This is a bit of a rant...

[mantoras]

I was really disappointed when Reason Studios went the route of forcibly making all permanent licenses subscription based, with a 1 year time limit.
For me, this is a bit like they are holding a gun to the head of the customer, saying "Go ahead now, buy more of our stuff in the reason shop. If we go under as a company you know your license is doomed after a year. So go ahead and support us economically if you want to keep the software you already bought."

I thought there would be an outrage from the user base here, but I was surprised there was none. Rather it was seen as a convenient new way of dealing with authorizing computers. For me, a 1 year limit of use is a bad joke.

What do you think will happen to your "permanent licenses" after a year IF reason studios gets bought by another company or goes out of business in the future? Do you think you will be able to use your software after 1 year of that happening?

No way. You are all on 1-year subscriptions now. As long as Reason Studios is doing well as a company you can be have some trust your license will actually be usable in the future. So go ahead now, please buy something in the reason shop today! Overpriced rack extensions galore. How about 99 dollars for the Scenic Hybrid Synthesizer, a lackluster rompler with a really meager preset library and higher cpu load than Xfer Serum.

The only way I will ever spend a any more money with this company is if they remove this gun to my head and reinstate PERMANENT licenses for those who owns PERMANENT licenses. Until that happens I will move away from all Reason Studios software and use software from companies that actually respect their customers.

/Rant

[NMHindman]

Not sure what you mean. I'm on R.12, upgraded to it 2-3 years ago, perpetual license, not forced to upgrade, not forced to subscribe, my license works fine.

[mantoras]

Perpetual license of 1 year validity. What happens to your perpetual license if reason studios would go out of business in the future? Would you be able to use your perpetual license?

[Loque]

I have already to many VST license which won't work without authorization and the companies are already gone.

Not worth the rant, just sad.

If you don't like anything, don't buy it and move on.

I am fine with 1 year. Better than 3 months from other companies and I know, I can use everything if my HD is broken. This is not sure for many other companies.

[Bes]

i dunno if they going to shoot you tho. probably not actually like having a gun to your head

[TritoneAddiction]

Since this is already a rant thread, I might as well give a little rant myself. If you're not in the mood for some negative opinions, go do something fun and uplifting instead of reading this comment.

I used to be a lot more positive regarding Reason. I mean I still like Reason and I don't have any plans to find a new DAW. I've spent a lot of money on upgrades and rack extensions over the years.
But the last couple of years has changed my view quite a bit unfortunately, due to a number of things. My last purchase regarding anything Reason related was 2023-09-04. They've essentially lost me as a customer, at least for the time being. And it's not because of one thing, it's due to a number of things together that turned me off along the way.

Some of those reasons:

My first real negative reaction to RS came as they announced Reason +. I mean right now I don't worry that they'll go subscription only. But my initial gut reaction when it came out was "F*** this" as I hate that more and more companies have gone that route. I do believe they would have gone down that route if enough people were onboard. Thank god enough people hated the idea as much as I did.

The release of R12. I was actually really excited about upgrading. I was just gonna wait a couple of weeks after release and then upgrade. But it was obviously not finished. People can say what they want, but the truth is I've never seen so many people reporting bugs as this time. And it was over a LONG period of time too. I know R12 is in better shape now. But my main problem is that I found it very disrespectful to their customers to sell an obviously unfinished buggy product without letting them know the state it was in. I lost a lot of trust in the company at that point. Thanks to this, anytime they release something I now have to ask myself, is it finished? I really don't like the modern mantra "sell now, fix later".
By the time R12 was actually working properly all my excitement had long gone away.

The biggest reason for me not buying anything from RS anymore was because of their decision to make the Authorizer unusable and instead go all in with Companion. Understandable from a business perspective, but they essentially said upgrade or be left behind. Since I didn't feel like upgrading I bought the things in the Shop that I was interested in before the shift was going to happen. And that was it.

With R13 I thought now I'll most likely upgrade and get on with Companion and also be able to buy rack extensions again if I want to. But after closer inspection I didn't like most of the changes they made. For me personally they've basically made Reason worse. So I'm still with R11. I'm guessing I'll be here for quite a while. I mean it's better for my GAS situation, but terrible for RS.

So yeah, not any one of these happenings has alone has made me a non customer, but they've all contributed to a more negative view of Reason Studios and their decision making for sure.
I know this is just one users experience. But still, I was one of their regular customers who has spent thousands on Reason products over the years. And right now I give them zero.

[mantoras]

I have already to many VST license which won't work without authorization and the companies are already gone.

