Reason 8 - Official

[Tronam]

I think I care because I have dreams. The original Reason concept was a great one. A simple rack with a host of included modules with a lot of options. And Propellerhead was somewhat alone in this, making the users turn to Reason since that was the only option. But then also that option disappeared with the radical changes in Reason, and so the only options became to use an old version, wait for an update with a reverse of the radical change, or wait for a new software with the concept of original Reason to arise. At the moment only the use of an old Reason has been the real option for me, but my dreams still hope for either an update that give the possibility of the original Reason back (in example, as mention before, the option to install Reason without Record) or that some others make a new software rack with instruments, effects and modularity that really can compete with original Reason.

There's nothing stopping you from minimizing everything except for the rack and rewiring it into your host of choice. You can even bypass the SSL mixer completely and use the 14:2 instead just like the old days, then run your devices directly into the Rewire outputs.

[Flandersh]

There's nothing stopping you from minimizing everything except for the rack and rewiring it into your host of choice. You can even bypass the SSL mixer completely and use the 14:2 instead just like the old days, then run your devices directly into the Rewire outputs.

The way to work in Reason+Record, even with minimizing functions, damaged my workflow totally and I gave up after many trials to get it to work for me. When it comes to rewire, I have never used it for anything serious and have no plans for it.

[sellyoursoul]

Have these things arrived in Reason, yet?

• A standard plugin format such as VST
• A modern sampler with a modern sample library (or support for a standard plugin format)
• Act as a rewire master (with separate configs for standalone and rewire)
• Plugin delay compensation
• Useful MIDI utilities, such as keymapping, velocity filtering
• Track templates
• A gui that works well with a laptop screen
• User assignable command keys
• A more legible and usable routing method
• Import/export of standard media formats such as mp3 and flac

If many of these things are missing, I think that Reason is likely still in that awkward transistion between a virtual rack and a daw. Might as well continue occasionally using it as a virtual rack.

It was good to see that they integrated some recycle functionality and made the drm slightly less hideous, but last that I checked, Reason still wasn't a fleshed out daw that I could comfortably create band oriented songs in. Someone on the Reason forum once said something to the effect of, "Don't buy a daw for what it could be at a later date. Look at what it is now." I think that it sensible.

Slight knock on the gui: the new transport bar is kind of ugly.
Not to end on a sour note: the browser looks like a good improvement.

[tonkatodd]

Have these things arrived in Reason, yet?

• A standard plugin format such as VST
• A modern sampler with a modern sample library (or support for a standard plugin format)
• Act as a rewire master (with separate configs for standalone and rewire)
• Plugin delay compensation
• Useful MIDI utilities, such as keymapping, velocity filtering
• Track templates
• A gui that works well with a laptop screen
• User assignable command keys
• A more legible and usable routing method
• Import/export of standard media formats such as mp3 and flac

If many of these things are missing, I think that Reason is likely still in that awkward transistion between a virtual rack and a daw. Might as well continue occasionally using it as a virtual rack.

It was good to see that they integrated some recycle functionality and made the drm slightly less hideous, but last that I checked, Reason still wasn't a fleshed out daw that I could comfortably create band oriented songs in. Someone on the Reason forum once said something to the effect of, "Don't buy a daw for what it could be at a later date. Look at what it is now." I think that it sensible.

Slight knock on the gui: the new transport bar is kind of ugly.
Not to end on a sour note: the browser looks like a good improvement.

Track templates can be achieved by combinators . The gui works great for laptops in my opinion and better than in Pro Tools and Cubase. Personally I wouldn't import mp3's because they are garbage and as for track routing you can create busses and parallel channels that any track can be routed to if that's what you mean by legible and usable. They don't use VST because it is a 3rd party protocol and Propellerheads and Apple don't want to be pinned down by a competitors tech, Especially since VST 3 has been a major disaster. Reason uses Refill for their libraries and there are I think a 1000 refills available, Maybe more, maybe less but with the new SDK opening the door for very advanced sample libraries then it's just a matter of time until we see libraries better and more advance than a Kontakt library with a few macros in it. Loving the Reason 8 so far.

[sellyoursoul]

Have these things arrived in Reason, yet?

