It's time for REASON 3 beta testing ...

[headquest]

Yes it will - already announced.

Reason isn't meant to replace Logic/Cubase/etc though - it's there to complement them.

To prove the point, when you sign up as a beta tester for R3 the form asks you to identify the ReWire host you run Reason with .

And of course that is also precisely why Resons doesn't - and never will - need to host VSTs itself.

Thats true but for the people with a system thats not powerfull rewire is a hard thing to do. It takes a lot of cpu if you have a very big "quality" track.

Ill just wait and see it for myself I hope its gonna be good enough though.

I hope so too

The ReWire thing depends on your host of course. Cubase and Logic are BIG programs. Using Live 4 - which is leaner - I have no probs on my laptop.

[D3StRoY]

I hope so too

The ReWire thing depends on your host of course. Cubase and Logic are BIG programs. Using Live 4 - which is leaner - I have no probs on my laptop.

Hehe, well i used reason 2.5 before now i'm using logic and still i'm impressed in logic.

I'm currently moving upstairs gonna make a small studio i dont need a lot of hardware though coz you can get very far with vst/software.

Also got a release waiting thats the reason i want quality.

[LBN]

Amongst the smaller items on various wish-lists, there are three major recurring requests common to many users: audio recording; MIDI output, so that Reason's sequencers could control external instruments; and VST plug-in compatibility. At the risk of being immensely boring to Propellerhead personnel, who are well aware of what users ask for, we felt we had to ask what the official position on these issues was! First, on audio recording, Niels Larsen: "I think it's out of the question if we just said 'a little bit of audio'. That's the sort of thing that we just don't do. We have a lot of people saying: 'You could just put in a couple of tracks' or 'Why don't you do an ADAT-like device and call it Recorder?' A nice idea, but it's the wrong way to approach an issue like that. If you put an ADAT into the rack, it's like having a little 16-channel Mackie mixer and an ADAT connected to it. At what point do you become more frustrated and begin to say 'I want to do more than that, I want to do editing. Why don't I have editing?' That instantly becomes an issue. Then it becomes 'Oh, I need more mixing facilities...' And then Reason as a concept, as a product to make music, might change too much. That's why audio tracks at this time is really a no-no, because we feel we'd be ruining what we created rather than enhancing it."

Ernst adds his thoughts. "People ask us 'What is your hang-up with audio, what is your hang-up with VST plug-ins? Why don't you just do it?' And I don't think there is a hang-up. We'd like to think that Reason is not a 'me too' product. There were certainly soft synthesizers before it, but something that we did — we're not exactly sure what it was — took it to another level. If we ever do hard disk recording, I'd like to try to pull off the same trick again! I don't want to just do a 'me too' thing for adding hard disk tracks to Reason; even though it would probably be practical, it's not what we are about. It's not right for us. We'd just be an inferior Cubase, and why would we want to be that?"

Now at V2, the Reason electronic music studio boasts a growing user base.
Perhaps, rather than incorporating the feature into Reason, a Propellerhead application could be purpose-developed to run in tandem with Reason? Niels doesn't rule out the possibility: "I think that's an interesting option, particularly with ReWire. I could see us having products that were the best for each recording task, rather than having one product that tries to do everything. Another thing about audio recording is that we have to be realistic about what we are capable of. If your expertise is synthesis and you have to start writing an audio editor, it would probably take several years, and then you have to question whether it would really be, after all that, so much better than anybody else's. But maybe we will."

MIDI output is next on our list of annoying questions — as Niels observes: "Ah... another one of those questions that are asked a lot. The thing with MIDI Out is that people say 'Oh, it's really easy', but it's not, actually. If you include MIDI Out, you have a host of other things you need to take into account. For example, do you need SysEx handling? We don't have that because we only need to control our own devices. The other thing is all the other tools you'll need if you are going outside to an environment that is uncontrollable and unpredictable. It would be a key strategic change for us, but also it involves a host of complications other than just making an output. For example, you'd probably need to have transpose on every track, certain other playback controls, probably a MIDI mixer as well..."

