Reason 12 is here

[EnGee]

Is it possible to buy only the Reason Rack Plugin?

No!
However, you might be able to find Reason Lite for cheap here in the 2nd hand market. Be sure it is v11 though.
It can't display all the devices. The intro version display a little bit more (Kong and Thor I think), but you can buy RE and it will be loaded there.

[machine_spirit]

I have decided to wait until they deliver something that's really relevant to me - there's nothing in V12 that I really want or need.

I agree, except for the part about the combinator. I think it depends alot on what kind of music you're making, and if you're using mostly MIDI or audio (though i can imagine there are cases where it is useful for both). I find it useful for sounds like pads which are often layered. The programmer let's you automate multiple parameters in different devices easily. Reduces sequencer clutter in general.

The sampler doesn't excite me because i don't mess with samples in that manner beyond typical drum machine stuff, though in this case i think it's some sort of tired ignorance on my part more than anything else. When i think of samplers i imagine someone with a weird haircut mapping a bunch of drums and vocal slices to a bunch of buttons then proceeding to make music that sounds like absolute garbage while looking like they're REALLY into it. I think it's the last part that bothers me

[VitaminD]

Is it possible to buy only the Reason Rack Plugin?

RRP and the DAW are one in the same - you can’t have one without the other. You don’t have to run the DAW to run RRP in your DAW of choice, though.

Well you could have one without the other. The DAW is the sequencer. The RRP is the rack with the sound and effects generators in a VST3 plugin.

I don't want the DAW, I have a fantastic one already. I just want the Rack as a VST3. I see there was a lite version offered for 'free' at Plugin Boutque a year ago.

But it doesn't seem like this (or a 'full' version) is offered today, from the responses. Thanks!

[FotoxBr]

M1 is mentioned as compatible platform. But is this native or does it run with Rosetta 2 only ? Especially the rack is of interest to me.

[Trensharo]

It's encouraging to see Mattias mentioning that not all elemenets in sequencer are high-res yet and that's the 1st thing they're working on to catch up right now!

This should have been all about the sequencer. Scaling is the least of its worries.

[Trensharo]

Is it possible to buy only the Reason Rack Plugin?

RRP and the DAW are one in the same - you can’t have one without the other. You don’t have to run the DAW to run RRP in your DAW of choice, though.

Well you could have one without the other. The DAW is the sequencer. The RRP is the rack with the sound and effects generators in a VST3 plugin.

I don't want the DAW, I have a fantastic one already. I just want the Rack as a VST3. I see there was a lite version offered for 'free' at Plugin Boutque a year ago.

But it doesn't seem like this (or a 'full' version) is offered today, from the responses. Thanks!

The rack has created a conundrum. Some people now see reason as "Budget Komplete" (actually more like HALion 6 or Falcon 2) and just want the rack, because they are insanely slow at improving the sequencer.

Paying extra for a DAW you'll never use makes no sense. Black Friday is already around the corner. So people are likely to just wait for the NI sale.

Weird launch time, marketing-wise, due to how in tune the music production market is with the promotion windows.

Message me your Reason account. I may have a Lite I can transfer to you.

[machine_spirit]

Well you could have one without the other. The DAW is the sequencer. The RRP is the rack with the sound and effects generators in a VST3 plugin.

Selling the RRP separately would put pressure on them to develop the DAW simply by the act of making them into two different products, even if it was RRP or RRP + DAW. With the current method, you basically get the DAW as a bonus which is the angle their marketing goes for too.

[Trensharo]

Well you could have one without the other. The DAW is the sequencer. The RRP is the rack with the sound and effects generators in a VST3 plugin.

Selling the RRP separately would put pressure on them to develop the DAW simply by the act of making them into two different products, even if it was RRP or RRP + DAW. With the current method, you basically get the DAW as a bonus which is the angle their marketing goes for too.

Unfortunately, there are like 3-4 NI sales per year, so you can just wait for those and get better value for your dollar over buying the RRP. Thats ignoring how some DAWs ship with decent synths and devices can duplicate core DAW functionality, so there is redundancy in the spending, anyways.

