2020 was Reason's best year ever, apparently!

[starflakeprj]

I wish Matthias just came out & said outright what their policy regarding Suite is going forward, but he's too busy playing PS4 & Switch games

Agree, as I mentioned in my last post. Reason Studios don't have a black belt in information. And Mattias is apparently playing the on wrong consoles (according to me, an owner of Xbox Series X since release date, and the Google Stadia since the end of 2019). Those bastards have taken 100% of my production time and 30% of me sleep time and converted it to gaming time

[zoidkirb]

Suite 12 featuring pattern mutator , friktion, px7 and a couple more new premium devices could be more than enough to make it worthwhile.
After all, Suite 11 already was half great devices and half outdated filler.
Also there's nothing stopping them making a deal and adding 3rd party devices to the package.

[festeringheap]

It’s also entirely possible that Suite 12 could be exactly like 11. Some Reason users did not upgrade to 11, some people have recent versions of Reason Lite/Intro and some don’t have Reason at all yet.
Reason 12 may be a worthwhile upgrade for them, with the added bonus of a whole whack of REs for a low price.
Again, who knows, maybe they’ll change out just a few of the current Suite 11 REs for newer ones, enticing those who already bought Suite 11. Not as good of a deal as a whole bunch of new REs - but some people just like tp get a deal and spend money.

[antic604]

Again, who knows, maybe they’ll change out just a few of the current Suite 11 REs for newer ones...

That would be super sweet for me! I skipped Suite with v11 because I had most of the REs already, so if they swapped some of the older ones with 3-4 new ones, that would finally convince me to upgrade to Suite.

[festeringheap]

Again, who knows, maybe they’ll change out just a few of the current Suite 11 REs for newer ones...

That would be super sweet for me! I skipped Suite with v11 because I had most of the REs already, so if they swapped some of the older ones with 3-4 new ones, that would finally convince me to upgrade to Suite.

That's something I didn't realize - that some current users didn't get Suite 11 because they already had a whack of the included REs anyways so the price/value ratio wasn't favourable to them.

Regardless, Suite was a sweet deal for some and I wonder how much revenue came from that for RS's record year and whether or not that will hurt future RE sales down the road.

[antic604]

That's something I didn't realize - that some current users didn't get Suite 11 because they already had a whack of the included REs anyways so the price/value ratio wasn't favourable to them.

MOST people that didn't get the Suite were in this situation

Out of the 16 "extra" devices in Suite, I had 10 of the 12 I wanted anyway. So I got the missing 2 few months latter in a sale, for cheaper than Suite would've costed me.

[dstep404]

I was raised with reason, since 1.0 when I was 11 and then I got 2.5 for Christmas as a 14 year old. I haven’t looked at it since v7. I used to love it. I’d happily blow 250 to update to the suite to try the plugin when 12 comes out if it’s grown. I’m not going to get 11 at this stage.

Few questions though, most importantly, have the legacy instruments had the sound engines upgraded? Subtractor and Thor sounded great 15 years ago, but I’m not sure how they would hold up now.

NNXT wasn’t great then, sound wise IMO, have they improved the library?

For stuff like the poly step sequencer, can I drag that midi into Ableton? Can I send midi out directly from the plugin without drag and drop as well?

[mholloway]

Few questions though, most importantly, have the legacy instruments had the sound engines upgraded?

Nope. Identical to how they were before.

NNXT wasn’t great then, sound wise IMO, have they improved the library?

Nope, same as before.

For stuff like the poly step sequencer, can I drag that midi into Ableton? Can I send midi out directly from the plugin without drag and drop as well?

You can record the output into Ableton as MIDI, you just have to use the new MIDI output device they added to Reason. So if you setup a MIDI track in Live with its input set to the output of the track holding the Reason Rack and specify the Reason MIDI device as the signal to receive, then record the playback in realtime, it will record the MIDI data.

That may sound complicated, but it's not too bad once you get the basic workflow down. There is no drag and drop though (there *is* drag and drop of MIDI from Player devices purely inside the Reason DAW itself, but not from the Rack VST to the host).

