

It's a relief for my eyes to have ONE patch browser to rule them all. Every RE has a patch library that works exactly like every built in Reason device. I can use the same patch toggle arrows on every damn instrument/effect to browse presets. About time.

[simesf]

it's not fair to make products "how they want to make them", unless it is a free product or you are a pioneer. When you sell a product, coherence, clearness and listening to your customers are the main aspects of the business, IMHO.

What do you mean, 'it's not fair'?! Praise the Lord for companies like Propellerheads. It would be a very boring (music tech) World if everybody just towed the line. Props do like to do things their own way & all the better for it I say What they do is fantastic I think.

What I mean is: there are not only the brand new customers ("if you don't like it, don't buy it"). Most of the users are fond, loyal customers. I, for intance, was a reason registered user since 2002. It is almost 10 years. Years ago not only we had no dongle, no audio tracks and no RE, but the CEO himself claimed all these things would have never be done, because it was against the "reason concept" and not in their attitudes and aims. They talked about "trusting loyal users, so a SN is more than enough for us"; they said "we don't want Reason to become an audio recorder", they said if they ever introduced plugins in Reason, it would be a mess for users, because of the different instruments and effects in every song. Things like that. So, i know well I can choose wether to buy it or not if it does not give me what i want. Infact I sold it in may, after 10 years of unheard requests and "sorry, we claimed that but now we do this, if you don't like it bye bye". I don't like this policy, that's all.

10 years is a long, long lifetime in vst/DAW terms. Any company with a design philosophy owes it to themselves and more importantly to their customers to examine that philosophy hard and often. If times and technology change to the point that the old way of doing things are undesirable then any sensible company strikes a new balance between the design brief, making an honest and decent living (God forbid!) and giving the customers what they want. Too much piracy affecting your sales? A dongle makes sense (been using them 25 years without a problem.) Your customers want audio? Tear up the old philosophy and give them what they want. Your customers want 3rd party synths and effects? Listen to them, adapt your philosophy and find a way to do it that won't make Reason crash (been using it since version 1 was released without one single crash)and keep the interconnectivity with other Reason modules.

They changed their philosophy in their own and their customers interests, did some U turns after listening to their customers and gave people what they want and you find this so disgraceful? You say you ditched Reason 'in May after 10 years of unheard requests' and in the same paragraph slate Propellerheads for changing what they said they would or would not do - after listening to customer requests. Are you capable of anything besides pious criticism? That company could be offering their software for free, make no money from RE's and offer to come round and give you a neck rub and a kiss on the lips and you'd still be shouting from the rooftops how useless/evil/greedy/dishonest they are.