• A standard plugin format such as VST
• A modern sampler with a modern sample library (or support for a standard plugin format)
• Act as a rewire master (with separate configs for standalone and rewire)
• Plugin delay compensation
• Useful MIDI utilities, such as keymapping, velocity filtering
• Track templates
• A gui that works well with a laptop screen
• User assignable command keys
• A more legible and usable routing method
• Import/export of standard media formats such as mp3 and flac

If many of these things are missing, I think that Reason is likely still in that awkward transistion between a virtual rack and a daw. Might as well continue occasionally using it as a virtual rack.

It was good to see that they integrated some recycle functionality and made the drm slightly less hideous, but last that I checked, Reason still wasn't a fleshed out daw that I could comfortably create band oriented songs in. Someone on the Reason forum once said something to the effect of, "Don't buy a daw for what it could be at a later date. Look at what it is now." I think that it sensible.

Slight knock on the gui: the new transport bar is kind of ugly.
Not to end on a sour note: the browser looks like a good improvement.

Track templates can be achieved by combinators . The gui works great for laptops in my opinion and better than in Pro Tools and Cubase. Personally I wouldn't import mp3's because they are garbage and as for track routing you can create busses and parallel channels that any track can be routed to if that's what you mean by legible and usable. They don't use VST because it is a 3rd party protocol and Propellerheads and Apple don't want to be pinned down by a competitors tech, Especially since VST 3 has been a major disaster. Reason uses Refill for their libraries and there are I think a 1000 refills available, Maybe more, maybe less but with the new SDK opening the door for very advanced sample libraries then it's just a matter of time until we see libraries better and more advance than a Kontakt library with a few macros in it. Loving the Reason 8 so far.

Track templates are track templates. Combinators are combinators. The two are not the same in functionality, although they do share some overlap. When I want to save a group of tracks for regular use across projects, maybe with some complex routing between them, I can do that in a daw that has track templates.

On the gui, the mixer is too big (hardware format emulation), and too much collapsing/expanding and jumping back and forth between the mixer, rack, and sequencer is required. The mixer is a bit of eye candy, but using it daily becomes tiresome.

I used mp3 and flac as an example, but Reason should be able to, at minimum, export to mp3, as well as handle the occasional sample in a 'garbage' format. This is run of the mill stuff these days.

When I talk of routing, I mean the vitual cables between devices. It looks neat as a Reason beginner, but when you want to get something routed quickly, virtual cables isn't optimal and gets old quickly.

Despite VST3 failings, VST is a standard on the Windows platform, which happens to be the most popular platform to date. In comparison to VST, I haven't seen too many developers flocking to RE, as it locks in developers AND users. How many devs and users are complaining about being locked in by VST? An open and cross-platform standard would be good, but I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon.

NN-XT and refills have some fairly dated limitations on what sample libraries can do in Reason. I do think that Propellerhead refills have been of good quality, considering, but things have long since advanced, and many third party refills consist of presets, rather than sample content. If what you say is true, that the new SDK is knocking off the limitations, that would be good, but Propellerhead/devs are still going to have the issue of reluctance from users to be locked into a format that is supported by a single daw. Any way, on that front, things aren't there, yet, so there isn't much point in thinking about what might come later.

[tonkatodd]

The track routing between busses and parallel channels has nothing to do with the cabling in Reason and can be selected just like any other program. Audio and Instrument tracks can save templates within them which other programs cannot i.e Pro Tools but yes you are right you cannot save multiple tracks as a group template but not many programs do that anyway. Developers are worried about being locked into VST especially when they Steinberg started locking developers out of VST2 to migrate to VST3 only to backflip on that from the complaints they received and then make a VST2 to VST3 compiler. The mixer scales fine and easy to hide and unhide components with key commands just like every other program. The track sizes aren't any bigger than cubase or Ableton and they scale just the same except for Cubase 7 mixer which is horrible to use with it's mouse over features. So most of your complaints are just a case of Reason being different to another programs and they are all different in their own ways. Some people like the way one works over the others which just comes down to personal preference. If your curious to how Reason handles track routing other than the cabling method then download the demo and try it out.

[Tronam]

NN-XT and refills have some fairly dated limitations on what sample libraries can do in Reason. I do think that Propellerhead refills have been of good quality, considering, but things have long since advanced, and many third party refills consist of presets, rather than sample content. If what you say is true, that the new SDK is knocking off the limitations, that would be good, but Propellerhead/devs are still going to have the issue of reluctance from users to be locked into a format that is supported by a single daw. Any way, on that front, things aren't there, yet, so there isn't much point in thinking about what might come later.

