Reason 10 incoming

[Trancit]

I have to say that while watching this Europa video, it sounds super good. Really fat and good sound. Still, thinking there should be more workflows in this update. But good work with the synth.

Exactly... that...

I don´t get the thinking of them... after bringing VST support to the Reason Rack and open it up to so many good soundsources (most of them perhaps better than something Reason native can ever get), the absolutely last need in this moment is an update full of new plugins...

Reason as a DAW/Sequencer is so far behind modern hosts, feature and workflow wise, that it´s not even measurable anymore....and then...
9.5 brought any available plugin in existence to the Reason rack and their best and only idea for Reason 10 are a few new instruments????
Honestly there are people out there, who were incapacitated by law court for this kind of decisions...

Sorry folks, this was the worst decision of your whole company life and I am pretty sure you´ll get the bill for that ignorance...
If I had any company share of them, I would sell them as soon as I can...

[Sailor16]

Seems we have a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation here. No matter what PH does, it's 100% certain that some people will always feel disappointed by their decisions. For me, this shows that Reason has a rather large and passionate userbase with as many preferences for the updates as there are users.

However, I also agree that their "content-only" focus for version 10 does seem a bit confusing, in light of the previously added VST support. But let's wait until October 25 and see. Maybe they did something else under the hood?

One can't help but wonder if this release pattern is something we can expect from version 11, 12, 13, etcetera as well? Another injection of "content", starring a mix of sample packs, old PH rack extensions and new rack extensions? Content updates, rather than feature updates and development of the DAW's core?

The good news is that PH released version 10 in a relatively short period of time after version 9.5. And that version was actually all about a big feature: VST support. Compare this release cycle to how things used to be in the past. So hopefully they'll release a version 10.5 with new or improved core/workflow features, using the free .5 releases as "feature milestones" and the paid upgrade .0 releases as a "content milestones". If so, then I think that model actually makes a lot of sense.

Let's take a look at some of the past releases, starting from version 5 to shorten the list:

- Reason 5 was released on 25 August 2010
- Reason 6 was released on September 30, 2011
- Reason 6.5 was released on June 14, 2012
- Reason 7 was released on April 30, 2013
- Reason 8 was released September 30, 2014
- Reason 9 was released on June 21, 2016
- Reason 9.5 was released on May 29, 2017
- Reason 10 will be released October 25, 2017

Maybe they'll release Reason 10.5 in April or May, 2018 and that version could very well be more focused on workflow issues and core features.

Personally I hope they'll open up the Reason core API, by allowing users to use Lua scripting to control the software. PH devs themselves are already Lua (with C++), it seems, so why not also just allow for the users to create their own scripts/macros for making things happen, stuff like "song position cursor go back to initial playback position" or whatever they want?

[Sailor16]

I'll also add that those of you who seem to think PH is in any financial troubles, have you actually cared to read their company data? In Sweden everything is extremely transparent, especially for companies. From what I've seen so far, PH is doing very well, and thus it also seems reasonable to assume they know perfectly well what they're doing in terms of business decisions.

[Trancit]

I'll also add that those of you who seem to think PH is in any financial troubles, have you actually cared to read their company data? In Sweden everything is extremely transparent, especially for companies. From what I've seen so far, PH is doing very well, and thus it also seems reasonable to assume they know perfectly well what they're doing in terms of business decisions.

Still... but I´ve seen as well google charts where it´s quite obvious, that the interest in Reason decreased every year more and more... and I don´t know, if the pure content decision will help to raise this again...

For me, it seems like they had those synths quite ready in a drawer as they were somehow forced to finally add the VST support...
Now, the RE sells have gone equal to zero and they had to do something with their 90% ready RE´s...
And to earn money from them, they pulled now this half baken major update...
This would explain as well, why this comes relative quickly after such a big thing like the VST support...
And this sounds much more logical to me regarding to their business history on how to make money from their userbase (as the interest of new customers is going down since quite long time)...

And this is what I don´t like about them... they are like "Angela Merkel" ...
They are jumping on every bandwagon from what´s necessary/popular at the moment... no matter, what they stated before...
Is this the behaviour of a trustworthy company???