Finally, there's the issue of VST plug-ins, which certain users would like, perhaps principally to provide access to different effects. "Of course, a lot of people would love us to do it," says Niels. "But one reason is that we don't want to become a product that is a VST host, and particularly for VST plug-ins that might not be as efficient as Reason. We take pride in making reliable products, and in making them efficient, so that the user can do a lot on just one computer. One single plug-in could bring the whole thing down! And we don't want to do that. What we'd rather do is keep making instruments that can satisfy our users' appetite. We favour ReWire [for accessing VST plug-ins], not because it's our technology, but because it has become what we wanted an interface to be. Now we have Sonar on board [with ReWire support], and Cakewalk have done a great implementation, I have to say. Also Emagic, Ableton Live, Cubase, Nuendo... So it's getting there, bit by bit."

Pushed on the company's plans for Reason in the future, Ernst is circumspect: "The only thing I can say is that we will try to keep the program as focused as it is. A lot of people would like us to go into all territories and do everything that the big companies do. We're not sure that's a good idea, at least not for us. We can't do everything, so better for us to concentrate on what we do well and try to establish links — like, for example, with ReWire — to other products that provide the pieces that we can't. The future will be a natural evolution of what we have today."

[drez]

and uh 1, and uh 2...

Reason does NOT need VST support.
Reason does NOT need VST support.
Reason does NOT need VST support.
YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

It uses rewire to talk to anything it needs to. People always are complaining that its closed.

ITS NOT!

Almost every freakin sequencer now supports rewire at LEAST as a "host" and soooo many other ones are rewire "slaves" as well! If it wasn't a valid technology, then why are so many people implementing it in their software?

But noooooo, drez, I don't want to have to buy aNOTHER seeequencer...

Then WHY do all of the other hosts support rewire?!?!?!? Because you can "J O I N" two Seeeeequenzers together. The companies making the sequencers realize that people use other companies sequencer products all the time and see Rewire as a great way to keep their product used by others even if the consumer likes other competing products.

If you want VST's, but love Reason, then go out and get an ADDITIONAL host to do that. Reason works fanTASTIC in Live4!

Instead of forcing all companies to have all the functionality of all the other products, let them specialize and do what they do best.

With VST's, we don't expect every VST to have chorus/delay/reverb/distortion/flanging/filtering built into it. We let each VST do exactly what it does best and we buy different ones that do EXACTLY what we want, so why should a host be any different?

The props have a niche in the market that they have successfully dominated. No, it is not the everything is everything product, it is a product that, in my opinion, does what it does better than any other...

And THAT is why the props keep it going in the direction it is going.

Thank you Props for staying the course.

[TeeLangSun]

Reason with VST loses all of its reasons.
Reason is powerfull without VST and its very stable and non-cpu hunger.Want VST? Rewire Reason on FL Studio.

I dislike Rewire personally because in terms of making music, it makes no sense to me. How is it sensible to use two separate sequencers to do what one is perfectly capable of doing. How is it sensible to continuously jump back and forth between two different programs when one does what both are doing. But worse than that, Rewire itself is not required to even be implemented "equally" in all hosts. In other words, some hosts have implemented Rewire in such a way that it only serves the purpose of bulking up a featurelist. In actual use, it's a whole different story. So then, if one wanted "real" rewire support, then they'd have to spend a good deal more money to get one of the sequencers which have bothered to implement Rewire fully. Rewire is the way to spend a lot more money for functionality which already exists. Now, if Reason were a VSTi itself, that would be a whole different story. Load up Reason inside FL with only one sequencer and one environment. Use any of Reason's generators or FX in the host's sequencer/mixer and that would be great instead of messy. Also, you'd get back the total recall that Rewire removes. I don't personally care if Reason supports VST myself because I have a hard time dealing with Reason's total and thorough waste of screen space at a time when people are using dual monitor setups and buying the largest monitors they can afford. With each new module in Reason comes the unavoidable greater difficulty getting at the various things loaded in the rack. It's already crowded and requires a great deal of scrolling and resizing of windows to get around. Consider that when you load up Reason with the In/Outs interface at the top, A standard mixer, a new Combinator module, and NN-XT and the sequencer at the bottom, you're already scrolling and reajusting windows just to have a look at the entirety of the NN-XT. There's only one "instrument" there and you're already scrolling and resizing instead of making music. What Reason needs more than anything else is a setup that allows two racks, side by side with twice the amount of modules visible at one time. It needs something like this, at the very least. But something definately needs to change with this vertical "rack" paradigm. It looks great but it's really just not that smart in terms of working within it.

