Musikmesse 2012: Propellerhead to share "exciting news"

[braj]

The rack is now horizontal and with scalable width.

That is just plain wrong. It is two vertical columns now, not 'horizontal' and the width of the RACK is not scalable. The two racks side by side cannot be scaled up or down in resolution.

Again quoted out of context.

Muting you from now on, oh how I like that feature.

[CT]

AFAIK, the rack window resizing option is not new to Reason 6. Im not sure, since I never owned Record, but I think this could be done with the Record-Reason 5 duo. So its something that Reason 6 inherited from Record.

Still, its not the same thing as Reason racks being scalable, and this to me is the most annoying thing about Reason. So I get where braj is coming from, and its a legitimate demand. Once (if?) Reason does this, its over!! And I mean that in a good way

[VitaminD]

The GUI was redone for Record 1.0 and updated for Reason 6. From what I understand the Reason GUI is built from Vector graphics and not bitmaps. Which means the graphics should be scalable to a different size or resolution without losing fidelity.

What do you mean 're-done?' It appears to be currently the same size as it was in Reason v1???

If you mean they converted from raster to vector, then great. There would now be no reason NOT to have the ability to step increase the size in the preferences. Whats stopping them?

You said Reason's UI has not been updated in 12+ years. And I was just correcting you. Record 1.0 and above used a new UI. In Reason 1.0 up to 4.0 the rack was fixed width and vertical. The rack is now horizontal and with scalable width. And apart from legacy instruments the UI was completely redone with alot of enhancements.

How do you scale the rack size? It takes up half my screen width; it's tiny. I see no changes with which I, and many others in this very thread, have suggested they make.

Now, if you can show me how to increase the size of the rack (and thus all the generators on it) then I'll retract my suggestion. Please show me.

You continue to purposely completely miss the point. Which is that I corrected you for incorrectly stating the GUI has not been updated in "12+ years".

And if you actually read my earlier reply correctly, you would see I was referring to the scalable width of the new UI as an example of change from UI of old versions of Reason. What that allows you to do is stack devices horizontally and not to scale them.

Oh I see..

I think what has happened is I have made one point, you have taken this and have made another, different point and are now telling me I have missed the point because I am not seeing your point (which is different from the one I was making).

But ok.


I think perhaps cytone might be on to something with the actual GUI changes I was suggesting.. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[CT]

Since the price of Reason Essentials has been drastically reduced, is there any likelihood of PH dropping the price for Reason 6 and upgrades to Reason?
Ive got Reason 4, and will upgrade soon, maybe after 6.5 is out.

[christianmusicmaker]

Maybe but I think they will wait and see how Re pans out first before dropping the price of R6. They clearly see no need to at the moment. But I guess it could change.

[CT]

Hmm so it could be a while before they drop prices, if at all. Im guessing they'll need 6 months to know how it pans out.

Essentials also supports RE, so there'll probably be a fairly large number of adopters for that too.

[headquest]

Since the price of Reason Essentials has been drastically reduced, is there any likelihood of PH dropping the price for Reason 6 and upgrades to Reason?
Ive got Reason 4, and will upgrade soon, maybe after 6.5 is out.

I would still love to see them drop the current upgrade prices...

Having previously invested in Reason 5 and Record 1.5 - which between them account for almost all the features of Reason 6 - I resent being asked to pay euro 149.00 to upgrade. I know that they had a short-term "pay what you want" deal for the early adopters, but the rest of us who paid out big time for products they recently discontinued/merged, the current situation is unacceptable in my view.

My comments here and elsewhere about Re and their other developments would I'm sure be more generous if I wasn't so angry with them over their current offensive upgrade pricing.

There's no need for them to be alienating loyal long-time users while courting new business with $1 apps.

[christianmusicmaker]

Essentials also supports RE, so there'll probably be a fairly large number of adopters for that too.

Yes adding Re Support to Essentials is a key part of the strategy. Low entry point. For those considering at least trying out Reason it is a fairly low price. Once more varied Re devices show up especially those that fill in the blanks then I suspect it is not impossible to suggest Reason Essentials could just possibly over time out sell the full version of Reason 6. Props will not mind of course.

