is reason the perfect option financially

[chk071]

Although it doesn't come with a sampler, there's a ton of free instruments and fx out there ready to be used in it, including samplers. That goes for the other hosts as well.

That's no argument for me, as Reason has never been open to use 3rd party instruments, free or commercial. You may see that as another reason to argue that it is pricey for what it offers though. Anyway, a comparison can only be fair if you compare what you get delivered, not what you can implement afterwards, and Reason has a lot of instruments, which other hosts have not. It quickly gets expensive when you try to build up a rack like Reason's in Cubase or other hosts.

[headquest]

I think there are two aspects of your question.

Firstly, is Reason the right choice for you? Based on what you say in your OP it seems that the clear answer - at least for the moment - is YES. If you find Reason the most productive environment, it does all you need, and you love using it, then it is clearly a no-brainer *for you*.

Secondly, your question asks whether it is the "perfect option financially", which is a somewhat different question. You say you have spent a lot on different music software over the years... to which I would say this is your personal choice, and will not change simply by picking a different or a single DAW platform.

Most DAW software programmes these days are at least as *complete* in terms of instruments and effects as Reason is, and the choice to spend more money is YOUR choice. Having done that in the past, I would advise that there is a good chance as a Reason owner you will continue to spend thousands going forward. You could pick up ReCycle to start with for around $200. And spend another couple of hundred on Propellerhead's own Refills, before spending many times that on third party ones. Then of course there are now the Rack Extensions - even the initial ones on sale come to over a thousand dollars when you add them up, but there will be bigger, better, and more expensive ones in their shop before the year is our

There is basically no *perfect option financially* other than good money management, and resisting the urge to keep paying money for stuff you don't really need.

[myrna]

Although it doesn't come with a sampler, there's a ton of free instruments and fx out there ready to be used in it, including samplers. That goes for the other hosts as well.

That's no argument for me, as Reason has never been open to use 3rd party instruments, free or commercial. You may see that as another reason to argue that it is pricey for what it offers though. Anyway, a comparison can only be fair if you compare what you get delivered, not what you can implement afterwards, and Reason has a lot of instruments, which other hosts have not. It quickly gets expensive when you try to build up a rack like Reason's in Cubase or other hosts.

If i want to "build up a rack" with say, omnisphere, pianoteq and kontakt, i know well those three instruments together cost much more than reason's price. But the possibilities are infinite and I can play them wherever I want, not only cubase. So you pay a price but you have a standard (VST) with all its advantages (multiplatform, updates, re-sell etc.). Reason, on the contrary, is a standalone application: it's supposed to be "complete" and "everything you need", but for me (note: FOR ME) it is not true. For instance: no physical modeling, no drag and drop, no midi out, no external plugins, a dongle, etc. So, again, for what it offers, it's expensive. You don't realize it at once, but after years of use (in my case: 10 years and three times betatester).

[tibah]

I would agree it is. Also now I only got the 2 free REs and 3-4 ReFills I really use a lot and some samples. For what Reason offers you have years to play around with its own devices for sure, but in the same time, you could download Podium Free, every freebie you want and some free samples - for zero costs. So, personally speaking it is the right way for me and it keeps me from buying to much nonsense (lessons learnt in my plug-in days) but you could argue about the general bargain aspect of it vs. own preferences and experiences.

[headquest]

Anyway, a comparison can only be fair if you compare what you get delivered, not what you can implement afterwards, and Reason has a lot of instruments, which other hosts have not. It quickly gets expensive when you try to build up a rack like Reason's in Cubase or other hosts.

Can't agree with you there - have you checked out what you get in those packages out of the box these days? To use Cubase as the example, as you did, it now includes:

Instruments:
+ Retrologue (cutting edge VA synth - according to CM review it's as good as Sylenth1...!!)
+ Padshop - granular synth (also very cutting edge)
+ HALion Sonic SE (comprehensive rompler, high quality Yamaha Motif sounds)
+ Groove Agent One (sample based Drum Machine, very good)
+ Prologue (polyphonic subtractor synth)
+ Specter (spectral synthesis, good for pads and effects)
+ Mystic (synth, uses physical modelling + comb filtering)
+ Loopmash Two (loop player/mangler - one of a kind!)

Effects:
62 seperate audio effects
15 MIDI effects

Worth adding that the Cubase effects are FAR better than the Reason ones.

If we did this same exercise for Logic or Sonar they would arguably come out even better!

I would say this is significantly more comprehensive than what Reason offers out of the box.

Obviously it didn't used to be this way. Ten years ago most DAW included very little in their bundled content, which is why so many of us bought Reason. It offered a fantastic virtual rack that we could use, via Rewire, within our main DAW. But over the years all the main DAW programmes have developed their own instruments and effects that are often FAR superior to what Reason offers.

[myrna]

Obviously it didn't used to be this way. Ten years ago most DAW included very little in their bundled content, which is why so many of us bought Reason. It offered a fantastic virtual rack that we could use, via Rewire, within our main DAW. But over the years all the main DAW programmes have developed their own instruments and effects that are often FAR superior to what Reason offers.

... when we were 9V
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4614879

[Trakstar]

10 years ago, cubase vst 32 and cubasis vst5.0 at college, nuendo version 01-2 had just come out and was top of the game, with proper surround mixing and plugins for the Yamaha digital FX cards which you could install in your system. i used to dream of owning a setup like that. Arturia storm was at version 01, and native instruments were just starting to set the standard with pro 53, B4 and FM 7. Ill never forget the first time I heard them synths after getting used to subtractor, whoah...