[starflakeprj]

While it's true Reason has decreased in interest every year, this is also true for most other DAWs (just checked). Ableton Live and Studio One seem to be the ones breaking the trend.

[EnochLight]

I'll also add that those of you who seem to think PH is in any financial troubles, have you actually cared to read their company data? In Sweden everything is extremely transparent, especially for companies. From what I've seen so far, PH is doing very well, and thus it also seems reasonable to assume they know perfectly well what they're doing in terms of business decisions.

Still... but I´ve seen as well google charts where it´s quite obvious, that the interest in Reason decreased every year more and more... and I don´t know, if the pure content decision will help to raise this again...

I'm not sure what constitutes being successful, according to your measurement. Anyone can clearly see, as Sailor16 mentioned (reference from link posted earlier), that they have been quite successful financially - and continue to demonstrate a pattern of being profitable. And citing an unknown mystery "Google chart" doesn't seem very reliable, now does it? Wouldn't a company's very public net operating income prove otherwise?

For me, it seems like they had those synths quite ready in a drawer as they were somehow forced to finally add the VST support...
Now, the RE sells have gone equal to zero and they had to do something with their 90% ready RE´s...
And to earn money from them, they pulled now this half baken major update...
This would explain as well, why this comes relative quickly after such a big thing like the VST support...
And this sounds much more logical to me regarding to their business history on how to make money from their userbase (as the interest of new customers is going down since quite long time)...

Perhaps. Or perhaps they wanted to beef up Reason's core content for new users, since people have been complaining about Reason's stock synths/core content for some time now (seems to happen at every release for the past several years). Believe it or not, there still is a large proportion of Reason users who don't use VST (imagine that!), and Propellerhead are likely trying to sell to new users - anyone can clearly see that from a content standpoint, no other DAW on the planet comes with as much content as Reason does (will). That holds tremendous value to newer users.

And this is what I don´t like about them... they are like "Angela Merkel" ...

You mean one of the most popular German Chancellors to be re-elected by the people in modern history? Newsflash: looks like she may get re-elected again, according to recent polls.

They are jumping on every bandwagon from what´s necessary/popular at the moment... no matter, what they stated before...
Is this the behaviour of a trustworthy company???

What makes a company trustworthy? Delivering a reliable product for an agreed upon price. For anyone who has bought Reason or is considering buying for the first time, seems like they've done exactly that. For those who already own it, a major version release is an optional purchase. No need to buy it if the previous version gets the job done. Just say'n...

[recursive one]

These new synths sound nice. The Europe sounds it that long video reminded me about Massive but with warmer and more smooth sound and that granular thingie also sounds cool.

Before this moment I wasn't actually interested in Reason. I have a nice selection of VSTis and some hardware centered around Studio One, but on the back of my mind there always was an idea of a self-contained program having all sorts of devices needed to make a complete electronic track so I would just switch it on and make music using only what is available in it. Reason is just such a thing but the older Reason synths sound quite poor to my ears, while adding REs or VSTs would defeat the purpose. Now I may even consider getting myself a copy. Not that I expect it would replace everything I have but it could be somehow refreshing.

What is the CP? A hardware dongle?

What about the mixing plugins in Reason? I assume it has equalizers, compressors and stuff, are they any good?

[ghettosynth]

While it's true Reason has decreased in interest every year, this is also true for most other DAWs (just checked). Ableton Live and Studio One seem to be the ones breaking the trend.

This will depend on how you gather the data. Here's some google trends data where I've chosen the "software" attribute for each of the companies. If you make different choices you can get different results.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... m%2F037t3h

So, if you look closely and sort of eyeball the data, this is not science, we can see that each of the trend lines over the last five years starts on roughly a factor of 25 boundary. Although Steinberg still has more interest overall than Ableton and, ignoring the peaks, they both seem to have about half as much interest as they did five years ago.

Reason, OTOH, has about 25% as much interest as it did five years ago. This does suggest that interest in Reason has been waning faster than other DAWs.