The blanks or missing devices
Ernst said something very interesting in the video demo for Re...something like "Reason Essentials is all you need". For someone interested in Reason I think he could be right, but IMO only when other key third party Re devices show up that replace those missing in Reason Essentials and are already present in the more expensive full R6 package.

I would even add, that the comparison chart in the link above is probably the best starting point for any dev getting into Re even if they do not already have a similar plug to port. If they do have something similar even better. I personally would be much more interested in Re plugs that fill in missing spaces and save me some cash on the full R6 package and give me more choice while using Reason Essentials. This could be the ideal customer mindset the Props want. My take on it anyway.

[Mattox]

I think their pricing is pretty much spot on, 150 for an upgrade to your music toolbox of choice is still a bargain.

[liquid wind]

Reason Essentials would have been completely pointless before Rack Extensions in my mind, I don't know what it was going for before but even the current $99 would be too much considering the few Props plugs that aren't worse than VST freeware are omitted and the sequencer has never been a selling point for Reason either. As it is now it could be really interesting, someone also suggested that they develop a new rewire that would be easier to use and more integrated and that would be a really amazing compliment to Reason Essentials with this App store concept. Continue editing MIDI in the comfort of your current DAW but then you have this virtual equipment rack with some potentially pretty cheap gear(Urs already said Uhbik would be cheaper in RE than VST, now what if the Props adopted a Valve-like strategy of constantly running specials?). This I think would give them the best ability to expand, no one sequencer is ever going to appeal to everyone, making it easier to bring Reason to every other sequencer would make rack extensions very attractive

I think their pricing is pretty much spot on, 150 for an upgrade to your music toolbox of choice is still a bargain.

I paid $150 for my music toolbox of choice and haven't had to pay for updates since, I think if rack extensions really take off it would make sense for the props, reaping 30% of those sales, to do something similar. Potentially Reason could just be a vehicle for the real business of selling rack extensions. Depending on just how big it gets, but there's quite a lot of buzz about this so it seems to have potential

[cytone]

The Reason Essentials seems an odd product as although you will be able to use Re you won't be able to use hardly any of the many Refills in the market and a lot of them are very good.

[skipkent]

it isn't a 'burden' but it will surely take away development time and testing time from their other formats?

rsp

I don't think this is as realistic a concern as it might seem. Unlike a host, plugins don't change a great deal over time. After the initial release of the plugin, most development is going to go into bugfixes and libraries. These will apply to all formats of the plugin, vst, rtas, re, whatever.

Also, it is very likely that ideas devs adopt working to retro/fit a plug to Re will lead to innovations on the VST side as well that might not otherwise have been considered.

Bottom line: developers are happiest and most productive when flexing their heads solving interesting problems while making good money for doing so. Re can and probably will for many be a way to energize productivity and innovation rather than stifle or distract from it.

[headquest]

I think their pricing is pretty much spot on, 150 for an upgrade to your music toolbox of choice is still a bargain.

Did you pay more than that during the PWYW then??

Remember, all the upgrade includes for me is the three new effects and some minor improvements... and I was one of the few people that believed in PH enough to buy Record, a fact entirely ignored in their upgrade policy today

[highkoo]

No.
Actually, it would do the opposite.
Well, unless this is a theoretical problem to be solved without consideration for the concepts of limited time and resources.
Then yeah, sure.

streamlining into some next-generation infrastructure and advancing the state of the art has second-order effects that are broadly beneficial to the whole field.

So this is theoretical then?
Or are you just stuck in your best Project Manager tone?

We are going to imagine near zero overhead, and assume that any new concoction is literally just as viable as the ten year old ubiquitous VST,
and more importantly- that we can all wait around for it?
Also, "next-generation"? Arguable.
"Advancing"? Arguable.
If the 'second order' benefits of this are to be felt across the whole field, it will require some significant growing pains that I have serious doubts are 'worth' it based on the Props history of completely ignoring technology.
Suddenly, they are the harbingers of a new day in plugin technology....?
Hope! Finally free from under the oppressive VST regime!