R8 information is still scant, but I'd be curious to know if the transport bar and surrounding GUI looks the way it does because they're gradually transitioning over to a scalable, resolution independent interface. It would be a welcome change, especially in light of ever increasing screen resolution. The only thing we've seen so far from them about the future of sample libraries in Reason was posted on their SDK2 developers information page a few months back.

"In addition, instrument designers can quickly transfer existing Kontakt and NN-XT sound libraries into the Rack Extension instruments using the Toolkit."

Seems promising, but I haven't seen any new information about this yet.

[sellyoursoul]

The track routing between busses and parallel channels has nothing to do with the cabling in Reason and can be selected just like any other program. Audio and Instrument tracks can save templates within them which other programs cannot i.e Pro Tools but yes you are right you cannot save multiple tracks as a group template but not many programs do that anyway. Developers are worried about being locked into VST especially when they Steinberg started locking developers out of VST2 to migrate to VST3 only to backflip on that from the complaints they received and then make a VST2 to VST3 compiler. The mixer scales fine and easy to hide and unhide components with key commands just like every other program. The track sizes aren't any bigger than cubase or Ableton and they scale just the same except for Cubase 7 mixer which is horrible to use with it's mouse over features. So most of your complaints are just a case of Reason being different to another programs and they are all different in their own ways. Some people like the way one works over the others which just comes down to personal preference. If your curious to how Reason handles track routing other than the cabling method then download the demo and try it out.

I was referring to routing as it pertains to virtual cabling. I know how routing in Reason works; no problems with understanding it. Have you ever had a stack of devices in the rack, pulling virtual cables up and down while the screen scrolls? Not good.

I would think that if too many devs were worried about VST, an open standard would be in the works by someone. I haven't seen anything like that, with the exception of plugin formats on linux. RE seems more about Propellerhead having a plugin store under their control than about rejecting a standard.

The issue with the mixer is that it doesn't fit on the screen. Even larger screens require some collapsing/expanding. Every daw is going to have it's way of doing things, but the mixer should at least fit within standard screen resolutions.

NN-XT and refills have some fairly dated limitations on what sample libraries can do in Reason. I do think that Propellerhead refills have been of good quality, considering, but things have long since advanced, and many third party refills consist of presets, rather than sample content. If what you say is true, that the new SDK is knocking off the limitations, that would be good, but Propellerhead/devs are still going to have the issue of reluctance from users to be locked into a format that is supported by a single daw. Any way, on that front, things aren't there, yet, so there isn't much point in thinking about what might come later.

R8 information is still scant, but I'd be curious to know if the transport bar and surrounding GUI looks the way it does because they're gradually transitioning over to a scalable, resolution independent interface. It would be a welcome change, especially in light of ever increasing screen resolution. The only thing we've seen so far from them about the future of sample libraries in Reason was posted on their SDK2 developers information page a few months back.

"In addition, instrument designers can quickly transfer existing Kontakt and NN-XT sound libraries into the Rack Extension instruments using the Toolkit."

Seems promising, but I haven't seen any new information about this yet.

A scalable gui would be good, if that is the case.

That bit on sampling formats does sound promising. Maybe knock one off of my list, sometime in the future.

[Deisss]

Have these things arrived in Reason, yet?

• A standard plugin format such as VST
• A modern sampler with a modern sample library (or support for a standard plugin format)
• Act as a rewire master (with separate configs for standalone and rewire)
• Plugin delay compensation
• Useful MIDI utilities, such as keymapping, velocity filtering
• Track templates
• A gui that works well with a laptop screen
• User assignable command keys
• A more legible and usable routing method
• Import/export of standard media formats such as mp3 and flac

1) Yes, Rack Extension, still not as wide open than VST, but there is
2) Yes, you can drag & drop audio and rework it, but they still said "if you need power, use Dr Octo Rex", as this drag & drop is in fact a lite Octo Rex, but it works like Ableton samples drag & drop
3) As far as I know, no
4) I never saw this, do you have a video of any tool please, interested
5) don't know
6) yes, use it all the time, any .rns/.reason file can be template
7) yes
I don't know about keyboard, but midi mapping is supported well, and can be override at any time with ease
9) I found the routing method more hard than some other tools, but I also found it much more powerfull
10) yes, drag & drop like any other daw

Even if I like Reason, I would say like the first page said: 129 bucks for something which should have been implement since the beginning, is ridiculous...