Again, this is not science. Any real attempt at measuring this would have to involve a lot more care in data gathering and analysis.

[starflakeprj]

True, I couldn't choose "software" on all DAWs though. Anyway, I don't think the problem is lost of interest in a specific DAW, but the competition as there are a lot more DAWs nowadays, comparing to 10-15 years ago.

[noremorse]

While it's true Reason has decreased in interest every year, this is also true for most other DAWs (just checked). Ableton Live and Studio One seem to be the ones breaking the trend.

This will depend on how you gather the data. Here's some google trends data where I've chosen the "software" attribute for each of the companies. If you make different choices you can get different results.

https://trends.google.com/trends/explor ... m%2F037t3h

So, if you look closely and sort of eyeball the data, this is not science, we can see that each of the trend lines over the last five years starts on roughly a factor of 25 boundary. Although Steinberg still has more interest overall than Ableton and, ignoring the peaks, they both seem to have about half as much interest as they did five years ago.

Reason, OTOH, has about 25% as much interest as it did five years ago. This does suggest that interest in Reason has been waning faster than other DAWs.

Again, this is not science. Any real attempt at measuring this would have to involve a lot more care in data gathering and analysis.

One reason for that might be that Reason hasn't been cracked since version 5 that was released 2010...

[EnochLight]

What is the CP? A hardware dongle?

You have several options. You can do a software dongle and just authorize your computer, or you can do a hardware dongle if you're really into that sort of thing - but you'll have to buy the hardware dongle separately. You can also authorize over the Internet from anywhere on any machine, meaning you can install Reason onto as many machines as you like, and just as long as you have Internet access, you'll be able to run it fully authorized with all of your RE's on any of those machines (although you can only run 1 instance at a time).

You can also authorize 1 machine (say for instance, your studio or home) and use Internet authorization on any other machine anywhere else in the world, so if you need to work remotely or out on the road, with Internet access, you'll have 100% functionality and access to your RE's (again, just so long as you're only running 1 instance at a time).

[recursive one]

What is the CP? A hardware dongle?

You have several options. You can do a software dongle and just authorize your computer, or you can do a hardware dongle if you're really into that sort of thing - but you'll have to buy the hardware dongle separately. You can also authorize over the Internet from anywhere on any machine, meaning you can install Reason onto as many machines as you like, and just as long as you have Internet access, you'll be able to run it fully authorized with all of your RE's on any of those machines (although you can only run 1 instance at a time).

You can also authorize 1 machine (say for instance, your studio or home) and use Internet authorization on any other machine anywhere else in the world, so if you need to work remotely or out on the road, with Internet access, you'll have 100% functionality and access to your RE's (again, just so long as you're only running 1 instance at a time).

Thanks for the explanation! My studio machine is usually offline, I only connect to the web it when I need to authorize the software which uses some sort of challenge/response. I also don't have a dongle and I'd prefer not having to buy it.

So I gather that I may install Reason, make a temporary web connection to authorize it and then I may work offline.

[EnochLight]

So I gather that I may install Reason, make a temporary web connection to authorize it and then I may work offline.

Correct. And if your machine remains offline forever after that, you'll be fine. That said, if you install any 30-day trial RE's, it'll call home periodically to reauthorize until you buy it and permanently authorize it to that machine.

[recursive one]

Thanks, EnochLight.

Actually should I decide to by Reason I would most probably refrain from buying any REs. I already have Studio One which stares at me and says "when was the last time you bought me a new VST? It was March and it was cheap, this is not how a gentleman should treat his DAW". Reason is appealing to me as a self-contained package.

[EnochLight]

Thanks, EnochLight.

Actually should I decide to by Reason I would most probably refrain from buying any REs. I already have Studio One which stares at me and says "when was the last time you bought me a new VST? It was March and it was cheap, this is not how a gentleman should treat his DAW". Reason is appealing to me as a self-contained package.

Lol! As someone who also owns Studio One, this made me chuckle.

I'd certainly recommend that you wait until R10 releases and then spend some time with the demo. There's no time limit on it, and it's fully functional. You just can't open saved projects until you buy it.