[Trakstar]

Obviously it didn't used to be this way. Ten years ago most DAW included very little in their bundled content, which is why so many of us bought Reason. It offered a fantastic virtual rack that we could use, via Rewire, within our main DAW. But over the years all the main DAW programmes have developed their own instruments and effects that are often FAR superior to what Reason offers.

... when we were 9V
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4614879

9V? was that your old school class or something?

[kae]

Although it doesn't come with a sampler, there's a ton of free instruments and fx out there ready to be used in it, including samplers. That goes for the other hosts as well.

That's no argument for me, as Reason has never been open to use 3rd party instruments, free or commercial. You may see that as another reason to argue that it is pricey for what it offers though. Anyway, a comparison can only be fair if you compare what you get delivered, not what you can implement afterwards, and Reason has a lot of instruments, which other hosts have not. It quickly gets expensive when you try to build up a rack like Reason's in Cubase or other hosts.

Fair or not fair, it's a fact that vst support is a feature that give you access to an unlimited collection of plugins. And so many of them are free. Its listed as a feature for a reason (no pun intended).
And which other host doesn't have a lot of instruments? To me it looks like most of them are filled to the brim with synths and fx.

[myrna]

Obviously it didn't used to be this way. Ten years ago most DAW included very little in their bundled content, which is why so many of us bought Reason. It offered a fantastic virtual rack that we could use, via Rewire, within our main DAW. But over the years all the main DAW programmes have developed their own instruments and effects that are often FAR superior to what Reason offers.

... when we were 9V
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4614879

9V? was that your old school class or something?

can't say more, banned once: that's enough.

[FaX]

If you where on a Mac I'd say Logic was the most obvious "no brainer option" on a power to money ratio - especially seeing how little it costs from the App Store (can't believe it's so cheap these days).

[jancivil]

Cubase 5 doesn't have any instruments or effects I use. However I prefer it because of the way it handles the timeline and tempo mapping. I can force the timeline to conform to the music I record rather than begin with assumptions and conform to the clock, very fundamental to me and I don't know anything else that does it.

I know one composer that makes music a lot like mine that uses Reason/Record, and he has instruments I don't have an equal to, and I am impressed by the Combinator way. A certain amount of stuff I lean on IS available as refills, a lot simply isn't and doesn't look like it ever will be.

it just depends, it isn't a simple either/or. I think a lot owes to what you start with.

[saturdaysaint]

A lot of people feel this way about Reason (and remember: ttoz and I came to Reason from LOGIC) because the included patch/sound library is light years ahead of everybody else's (at least that I've tried recently). When you can get a stylish/modern drumkit, synth bass and pad without fishing through a sea of third-rate Jean Michael Jarre impersonations and/or stripping gimmicky effects off of something, it can be exponentially more useful. I get to a useful sound quicker in Reason than I did with Logic and Komplete, so for me, it's more valuable than those two combined in a very real sense.

Part of this is because they hire and attract great sound designers and make it a priority but I think it's also because Reason is a great sound design and programming environment. You'd need to dive deep into the Environment to reproduce a lot of the stock Combinators and/or Thor patches. The CV tools (Thor, Matrix, the Combinator, Pulsar, etc) make a lot of highly musical modulation and rhythmic effect options dead simple, and the Rack makes creative routing within a patch way more straightforward than in Logic, where you clutter up you sequencer/mixer with aux/send tracks to do a lot of fairly basic routing.

And unlike Logic, Reason's synths/effects are well designed enough that you can wrap your head around them without cracking the manual. God, Ultrabeat still makes my eyes bleed. In the time it takes you to figure out how to do one or two things with Logic's samplers, you're practically a power user in Reason.

It's fair to criticize Reason's synths, which nobody is putting up there with Arturia/NI/etc in terms of sonic quality, but I'm happy that Props prioritized *control* above all. I like a DSP-chewing VI as much as the next guy, but being able to control the sound and create interesting variations (and then, even my own sonic style) is where I find a lot of the expressiveness and creativity in synthesis. I never had that sense of control in Logic.

tl;dr It's a lot more complicated than dividing the price by the number of effects and synths

[drez]

tl;dr It's a lot more complicated than dividing the price by the number of effects and synths

You're entire post was spot on. That last line, though, is awesome.

[ghettosynth]

I think Reason is way too expensive. Especially since I regard Recycle as part of the package as I think a slicer is a must have tool. $698 (PH's shop) for both of them is a very steep price.
I don't care much for most of PH's own devices in Reason and that's why I have been considering buying Reason Essential which isn't that bad since they've included RE support.
But everytime I try to make something in Reason I think the rack is a mess just after adding a few devices. Cables hanging everywhere, the need to scroll in every direction. It got a coolness factor and it's fun to play around in, but most of what I wire is an LFO from that to that, add a delay to this, sidechain that.. most of my vst's got this already.
I don't think I could finish a track in it, but would use it to sketch out ideas and to make small loops etc. and for that it is definitely too expensive.

There my subjective opinions

This is a good point. I agree, the cable metaphor is great for quickly grasping routing. Unfortunately, it doesn't scale well. You are forced to work hard at organizing in order to get something really workable and finding a specific knob to adjust can be a pain. Since you can't nest combinators, and, since combinators are limited in their i/o and controls, Reason falls a bit short here.

I also agree that you really need Recycle, and moreover, that you shouldn't. Recycle functionality should be updated and included inside the Reason environment so that you can just load any loop, and chop/slice it in place in real time.

With respect to the instruments/effects in Reason, I also largely agree, they often seem lackluster when compared to more modern plugins. Although, I have a hard time matching sampler workflow in other samplers as compared to NN-XT.

That said, and although I prefer Live+MFL in many ways, I have never been as productive as I am with Reason in terms of building up the track structure. Most of my irritation with Reason comes into play when trying to finish the track.