"Reason sound" test :)

[chk071]

I would agree that most soft synths are not capable of that. The resonant behavior is also quite outstanding, when you compare it to most soft synth filters. I guess that's also why many people still prefer analog synths. We're slowly getting there though, i guess.

[xbitz]

talking about the bass ones, wait...

from 2:54, and it's the supercrappy youtube ... these type of timbres weren't possible in Reason

[antic604]

if you tried to do actual mixing (at least tried to balance the levels) you could hear some difference, at least because of the "ssl" algos in Reason ( i assume so, don't have Reason myself) but with your test conditions ("no mixing whatsoever, no EQing, no side-chain compression, etc") I don't even quite understand what's the purpose of your test

But this was exactly the point - to prove that the DAWs themselves (excluding their native instruments & effects) sound the same. That there's no "Reason sound". It's obvious that if I'd start adding EQs or Compressors and even used exactly the same settings, things would've started sounding different, just like e.g. emulations of SSL from Waves, BX, UAD, Softube sound different. But that's obvious.

[xbitz]

just a quick remark, quite good example


The Prodigal Reasoner by Fredrik Hägglund
Liam Howlett of Prodigy explains why Reason, to him, is the best thing since sliced bread.

...
So, Reason is pretty much the meat of the sound on the new album?
- Literally everything you'll hear on the new album has been written on Reason. Everything starts there. Eventually we get to a stage where the song is written, and then we - that's my producer Neil McClennan and I - move it into 'Tools where we finish off everything, and that works great since Reason integrates with ProTools really well. Everything that comes out of Reason sounds really good, it's got this sound, I think - a kind of certain... everything sounds like it "locks in" really good, you know? And that sound we got out of Reason is something that we now and again had to go back to Reason to duplicate; sometimes we'd do a thing in ProTools and it just didn't rock it like Reason did, so we'd take it out of ProTools and try to duplicate it in Reason instead.
...
What, specifically, don't you use Reason for?
- When it comes to bass sounds, I'm pure analog and I don't use soft synths for bass at all. There's just no substitute for analog. Instead, I'll take an Oberheim, Moog, Korg MS-20 or something, sample a sequence of it playing, rex it up and then bring that back in Reason and lock it in there. I do occasionally use the softsynths to put melodies down - I'd say maybe 50% of the synths, the top line and high end stuff, is Reason. I can't as of yet use it for everything - obviously you can't record vocals into it - but ultimately, what Reason does have by way of limitations is also one of its strong points. It forces your imagination to be more on the board, you have to dig it out of your head rather than just going "well, I just can't do that in there". I never saw it that way, I mean if something you want to do is completely off limits then just use another program, no big deal.

http://theprodigy.info/equipment/reason ... 2004.shtml

[chk071]

Even though i don't necessarily disagree with that, you gotta take it for what it is. Hans Zimmer also said that Cubase sounds better than any other DAW. Musicians are often very emotional, subjective, or even esoteric about their work. They're musicians after all.

[mcbpete]

RE: xbitz's quote - As the article is dated 2004 could it be they were hearing the aliasing from the early versions of the resampling engine ? This is a frequency sweep from v.6 released in 2011 so presumably the 2004 was even worse - The harmonics are so vivid it basically looks like everything is being ran through a harmonic distortion unit !


(source - http://src.infinitewave.ca/ )

[antic604]

the poll doesn't show that there's no "Reason sound" - it only shows that people couldn't hear which of the DAWs on offer is Reason.

I assumed when people say "Reason sound" they mean it in a negative way, so they were meant to choose one that sounds the worst

the actual way to do this test, is to null the files, and take humans out of the equation entirely.

I disagree, because you could have lots of binary-level differences that would be inaudible for 99.9% of people. There's some threshold at which the differences are no longer relevant and that's for human to decide.

that said, it's a bad idea to do such tests with synths, because most of them have random drift, which would render null-test useless

I know. I tried to choose presets that didn't have any obvious drift or free-running LFOs (not saying they don't have any)

[antic604]

I personally always thought that the "Reason sound" had more to do with the thin plastic sound of the Reason included synth devices (to put it willingly controversial ). Even Kong suffers a bit from that, IMO. At least i think it's good now that Reason supports both RE, and VST. Although i still ask myself "Quo vadis, Propellerhead?".

