Reason sound doesn't sell is not true

[hibidy]

That's sensible. Since when has kvr started all this sensibility nonsense?



Yeah, took me a while to find that but it's a good space once you do.

Now, back to jumping on someone for DARING to talk about sound of daw!

(I've never been able to hear the aliasing people talk about other than obvious things like the aliasing it pitching something to a different time/etc)

[damoog]

Absolutely love reason here,NOTHING beats it for beats especially imho,everything just locks in really tight and the new midi out is extremely tight...dunno why it gets sooooo much abuse around here really,I run it alongside ableton live for plug in use and those 2 are an unbeatable duo(batman and robin)

[hibidy]

dunno why it gets sooooo much abuse around here really

Really? This IS kvr. Where if there is a real problem, you get thrown on the crucifix, but if you talk nonsense, well, you'll get thrown on the cricifix

[Tronam]

I took a break from computer music for a few years, so have only recently been catching up with all the various industry trends and developments. Rack Extensions are completely new to me as of the past month or so and took me a bit by surprise. Lots of interesting possibilities there, especially REs with separately routable components. Among many others, I really like the Prop's new PX7 synthesizer. I've wanted a "proper" FM synth in Reason for ages and this looks to be about as good of a DX7 emulator as one could hope for.

https://soundcloud.com/propellerhead/px ... m-arpeggio
https://soundcloud.com/propellerhead/px ... ro-house-2

[Davias]

I believe most people still judge sounds quality by volume and the looks of the graphics.
The power of imagination in the brain is not to be underestimated.

I don't blame anyone. You can find several example of top producers tweaking sounds several times before finally realising they're tweaking the wrong plugin or channel.

Yeah, it's funny when you are looking for that subtle change and it keeps feeling not quite right... then you realize you're on the wrong track and when you adjust for your goof, it's like "how the hell did i not notice i was not changing anything??"

After checking FL Studio sample import I realized that it set initial volume to 80% just same as Reason, so finally this was not what gave me that feeling at the end. But I don't want to step into the debate again ^^

About Renoise, to me it is pristine 100% 1:1 transparent while loading samples.

So I will say YMMV

[Tronam]

Yeah, it's funny when you are looking for that subtle change and it keeps feeling not quite right... then you realize you're on the wrong track and when you adjust for your goof, it's like "how the hell did i not notice i was not changing anything??"

After checking FL Studio sample import I realized that it set initial volume to 80% just same as Reason, so finally this was not what gave me that feeling at the end. But I don't want to step into the debate again ^^

About Renoise, to me it is pristine 100% 1:1 transparent while loading samples.

So I will say YMMV

That's because you've loaded the sample into one of Renoise's raw audio tracks, which default to full 0dB. Load the same sample into a Reason audio track and it'll be 1:1 identical. You'll only experience the volume reduction when you load that sample into a device like Redrum which has two gain stages prior to the mains (the channel slot and device output), which default at reduced volume to help prevent summed clipping. Assuming nothing is clipped, digital audio "quality" does not suffer from level changes like with an analog amplifier, which introduces non-linear noise and distortion with each successive pass.

Playing a sample at root pitch is not the best test for an audio engine though. Programs have been doing that perfectly for decades. What really differentiates them from one another is when you start to deviate from root pitch and this will never be "100% 1:1 transparent". I haven't tested the latest version of Renoise, but in the past its audio engine did absolutely nothing to prevent aliasing (like internal upsampling) or formant correction when pitch shifting. In this respect, Renoise's audio engine could be considered one of the worst on the market, but that's not exactly a fair assessment because tracking is its own unique aesthetic and old fashioned sample pitching is part of its charm. Just run it at a higher sampling rate like 88.2 or 96KHz and much of the aliasing should be harder to hear. It also has high quality algorithms for final bounce down.

