Reason 10 incoming

[antic604]

So, anyone in Reason 10 beta yet?

I personally like the whole rack / physical studio metaphor, the in-the-box approach (I would be fine without VSTs added in 9.5, especially with new synths in 10), but I tried the demo 3 times already on Surface Pro 4 and it is simply unusable: the size of most of the elements is fine, but there's a lot of wasted space for splitters, bars, handles and flat-out blank spaces on the interface or devices. The transport bar takes like 10% of the screen! To make it worse, a lot of elements - in rack or mixer in particular - are really pixelated, making them hard to read - I don't mind things being small, as long as they're pin sharp. Which is sadly not the case here.

It's difficult for me to asses if I'd need some improvements in the workflow, sequencer or the instruments (that everyone seem to be talking about), but for me lack of high-resolution scaleable GUI is a deal breaker.

I was told by two guys on Facebook that I'm not pro enough for using a 'tablet' and my needs shouldn't be catered for, but IMO Propellerheads really needs to get on with the times: a lot of people will use small high-DPI laptops - like 13'' MacBook Pros - to produce music and not everyone has (or even needs to have) proper, full-sized studio. If others can do it - like Bitwig, Live, Studio One, Cubase; so should Reason.

[EnochLight]

I was told by two guys on Facebook that I'm not pro enough for using a 'tablet' and my needs shouldn't be catered for, but IMO Propellerheads really needs to get on with the times: a lot of people will use small high-DPI laptops - like 13'' MacBook Pros - to produce music and not everyone has (or even needs to have) proper, full-sized studio. If others can do it - like Bitwig, Live, Studio One, Cubase; so should Reason.

Well, Facebook comments - like YouTube - should be taken with a grain of salt. I wouldn’t pay them any mind.

That said, while I agree Reason is sorely in need of high def zoom, I think you’re overestimating “a lot of people”. Like... bad. Mac users represent a literal microscopic portion of overall computer users (still today), and the majority of laptop displays on the market are still “standard 1080p” displays. And Surface Pro/other tablets? Tiny. Just say’n...

[Tren]

More of more stuff that I don't need. I find this to be true of daws and dsp suites in general. Not picking on Reason here, but I think that the marketing video in the original post reflects the general state of things in daw land, being, more of more stuff that I don't need or want. Options are good, where those options are actually useful to music makers on a personal level. But when they aren't useful, they just add more complexity and clutter.

It has been stewing in my mind for some years that what is needed in daw land is simplicity, usability, usefulness, getting to excellence in fundamentals. And I think it all points toward modular daws and modular dsp modules. Maybe on the surface that first sentence sounds counter to the second sentence.

What good are dozens of dsp modules, whether they be samplers, synths, effects, if they don't nail the fundamentals: excellent sound, high usability, lack of clutter. Piling more unsound options onto unsound fundamentals is good for marketing, but it isn't good for music makers getting things done.

In the present peak of daws and dsp, we have users being sapped of energy by endlessly selecting and tweaking staggering numbers of options, because those options are unsound. Many people say that we are all spoiled today by having so many options, but what doesn't seem to register is that too many users are lost in the muck of it all.

Thinking back through the muck, toward what we love in music and recordings, it boils down to excellence in composition, performance, and sound. Whether it be a classic jazz recording or some obscure and eccentric punk recording, the above applies. What matters is that the expression of people gets across through the speakers in a way that is interesting to listen to in some way, whether what gets across is pleasing, challenging, is beautiful or ugly. We know what grabs us when we hear it. The composition can be really complex, dead simple, or something inbetween. But it must grab us in some human way, having a fundamental character. Then it must be performed in a way that gets the composition across, further adding character of the performers to the composition. And hopefully the sound adds character to the composition and performance. And all three influence one another. Someone writing a piece of music for an orchestra of excellent performers might do equally as well writing parts that are limited in challenge of performance for an orchestra with more limited playing abilities. Similarly, a person writing drum parts for a drummer in a rock band might do good in a daw by limiting the dynamics of drum parts for a sampled drum kit with programmed MIDI parts. And knowing that a simulated synth or guitar amp isn't capable of producing a satisfying low frequency weight or high frequency harmonics will put limits on the types of expressions which can be performed and written for.