[drez]

... Now, if Reason were a VSTi itself, that would be a whole different story. Load up Reason inside FL with only one sequencer and one environment. Use any of Reason's generators or FX in the host's sequencer/mixer and that would be great instead of messy...

That doesn't make sense to me. You'd still have to flip between the applications whether its a vst or a Rewire app. Its easier as a rewire app because I just hit alt+tab and I'm there. I've got all the multi-outs I need from rewire just like a multi-out vst, so I still don't understand what you mean.

What is the difference?

[TeeLangSun]

... Now, if Reason were a VSTi itself, that would be a whole different story. Load up Reason inside FL with only one sequencer and one environment. Use any of Reason's generators or FX in the host's sequencer/mixer and that would be great instead of messy...

That doesn't make sense to me. You'd still have to flip between the applications whether its a vst or a Rewire app. Its easier as a rewire app because I just hit alt+tab and I'm there. I've got all the multi-outs I need from rewire just like a multi-out vst, so I still don't understand what you mean.

What is the difference?

That would depend on how it's implemented. The way I see it, there would be no need for a sequencer on the Reason side. The entire "Rack" could be made to load up completely inside the host sequencer. No need to flip to the other entirely different sequencer. Reason would be treated like a group of synths from which you could pick and choose rather than anothe sequencer which has it's own transport, own sequencer, etc. Lastly, one save, one reload with total recall. That was supposed to have been one of the best things that software had over hardware. Rewire is a step backwards. VST would make this right.

[drez]

That would depend on how it's implemented. The way I see it, there would be no need for a sequencer on the Reason side. The entire "Rack" could be made to load up completely inside the host sequencer. No need to flip to the other entirely different sequencer. Reason would be treated like a group of synths from which you could pick and choose rather than anothe sequencer which has it's own transport, own sequencer, etc. Lastly, one save, one reload with total recall. That was supposed to have been one of the best things that software had over hardware. Rewire is a step backwards. VST would make this right.

Hey Tee,

I know you know this, but you don't have to use the sequencer at ALL in Reason. You can hide it. You don't have to mess with it if you don't want to. You don't need to use the transport control in Reason, you can use the one in your host. It triggers everything including the matrix programs that you create...perfectly in sync. I use Reason as a rack o' synths in Live all the time.

One save one recall is a pretty weak argument. Alt+tab then Ctrl+s and the Reason file is saved. I keep them in the same folder as the Live file I'm working on, so it is absolutely no hassle at all. It takes next to no effort to do this. Plus it gives me the flexibility to load that reason song anywhere else I want. If I have a song sequenced in Reason and then rewire it into Live, I can then take that same song and rewire it to Protools (which supports Rewire, not VST)....on any platform..PC or Mac!

2 files are better than one

[o'malley]

It sort of gives me a chance to fully exploit the programs potential.

By that logic why even get Reason 2.5, why not just stick to 1.01 and keep coming up with work arounds for eternity. I've had Reason since version 1.00, not 1.01, 1.00. I've pushed it as much as I would like.

That was my point. By the time you push it all they way, then a new version comes out.

[AD80]

That was my point. By the time you push it all they way, then a new version comes out.

What makes the props think everybody learns things at the same rate?
I pushed it all the way years ago which is why I'm using Tracktion and EXT and VST's right now. I havent opened Reason in months. No matter how hard you push it you're not getting FM synthesis, or decent comps, or audio recording, or even a graphical wave editor for the NNXT like Kontakt, or ....etc. The new Combinator that is coming in version 3 will allow me to do the same things I've been doing in EXT and Tracktion for years. So I hope theres more than that.

Ah well, the new version is in Beta now finally so we'll see what comes next.

[Meffy]

Ah well, the new version is in Beta now finally so we'll see what comes next.

A sensible attitude. :-)

Meffy

[FunkyBunch]

i'm not a owner of reason yet and can't test the beta version
can anybody list me all new features?
are there a vst support now or is it planed???

[Warmonger]

The beta has not yet been released, and the testers are not allowed to talk about it once it is. VST support isn't going to happen though. Not now, and probably not ever.

[Reverend Rhythm]

Here are some details:
http://www.propellerheads.se//products/ ... in2reason3

[GoaFruity]

VST support isn't going to happen though. Not now, and probably not ever.

COOL!