[memyselfandus]

Anyone still on Reason 1.0?

[sellyoursoul]

Have these things arrived in Reason, yet?

• A standard plugin format such as VST
• A modern sampler with a modern sample library (or support for a standard plugin format)
• Act as a rewire master (with separate configs for standalone and rewire)
• Plugin delay compensation
• Useful MIDI utilities, such as keymapping, velocity filtering
• Track templates
• A gui that works well with a laptop screen
• User assignable command keys
• A more legible and usable routing method
• Import/export of standard media formats such as mp3 and flac

1) Yes, Rack Extension, still not as wide open than VST, but there is
2) Yes, you can drag & drop audio and rework it, but they still said "if you need power, use Dr Octo Rex", as this drag & drop is in fact a lite Octo Rex, but it works like Ableton samples drag & drop
3) As far as I know, no
4) I never saw this, do you have a video of any tool please, interested
5) don't know
6) yes, use it all the time, any .rns/.reason file can be template
7) yes
I don't know about keyboard, but midi mapping is supported well, and can be override at any time with ease
9) I found the routing method more hard than some other tools, but I also found it much more powerfull
10) yes, drag & drop like any other daw

Even if I like Reason, I would say like the first page said: 129 bucks for something which should have been implement since the beginning, is ridiculous...

1) RE is not a standard. It isn't available to other applications outside of Reason. And devs/users can only deal RE plugins through Propellerhead's store.
2) Drag and drop has little to do with it. NN-XT is dated in so many ways, along with the even older NN-19. Take a look at a modern drum sampler, for example, and compare it to NN-XT (or compare to Kontakt). Any way, Tronam mentioned that there may be some updates in the pipeline.
3) Reason acting as a rewire master could help in poking a hole in the walled garden. It's wrong that the makers of rewire don't allow their own application to act as a rewire master.
4) Pdc is not a tool, like a plugin. It is a feature of modern daws that compensates for latencies caused by plugin buffers.
5) Unless something arrives in Reason 8, there is no way that I know of to remap MIDI notes from a controller, filter notes/velocity/cc, etc.
6) A project file is not a track template. I have used that trick, too, but it is far from optimal.
7) Reason eats up a lot of screen space on smaller screens; on larger screens as well, when it comes to the mixer.
8 ) By MIDI mapping, you must not mean MIDI remapping. I think you must mean controller support.
9) Reason's virtual cable routing is dead simple to use, but when things begin to get complex, it gets in the way.
10) As far as I know, Reason only supports .wav and .aiff formats. Have you tried importing an mp3 or saving a mix as an mp3? How about .flac?

I'm not knocking Reason for what it is, but for some of us out here, it still isn't capable enough to be used as a primary daw. I still occasionally use it as a virtual rack rewired into a daw.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[chk071]

Don't get why people constantly request VST support for Reason. It would rob Reason of everything that it is really. Basically, there wouldn't be a need for Reason anymore, if it supported VST. The strength of Reason IS the in-the-box thing and its modularity and routing options.

[sellyoursoul]

6)Track template? Do you mean as in song templates (which we DO have) or per track.. like for example in logic i can save a channel setting.. is this what you mean? There is no way to do that in reason

10)don't forget rex.. best support for that around, and it DOES import mp3.. very well. It doesn't export it though.

6) By track template, I mean, set up a group of tracks just the way you want them (with fx, routing, media) for use in future projects, and save it. No need to open an old project, copy tracks, and paste them into the new project.

10) I didn't know that rex supports mp3. Rex is one of the devices that I haven't used much in Reason. Still, it seems that if rex supports mp3, the other devices and sequencer should support it as well, or at least convert to .wav or .aiff upon import.

[sellyoursoul]

Don't get why people constantly request VST support for Reason. It would rob Reason of everything that it is really. Basically, there wouldn't be a need for Reason anymore, if it supported VST. The strength of Reason IS the in-the-box thing and its modularity and routing options.

Because Reason doesn't have everything we need (nor does RE). VST plugins could be integrated without affecting modularity and routing options for internal devices. This topic has been discussed many times in the past.