Knowing that the three above points are related, having some overlap and influence on one another, what we seem to be dealing with in daw land is multitudes of options that are limited in the same fundementals. What do present day daws provide in way of writing excellent compositions for excellent performers with excellent sound? We have many options for programming performances, providing automated performances, and for editing not so excellent performances. This reflects back into what we can do in the composition. And it reflects forward in what we can do with the sound. As popular as the idea of these fundamentals being discrete, excellence in music and sound on the whole has taken a nosedive over the last couple of decades by many listeners accounts. I hear and see comments in person and on the internet all the time, and I agree with the general notion. Even dropping down to the lower end of the stack into physics, the once novel idea that everything is connected through intertwined fields has become the accepted theory of how things work on a fundemental level and how things influence one another.

Knowing that there is some overlap and influence in fundamentals, what do our digital tools provide in way of excellence of composition, performance, and sound? And how are we limited by our tools in these fundamentals, where we otherwise have endless options within these limitations?

For myself, I'm not so interested in tools for stitching together compositions from blocks, simulating and automating performances, or providing precooked sounds. I feel that the human element and character in music tends to get lost by varying degrees through these kinds of tools. What would serve me best is tools that I can configure in ways that are highly usable for writing, performing, and mixing. For example, as a guitar player primarily, I find amp simulations to be very limiting in the sounds that I want to express, despite endless options of simulations for everything under the sun. The fundamental of excellence in sound isn't there, whether I turn to this developer or that developer, or this model or that model. The limitations aren't in the options, but rather, in the fundamentals of sound and hence what I would like to express.

Carrying the above example over into the other fundamentals in daw land, I see similar limitations in other areas, despite having every option under the sun for this and that. I find that what I can do with nothing but a guitar only becomes more complicated and mucked up by when I take it to a daw. And I should insert a note here. Useful simplicity isn't about removing options but more about removing useless options for the task at hand.

Where I feel the least mucked up when writing with only a guitar in hand, I still want to capture those ideas for further development, which is where a daw comes in. Ideally, what would be involved on the daw side of things is a personal configuration of tools for this simple task. If I am using an acoustic guitar, I only need a stark set of controls in front of me. A meter for setting the level, record and play buttons, and a visualization to use as an aid in clicking through the recording while thinking about what I might like to change. Anything else at this point is just muck that is in the way. In this hypothetical modular daw, I would add onto the blank screen these simple tools and get down to it without any other distractions in the way. Nothing is on the screen other than the tools which I choose to put there for the task at hand. After playing with the basic composition, I might decide that I would like to more easily jump around between parts by adding some marker points. Keeping it simple, I only need to add onto the screen some labels to attach to specific points in time: intro, verse, chorus, optional interlude, verse, etc... I don't need a full-blown timeline and 'marker system' in the way. I just need some labels to attach to those points in time and a quick way to jump to those parts. I might choose to assign some keys to those marker points, such as a, b, c for the verses, e, f, g, for choruses; whatever comes to mind that works for me. Present day daws don't allow for this kind of simplicity. Everything is a prebaked 'system' which more often than not tends to get in the way of the task at hand through endless options, or forces users to do things in a way which goes against the grain of how we think on a personal level.

Taking the above example further, I might decide that I would like to add a layered part to the basic composition. Again, I don't need or want a bunch of muck. Stark controls for a stark task. Excellence in design at a modular level would be required here. Should a 'track' be a fancy panel with controls for level, pan, width, mute, solo, fx, routing, record arm, monitoring; a timeline with options for bars and units or time and units, grid options, snapping options, editing tools, file menus, color options, and a transport with play, pause, record, forward, backward, speed, looping? Is the idea of what I'm getting at making it across in this simple example?

And if I want to have some of the above controls over sound for this simple task, such as volume and pan, do I need to have them all? No. But in present daw land, a fullblown mixer is often needed for such a simple task. What if I want to add a bit of reverb to my simple tracking config? Do I need to wade through endless options of reverb modules, which never quite get the sound that I'm looking for, and change views to a rack or bring up a floating window possibly covers up other elements in my setup? Why are things so mucked up, even at such a very fundamental level?

I wish I had more time to go much further on this.

I'm glad you don't; what a load of rubbish. Pick a DAW that's closest to what you like, then customise it the best you can to suit your preferred workflow but accept that nothing can be perfect. Limit yourself to a handful of instruments, plugins and samples of stuff; only those that you really like. Uninstall all non-music software and disconnect the computer from the internet permanently. Get really good with your tools and making music as productively as possible whenever you use this computer. Stop looking for excuses or upgrades and make the best of what you have in the here and now.

Alternatively, you could design/develop the next big thing in DAW-land and take the world by storm with that instead of with your music?