For me it is mostly about the time wasted.
My thing is, Id like the devs to figure some things out with a standard before I die.
And, Id like a fairly decent host to run it in.
VST is damn close.

It doesn't take unlimited time or resources to do multiple plug-in formats. Depends a lot on the standards, but this looks like it should be very plausibly low overhead.

Thats not what I meant at all. When I said unlimited, I meant that we would have to live in a world where neither time or energy matterd in order for both users and devs to not care about both being wasted in order to keep a dinosaur like Reason alive.
Oop, I meant 'in order to explore amazing new next gen plugin technology.'

After reading the rest of this thread, Im almost mad about it.
Even if we gobble up the marketing hype, it doesnt feel right.
It feels like a way for Reason users to limp by for another couple years. It feels like some great devs did some charity work...
(Harsh! )

GUI stuff seems to me like a sub-problem that can be attacked efficiently during the same production cycle as other versions. We'll see what developers have to say about the Reason-environment integration aspects, but I don't see anything that would suggest it raises difficult problems.

Sure, eventually.
I dont want to wait another three years for that integration to happen, maybe another three years for bugs to be worked out, and then another thrree before any attention is paid to VSTs again, and then tack on three more for all the brand new bugs caused by all of this.

Sure that is an exagerration, but not as big a one as saying itll be painless.

When well done, a good object model at a fairly global level is actually extremely advantageous to development. Rapid prototyping, consistent behaviors, flexible services all help developers focus on things that are more unique and worthwhile to users.

Well I think that is obvious. Again, its the time spent waiting, and the resources of the devs that is the concern.
And I guess, there would be concern that the whole thing is folly and that REs will not exist in four years.

In terms of resources that enable better development, VST does some things just fine here, MIDI does some things just fine here, but there's plenty of other things that are just not going to happen any time soon or at all without some capitalized exploration. Because it's centralized and controlled environment, Reason's RE is a chance to explore some of these possibilities.

Ok, that sounds like its right from the Props Marketing Dept.
What are those things that are not going to happen with VST, and how is Reasons RE actually a chance to explore them? When will those eplorations happen?
Seems to me that those things are few, and the chances of them being 'explored' in an RE is probably far less likely than in a VST.

For me, the rack extensions that would be most valuable would be ones that fill in the gaps rather than ones that replace the Propellerhead devices.

This is a most valuable point from a "Reason Only" user standpoint I think.

But, but but, Reason has been a 'complete audio workstation' for ten years, so where that leaves REs I dunno..

Geez..this thread..some people have complicated minds..

Yeah, thinkers.

Reason as a product is crippled in it's current form due to the micro GUI. The only conclusion to which I can arrive is at the UI being tied very deeply, internally in the code... I suspect this is the only reason why they haven't updated it in 12+ years Reason has been a product; It would be A LOT of work.

Yeah that sounds like a dirty secret.
Geezuz, after seeing that GUI for the first time in a while I am just at a loss as to why this is even being discussed. Props are being discussed as the architects of this whole new ecosystem while their history is basically a tale of keeping poor pace with technology and users. Hype for hypes sake.

Reason as a product is crippled

+1
Know what happens to horses..?

[headquest]

I paid $150 for my music toolbox of choice and haven't had to pay for updates since, I think if rack extensions really take off it would make sense for the props, reaping 30% of those sales, to do something similar. Potentially Reason could just be a vehicle for the real business of selling rack extensions. Depending on just how big it gets, but there's quite a lot of buzz about this so it seems to have potential

Agreed.

The most grating part of the Propellerhead video of Ernst is at the start where he talks about how they valued their "most loyal customers" by giving them PWYW...

If you REALLY value your most loyal customers you don't hold them to ransom for a quick sale, and you don't abandon a fair upgrade path for them just ONE MONTH after discontinuing the product they bought. I can't actually think of another developer who screwed over their most loyal users within such a short time scale of an upgrade.

Nice for the early adopters of course, but some of us have a life outside of Propellerhead Fan-dom. And the reality is that if you don't look after the users who promote you, they end up having a negative view of your efforts in the future