[Silaris]

Although it will not be my main DAW, I definitely plan to upgrade from Reason 7 when version 12 is released. I love the improvements made over the past several versions, and as a person that owns a lot of old rack extensions, the VST rack would be highly beneficial.

[dstep404]

Few questions though, most importantly, have the legacy instruments had the sound engines upgraded?

Nope. Identical to how they were before.

NNXT wasn’t great then, sound wise IMO, have they improved the library?

Nope, same as before.

For stuff like the poly step sequencer, can I drag that midi into Ableton? Can I send midi out directly from the plugin without drag and drop as well?

You can record the output into Ableton as MIDI, you just have to use the new MIDI output device they added to Reason. So if you setup a MIDI track in Live with its input set to the output of the track holding the Reason Rack and specify the Reason MIDI device as the signal to receive, then record the playback in realtime, it will record the MIDI data.

That may sound complicated, but it's not too bad once you get the basic workflow down. There is no drag and drop though (there *is* drag and drop of MIDI from Player devices purely inside the Reason DAW itself, but not from the Rack VST to the host).

Thanks! Yep, familiar with midi routing from other plugins such as scaler and Komplete kontrol. With plugins not being upgraded, are there new ones or RE’s that can be competitive with normal VST’s? Or more to the point, sound wise, is there any reason to grab reason other than the modular environment and nostalgia?

[zoidkirb]

Thanks! Yep, familiar with midi routing from other plugins such as scaler and Komplete kontrol. With plugins not being upgraded, are there new ones or RE’s that can be competitive with normal VST’s? Or more to the point, sound wise, is there any reason to grab reason other than the modular environment and nostalgia?

Some of the synths are competitive even if not outright 'best in class' but Props did a good job in making Complex-1, Europa, Parsec, Friktion very powerful yet fun and approachable to use.
Working in the semi-modular environment of the rack is still a major draw though, that along with the huge library of Player and utility devices.

[antic604]

With plugins not being upgraded, are there new ones or RE’s that can be competitive with normal VST’s? Or more to the point, sound wise, is there any reason to grab reason other than the modular environment and nostalgia?

Old stuff hasn't been upgraded due to compatibility reasons, but you also have to approach them differently nowadays. 15-20 years ago they were taxing CPUs significantly, now you can stack 10 Subtractors or Thors and you'll barely notice it on the DSP meter, so use a Combinator to create monster patches with Reason's old instruments & FX. After all this is how all modern synths are built. Subtractor is nothing more than an oscillator.

Newer stuff - from both Propellerhead and 3rd parties - is often awesome, easily competing with VSTs and RE format has lots of advantages (one login & password to everything, automatic updates, sandboxing, effortless and usually creative rack integration, etc.). Check out synths like Parsec2, Complex-1, Europa, Grain, eXpanse, Vk2, Zero, Antidote, FM4, Friktion.

Plus the Players, introduced in v9, are a game changer. On the surface they're not doing a lot more than typical MIDI tools you have in other DAWs, but - again - stacking & combining them really makes them quick, intuitive and inspiring.

I'd highly encourage you to just try the 30-days demo

[Kinh]

I would say it would've been a better year for video game developers and alcohol suppliers

[festeringheap]

That's something I didn't realize - that some current users didn't get Suite 11 because they already had a whack of the included REs anyways so the price/value ratio wasn't favourable to them.

MOST people that didn't get the Suite were in this situation

Out of the 16 "extra" devices in Suite, I had 10 of the 12 I wanted anyway. So I got the missing 2 few months latter in a sale, for cheaper than Suite would've costed me.

The 4 A-list Guitarists are being discontinued in a week or so. I wonder if they would add those to a Suite 12?

[antic604]

The 4 A-list Guitarists are being discontinued in a week or so. I wonder if they would add those to a Suite 12?

I think there's new RE coming that will replace them, like with Reason Electric Bass and Reason Drum Kits in 2019. Maybe?