[antic604]

That said, while I agree Reason is sorely in need of high def zoom, I think you’re overestimating “a lot of people”. Like... bad. Mac users represent a literal microscopic portion of overall computer users (still today), and the majority of laptop displays on the market are still “standard 1080p” displays. And Surface Pro/other tablets? Tiny. Just say’n...

Well, OK. But still, Surface Pro 4 is a perfectly fine and capable machine for working in Bitwig, Live and Studio One (I own all 3) but somehow it's not for Reason... I'm a hobbyist and can't afford the space (and time...) right now - at least until the kids move out - to have a proper studio. If I could, I'd immediately buy a 2-3 screen setup, proper monitors, some modular synths etc. But for now I'm just using this:

19023544_315715732191905_510933113132913990_o.jpg

and it's surprisingly good enough for a lot of stuff.

I'd love to give Reason a proper whirl, though

[EnochLight]

Well, OK. But still, Surface Pro 4 is a perfectly fine and capable machine for working in Bitwig, Live and Studio One (I own all 3) but somehow it's not for Reason... I'm a hobbyist and can't afford the space (and time...) right now - at least until the kids move out - to have a proper studio. If I could, I'd immediately buy a 2-3 screen setup, proper monitors, some modular synths etc. But for now I'm just using this:

19023544_315715732191905_510933113132913990_o.jpg

and it's surprisingly good enough for a lot of stuff.

I'd love to give Reason a proper whirl

OSX has a fantastic zoom built-in that can help in the meantime, though it clearly won't address your issues with the transport size.

http://heresthethingblog.com/2014/02/24 ... e-display/

[chk071]

Well, Facebook comments - like YouTube - should be taken with a grain of salt. I wouldn’t pay them any mind.

It's another topic, but... it always strikes me as funny that Facebook comments don't seem to be nearly as negative as the sh**storms i witnessed in forums. Tak the new AIR plugin, for instance. Sh**storm from post 1 here. I'm sure they didn't nearly get such negative comments, when they announced it on Facebook. Maybe forums should implement some ID check, and people should register with their real names. Might provide, at least for some people, that you can't hide behind a nickname, to vomit your soul out, on every occasion.

[chk071]

@ antic604: I'm always sad when i open DAW's on my 1367x768 resolution laptop. GUI's simply don't seem to be meant for such resolutions, these days. Either there are plugins, which get cut off, because they don't support resizing, or different GUI sizes, or the DAW's themselves are simply not up to the task of displaying the whole GUI on such a low resolution. Not an issue in your case, as the Surface obviously has a big enough native resolution, but, in general, i'd say GUI designing isn't yet capable of serving big screens as well as small screens, and big resolutions as well as low resolutions. Back in the days, it simply was easier, because you either used 800x600, or 1024x768, case closed. Nowadays, you more or less have everything.

[antic604]

OSX has a fantastic zoom built-in that can help in the meantime, though it clearly won't address your issues with the transport size.

I'm pretty sure there are some apps for Win10 that provide similar functionality, but I simply can't imagine scrolling the screen all the time. Also, Reason's particular problem is that even at current high resolution the pixels on the rack are big and they'd only become huge with zoom

[antic604]

@ antic604: I'm always sad when i open DAW's on my 1367x768 resolution laptop. GUI's simply don't seem to be meant for such resolutions, these days. Either there are plugins, which get cut off, because they don't support resizing, or different GUI sizes, or the DAW's themselves are simply not up to the task of displaying the whole GUI on such a low resolution. Not an issue in your case, as the Surface obviously has a big enough native resolution, but, in general, i'd say GUI designing isn't yet capable of serving big screens as well as small screens, and big resolutions as well as low resolutions. Back in the days, it simply was easier, because you either used 800x600, or 1024x768, case closed. Nowadays, you more or less have everything.

Oh, plugins are indeed another problem. So far, only Bitwig seems to work really well with them, whereas in Live or Studio One I have to choose either microscopic plugins and pin-sharp DAW or properly sized plugins but a blurry DAW.

So, either this:



Or this:





That was actually one of the reasons I got interested in Reason, because due to its instruments suite I wouldn't probably have to use VSTs

[incubus]

Here's the problem: It's not that they don't add stuff that people can make music with, it's that those of us who use/have used it want workflow enhancements. They simply refuse to oblige which is weird.

To the best of my knowledge, bounce in place is the only significant workflow improvement in now 3 expensive paid updates. I'm still on 8.3 because of this. And I have all the eq's, synths and stuff that I want or need.