[Jace-BeOS]

Aliasing is harder for me to hear with high quality samples unless pitched up quite a bit. I don't ever hear it when pitched down. It was a lot more noticeable in the 8-bit days of Protracker on Amiga, but the DACs on those systems were somehow more forgiving and sounded way different than if I play my old mods on a modern PC or Mac. I still haven't found a bitcrusher that mimics the "character" of those old systems in the way they played back and repitched samples.

i ended up buying a set of Amiga 1200 units, and some other vintage computers, to make a retro music setup, since those sounds were unique and, like you said, the Amiga's actual output sounds better than when those same modules are run on another computer. But it turned out that i didn't have a compatible display for the Amiga, using a TV sucks, and that the 1200's Workbench ROM is not compatible with the old standard tracker apps and games that grew up on the Amiga 500. Sigh.

[CableChannel]

This IS kvr. Where if there is a real problem, you get thrown on the crucifix, but if you talk nonsense, well, you'll get thrown on the cricifix

Actually it is not so bad. KVR has a pretty good blend of screaming fanboys and psychopathic berserkers

[Davias]

Yeah, it's funny when you are looking for that subtle change and it keeps feeling not quite right... then you realize you're on the wrong track and when you adjust for your goof, it's like "how the hell did i not notice i was not changing anything??"

After checking FL Studio sample import I realized that it set initial volume to 80% just same as Reason, so finally this was not what gave me that feeling at the end. But I don't want to step into the debate again ^^

About Renoise, to me it is pristine 100% 1:1 transparent while loading samples.

So I will say YMMV

That's because you've loaded the sample into one of Renoise's raw audio tracks, which default to full 0dB. Load the same sample into a Reason audio track and it'll be 1:1 identical. You'll only experience the volume reduction when you load that sample into a device like Redrum which has two gain stages prior to the mains (the channel slot and device output), which default at reduced volume to help prevent summed clipping. Assuming nothing is clipped, digital audio "quality" does not suffer from level changes like with an analog amplifier, which introduces non-linear noise and distortion with each successive pass.

Playing a sample at root pitch is not the best test for an audio engine though. Programs have been doing that perfectly for decades. What really differentiates them from one another is when you start to deviate from root pitch and this will never be "100% 1:1 transparent". I haven't tested the latest version of Renoise, but in the past its audio engine did absolutely nothing to prevent aliasing (like internal upsampling) or formant correction when pitch shifting. In this respect, Renoise's audio engine could be considered one of the worst on the market, but that's not exactly a fair assessment because tracking is its own unique aesthetic and old fashioned sample pitching is part of its charm. Just run it at a higher sampling rate like 88.2 or 96KHz and much of the aliasing should be harder to hear. It also has high quality algorithms for final bounce down.

Interesting

I was comparing volume of Redrum versus FL Sampler, and indeed if there is two stages of gain reduction in Reason it will sound less loud.

For Renoise I also admit that I rarely pitch samples since I have VSTi, so maybe indeed there is something wrong happening with too much pitch that I wasn't aware of.

[bioroid]

Aliasing is harder for me to hear with high quality samples unless pitched up quite a bit. I don't ever hear it when pitched down. It was a lot more noticeable in the 8-bit days of Protracker on Amiga, but the DACs on those systems were somehow more forgiving and sounded way different than if I play my old mods on a modern PC or Mac. I still haven't found a bitcrusher that mimics the "character" of those old systems in the way they played back and repitched samples.

i ended up buying a set of Amiga 1200 units, and some other vintage computers, to make a retro music setup, since those sounds were unique and, like you said, the Amiga's actual output sounds better than when those same modules are run on another computer. But it turned out that i didn't have a compatible display for the Amiga, using a TV sucks, and that the 1200's Workbench ROM is not compatible with the old standard tracker apps and games that grew up on the Amiga 500. Sigh.

Oh this takes me back. I used to track on an A500 and later on the A1200 and don't recall any issues, but I did mainly use MED/OctaMed because I preferred its interface to the other *Trackers.

I did a quick search for A1200 VGA adapters and found a few good hits on the interwebs so that may be worth investigating.