The only thing that makes sense to me is Reason+, since they killed off Suite (which included some of the better devices). Buying a la carte makes as much sense with them as with Native Instruments. You will just end up spending the price of Live Suite trying to turn something like Pro Tools into "budget Ableton."

The only thing about Reason+ is that it obviously holds your projects hostage, unless you make a habit of bouncing everything to Audio before you mix (not a bad habit, though).

I'd only get this if I were using a DAW like Pro Tools, Samplitude Pro X, etc. anyways. Most others either don't need it or expose too many redundancies.

I like the Reason DAW. Theoretically. It just lacks too much in quality of life.

[MuzikFreq]

Well you could have one without the other. The DAW is the sequencer. The RRP is the rack with the sound and effects generators in a VST3 plugin.

Selling the RRP separately would put pressure on them to develop the DAW simply by the act of making them into two different products, even if it was RRP or RRP + DAW. With the current method, you basically get the DAW as a bonus which is the angle their marketing goes for too.

Splitting it up though would mean the DAW would see no love at all and just be abandoned

[chk071]

I really wished they hadn't got rid of the Intro version of Reason.

[SLiC]

It's encouraging to see Mattias mentioning that not all elemenets in sequencer are high-res yet and that's the 1st thing they're working on to catch up right now!

This should have been all about the sequencer. Scaling is the least of its worries.

Don't assume everyone wants the same stuff, there is a lot of interest in the rack only and a lot of us are on 4K monitors where the old rack was way too small to use.

Reason started life as just the Rack (Record used to be a separate optional product) maybe it will end that way!

[Trensharo]

I really wished they hadn't got rid of the Intro version of Reason.

It was too good. People would just buy Intro and a la carte a couple other elements and call it a day. They couldn't keep that around and launch Reason+ same with suite.

[chk071]

I really wished they hadn't got rid of the Intro version of Reason.

It was too good. People would just buy Intro and a la carte a couple other elements and call it a day. They couldn't keep that around and launch Reason+ same with suite.

Yep, that's what I thought too.

[Trensharo]

It's encouraging to see Mattias mentioning that not all elemenets in sequencer are high-res yet and that's the 1st thing they're working on to catch up right now!

This should have been all about the sequencer. Scaling is the least of its worries.

Don't assume everyone wants the same stuff, there is a lot of interest in the rack only and a lot of us are on 4K monitors where the old rack was way too small to use.

Reason started life as just the Rack (Record used to be a separate optional product) maybe it will end that way!

I'm not.

Reason started life when VSTi's were at their infancy.

Today, you can wait 2 months and get Komplete 13 for $300.

Things have changed.

A rack of redundant instruments (and players, in some cases) is not nearly as needed as it used to be.

As VST gained prominence, they needed to focus more on improving the sequencer to take advantage of that and compete with competing DAWs' development arcs.

Right now, the Rack only looks great to someone just entering the market, using a DAW lacking some production features (Samplers, Pattern Sequencers, Theory Tools) - and the list of those is shrinking, and who doesn't own a package like Komplete (or even Absolute from Steinberg) and is buying far outside of a promotional period (gaps shrinking by the year).

Those people aren't coming into the market with a bias - either to a specific DAW, or history.

[Trensharo]

I really wished they hadn't got rid of the Intro version of Reason.

It was too good. People would just buy Intro and a la carte a couple other elements and call it a day. They couldn't keep that around and launch Reason+ same with suite.

Yep, that's what I thought too.

Yep. I was recommending upstarts get Cakewalk + Intro and bolt on the Reason Drum Sequencer for a while. Then they axed it.

That gave those users all of the Synths, Samplers, and Drum plug-ins they needed to get started at a very low price... plus some basic instrument sounds.

Lite a as never useful. It was basically a way for them to see if they could do much selling devices a la carte. The plug-in, without further investment, didn't have enough bundled to bother installing it.