I guess some people would call ableton link a workflow improvement, I disagree. It's a feature addition but doesn't help working within reason.

So though there isn't anything wrong with the updates, it seems strange (and would have been very expensive for all the people who upgraded incrementally)

[headquest]

Here's the problem: It's not that they don't add stuff that people can make music with, it's that those of us who use/have used it want workflow enhancements. They simply refuse to oblige which is weird.

To the best of my knowledge, bounce in place is the only significant workflow improvement in now 3 expensive paid updates. I'm still on 8.3 because of this. And I have all the eq's, synths and stuff that I want or need.

I guess some people would call ableton link a workflow improvement, I disagree. It's a feature addition but doesn't help working within reason.

So though there isn't anything wrong with the updates, it seems strange (and would have been very expensive for all the people who upgraded incrementally)

Major Workflow improvements from versions 8-9:

Version 8:
+ New browser including easily audition sound files, loops and instruments patches in the browser then drag the files from the browser right to the rack window or the sequencer

Version 9:
+ “Players” devices (a huge creative workflow asset)
+ Built in Pitch Editor for vocals/monophonic instruments
+ Bounce Audio to MIDI
+ Reverse MIDI patterns

There have of course been huge core programme improvements too, including the new SDK for Rack Extensions, Link (which you mentioned) and <fanfare> VST support.

Personally the BIG thing I’ve been wanting from Propellerhead for ages is for them to release a new 2018-ready set of native Reason instruments. Many, Many of us have been asking for this for years - so I’m stoked with version 10. A Huge Update.

[EnochLight]

Here's the problem: It's not that they don't add stuff that people can make music with, it's that those of us who use/have used it want workflow enhancements. They simply refuse to oblige which is weird.

To the best of my knowledge, bounce in place is the only significant workflow improvement in now 3 expensive paid updates. I'm still on 8.3 because of this. And I have all the eq's, synths and stuff that I want or need.

I guess some people would call ableton link a workflow improvement, I disagree. It's a feature addition but doesn't help working within reason.

So though there isn't anything wrong with the updates, it seems strange (and would have been very expensive for all the people who upgraded incrementally)

Major Workflow improvements from versions 8-9:

Version 8:
+ New browser including easily audition sound files, loops and instruments patches in the browser then drag the files from the browser right to the rack window or the sequencer

Version 9:
+ “Players” devices (a huge creative workflow asset)
+ Built in Pitch Editor for vocals/monophonic instruments
+ Bounce Audio to MIDI
+ Reverse MIDI patterns

There have of course been huge core programme improvements too, including the new SDK for Rack Extensions, Link (which you mentioned) and <fanfare> VST support.

Personally the BIG thing I’ve been wanting from Propellerhead for ages is for them to release a new 2018-ready set of native Reason instruments. Many, Many of us have been asking for this for years - so I’m stoked with version 10. A Huge Update.

True, and with Version 7:

+ MIDI out
+ audio slicing and quantising
+ a graphical front end for channel EQ (with spectral display)
+ several important mixer enhancements (including BUS and Group channels)
+ Import MP3, AAC and WMA

..and Ableton Link appeared somewhere with a point update in 8, I think.

But I agree that this stuff appears at a snail's pace, though, and largely is playing "catch up" to pretty much every other DAW on the market. Still, if Reason is your preferred spot, this stuff is invaluable.

[headquest]

Exactly. It’s not a competition because we can choose what DAW we use, or (like many of us) float between more than one. Reason is unique, and is brilliant even as a rack of instruments to use within another DAW if that’s what you want to do.

But the reality is that it is absolutely possible to finish off a Reason project within Reason. And for many musicians it has everything they need. I see it as being a bit like Ableton in this respect (which I also use). Both programmes are stunning at what they do, but neither has all the bells and whistles that Cubase/Logic/etc offer. They fill a different niche.

As a DAW Reason (just like Live) has everything *it* needs. But if there are things that *you* need which it doesn’t offer, that’s fine - there’s plenty to choose from!

[incubus]

That isn't a very big list for 4-5 paid updates. Ironically, S1 which was at a snails pace has introduced an unmeasurable amount from 3 to 3.5, however I see a lot of that for sale so not sure about stability.

In the end, I've beta'ed everything (except 10) and I found there were more favorable things from 8 to 8.3 than from 9 to 10.

To each their own.

[pekbro]

Re: low res laptops. I tend to use a second monitor for that. Since I always have 3 or 4 of them laying about from the last upgrade. Too bad the docking station fad has faded, that solved the problem nicely.