I've always found it difficult to go back to trackers once I moved onto Cubase and the good ole piano roll. I do like Reason's blocks for the pattern based thing.

[Tronam]

For Renoise I also admit that I rarely pitch samples since I have VSTi, so maybe indeed there is something wrong happening with too much pitch that I wasn't aware of.

For old school tracker guys like me, the idea of tracking without repitched samples is tantamount to blasphemy. Nahh, but I'll never forget how disappointed I was loading up a VST into Renoise 1.0 for the first time and realizing that none of the realtime track effects would work on it. They give you so much detailed control over sample playback. It's like having dBlue Glitch on every track and every pattern division tick.

[Jace-BeOS]

Oh this takes me back. I used to track on an A500 and later on the A1200 and don't recall any issues, but I did mainly use MED/OctaMed because I preferred its interface to the other *Trackers.

I did a quick search for A1200 VGA adapters and found a few good hits on the interwebs so that may be worth investigating.

Yeah, i was going to buy one, but they went out of stock at the last minute before i became dirt poor, and i cannot justify buying archaic hardware, at hobbyist prices, on my non-existent income. The same holds true for never getting a compact flash drive to replace my Atari ST's useless SCSI hard drive, or compact flash for my Apple IIgs units, or any modern file i/o for my numerous C64 units. But then, once i started trying to work with that stuff and was reminded of how trapped in disk-land and custom i/o those devices were, and how unresponsive and cluttered their limited GUIs are... wow, we really have evolved tech since then. It was a fool's errand.

I've always found it difficult to go back to trackers once I moved onto Cubase and the good ole piano roll. I do like Reason's blocks for the pattern based thing.

Yeah. Trackers are weird. On one hand, there's so much control, but on the other, so little performance. i found it freeing to move to traditional sequencers, and very difficult to go back to trackers. Actually, i really liked the pattern concept in trackers, and i wish i could figure out how to make my brain understand Reason's blocks and Live's... um... everything.

[Davias]

For Renoise I also admit that I rarely pitch samples since I have VSTi, so maybe indeed there is something wrong happening with too much pitch that I wasn't aware of.

For old school tracker guys like me, the idea of tracking without repitched samples is tantamount to blasphemy. Nahh, but I'll never forget how disappointed I was loading up a VST into Renoise 1.0 for the first time and realizing that none of the realtime track effects would work on it. They give you so much detailed control over sample playback. It's like having dBlue Glitch on every track and every pattern division tick.

I agree once more, since I came from FTII. Just I think I'm too lazy to write all theses commands in the fx column. And I was disapointed too that u can't use these with VSTs...

What I still like to do in Renoise is complex beat programming, like u said, instant glitch ! And Then I pitch samples (plays notes on kicks, snares, hats, ...)

[Frantz]

My post below from Sep 2013 predicted that Propellerheads would be acquired in 2-3 years. It actually took 3.5 years for them to be acquired.

They were acquired by European private equity fund Verdane which gets most of its capital from pension funds. The investors are going to be looking for safe returns. Don't expect any more attempts at audio innovation from Propellerheads. Expect iPad apps, subscription models, music games, things that go viral on social media, etc. Anything to generate cashflow. In other words, competing in the pro audio market will probably be de-emphasized.

Actually the problem is Reason and its add on products don't sell. Looking at their financial statements, Propellerheads lost 0.5 million dollars in 2011 and lost 2.2 million dollars in 2012.

How much longer can they can continue to operate while losing money? If things don't turn around, I suspect they will be acquired by one of the bigger players in 2-3 years.


https://www.solidinfo.se/foretag/propel ... 43/ekonomi

Code: Select all

Propellerhead Software AB

                    2012-12    2011-12   2010-12   2009-12
Net Income TKR     (14,511)    (3,450)     3,311     2,246 
Net Income USD  (2,212,928)  (526,125)   504,928   342,515

[murnau]

Money, money, money.. The swedish should know that?!