I thought this was obvious and doesn't need testing?
I won't waste time comparing Subtractor with Serum

[antic604]

I don't see any point for the comparison in the poll to be honest. It would be a better poll to ask IMO if people still think there is a Reason's sound? And why they think there is or there isn't.

Again, the point was to prove there's no such thing as "Reason sound" or in fact any "DAW sound".

Native instruments & effects (incl. channel strips) might have characteristic sound to them, but that's also the case in VST world hence there was no point proving it

[chk071]

I personally always thought that the "Reason sound" had more to do with the thin plastic sound of the Reason included synth devices (to put it willingly controversial ). Even Kong suffers a bit from that, IMO. At least i think it's good now that Reason supports both RE, and VST. Although i still ask myself "Quo vadis, Propellerhead?".

I thought this was obvious and doesn't need testing?
I won't waste time comparing Subtractor with Serum

Native instruments & effects (incl. channel strips) might have characteristic sound to them, but that's also the case in VST world hence there was no point proving it

You're right. I don't know any host with included devices which can compete with the best in the VST world.

[recursive one]

if you tried to do actual mixing (at least tried to balance the levels) you could hear some difference, at least because of the "ssl" algos in Reason ( i assume so, don't have Reason myself) but with your test conditions ("no mixing whatsoever, no EQing, no side-chain compression, etc") I don't even quite understand what's the purpose of your test

But this was exactly the point - to prove that the DAWs themselves (excluding their native instruments & effects) sound the same. That there's no "Reason sound". It's obvious that if I'd start adding EQs or Compressors and even used exactly the same settings, things would've started sounding different, just like e.g. emulations of SSL from Waves, BX, UAD, Softube sound different. But that's obvious.

So basically you wanted to test whether the summing algos in Reason per se introduced some audible "character"?

For that I'd suggest a different "study design". Instead of using Reason and three other DAWs you could use Reason and one other DAW. Make one render from Reason and multiple renders of the same project from that other DAW. Then post all the resulting files and ask people to pick which one render is from a different DAW. If most people pick the Reason file you may conclude that a difference between Reason and that other DAW may actualy exist.

Then repeat the same using another "reference" DAW.

Or screw all that procrastination stuff and make music in Reason

[xbitz]

I personally always thought that the "Reason sound" had more to do with the thin plastic sound of the Reason included synth devices (to put it willingly controversial ). Even Kong suffers a bit from that, IMO. At least i think it's good now that Reason supports both RE, and VST. Although i still ask myself "Quo vadis, Propellerhead?".

I thought this was obvious and doesn't need testing?
I won't waste time comparing Subtractor with Serum

IMO still worth to check even the factory sound-banks for top-lines

"This patch is part of the Reason 9 Sound Bank, it's called "Sine Pluck -SP" in the plucks folder."

they are sound quite nice

[antic604]

IMO still worth to check even the factory sound-banks for top-lines

they are sound quite nice

I'm not saying they don't. Actually I don't subscribe to the notion that Reason - even in earlier versions - sounded plasticky or thin, because it's a matter of EQing, compression, etc. and just knowing what one's doing and what they want to achieve.

I won't compare Serum with e.g. a Subtractor simply because they'll sound different and it's not possible to objectively say that one is always better than the other for everyone. Both have great presets. Both have bad presets.

[Distorted Horizon]

The "Reason sound" comes from stock devices, not the DAW itself.

The same way you recognize Sylenth or Massive from a radio track.

[kgbrolic]

I don't think this is what people meant with "Reason's sound" in the past! I don't know what they mean by now as Reason is not a closed system as before a decade or more (version 2 to version 5 come to mind). It was even before the RE era!

It was mostly because the limited sources of sounds and effects. But now, it is strange to read such a thing (Reason's sound! Unless you just keep using Subtractor and Malstrom only!). I don't see any point for the comparison in the poll to be honest. It would be a better poll to ask IMO if people still think there is a Reason's sound? And why they think there is or there isn't.

THIS!!