Not worth the rant, just sad.

If you don't like anything, don't buy it and move on.

I am fine with 1 year. Better than 3 months from other companies and I know, I can use everything if my HD is broken. This is not sure for many other companies.

Internet authorizing and a 1-year kill switch is two very different things. I need internet to authorize Ableton Live as well as many plugins, but it does not mean they will stop working if unabling to "phone home" to the companies server after 1 year.

How can you say you own a permanent license with those conditions? It is not permanent. It is 1 year and then phone home or else... which means you better hope for a good economic turnouts for the company... or else!! Reason Studios is so anti customer it's in your face! But yet you can't see it.
I hope they will turn around for the better, but since they where taken over by venture capitalists things have gone sour. You can sense it in that "Reason 13 is the best thing since sliced bread video", all the long time developers looks uninspired. They could have put the money into making that advertising video into developing useful features in the software instead. Someone said it on Kvraudio, the upper parts of the company needs to be replaced to get things moving into a positive direction again. Ableton Live releases more in the free 12.1 update than Reason Studios did with the Reason 13 update for 199usd.

If you guys on this board like things like built in kill switches then great, have at it.

[miyaru]

I have already to many VST license which won't work without authorization and the companies are already gone.

Not worth the rant, just sad.

If you don't like anything, don't buy it and move on.

I am fine with 1 year. Better than 3 months from other companies and I know, I can use everything if my HD is broken. This is not sure for many other companies.

Internet authorizing and a 1-year kill switch is two very different things. I need internet to authorize Ableton Live as well as many plugins, but it does not mean they will stop working if unabling to "phone home" to the companies server after 1 year.

How can you say you own a permanent license with those conditions? It is not permanent. It is 1 year and then phone home or else... which means you better hope for a good economic for the company... or else!!

If you guys on this board like built in kill switches then great, have at it.

It is good to have an opinion, and good to ventilate it. But don’t get aggressive towards others who have an opinion too! And not all on this board have the same opinion.

I do not like a lot of software solutions too, and how Microsoft is handling Win11 with their strategy of not including all processor types.

This is why I stopped investing in software any further and bought myself an Akai Force.

🥳

[Loque]

Internet authorizing and a 1-year kill switch is two very different things. I need internet to authorize Ableton Live as well as many plugins, but it does not mean they will stop working if unabling to "phone home" to the companies server after 1 year.

How can you say you own a permanent license with those conditions? It is not permanent. It is 1 year and then phone home or else... which means you better hope for a good economic for the company... or else!!

If you guys on this board like built in kill switches then great, have at it.

It is good to have an opinion, and good to ventilate it. But don’t get aggressive towards others who have an opinion too! And not all on this board have the same opinion.

I do not like a lot of software solutions too, and how Microsoft is handling Win11 with their strategy of not including all processor types.

This is why I stopped investing in software any further and bought myself an Akai Force.

🥳

Yea, win 11 is a broken promise and the reason they made it is already refuted. I wish I could avoid it but I am forced to switch at some point and must go into online always... And I have a perpetual win 10 license which is worthless in a few months...

[miyaru]

It is good to have an opinion, and good to ventilate it. But don’t get aggressive towards others who have an opinion too! And not all on this board have the same opinion.

I do not like a lot of software solutions too, and how Microsoft is handling Win11 with their strategy of not including all processor types.
This is why I stopped investing in software any further and bought myself an Akai Force.

🥳

Yea, win 11 is a broken promise and the reason they made it is already refuted. I wish I could avoid it but I am forced to switch at some point and must go into online always... And I have a perpetual win 10 license which is worthless in a few months...

Yeah, me too on that perpetual Win 10 license…… Sad but true!

[joeyluck]

Just to clarify, in order for your authorization to time out, you will have had to be offline for an entire year, as it updates to a year from the last time you used Reason with an Internet connection. For most people, that's every time they use Reason.

[jam-s]

Just to clarify, in order for your authorization to time out, you will have had to be offline for an entire year, as it updates to a year from the last time you used Reason with an Internet connection. For most people, that's every time they use Reason.

Well, OP's horror scenario is: RS goes poof, auth server is down, Reason does not get any authorisation and then after 1 year it won't work any more.

[selig]

Just to clarify, in order for your authorization to time out, you will have had to be offline for an entire year, as it updates to a year from the last time you used Reason with an Internet connection. For most people, that's every time they use Reason.

Well, OP's horror scenario is: RS goes poof, auth server is down, Reason does not get any authorisation and then after 1 year it won't work any more.

In the past when devs have gone out of business I immediately look for a replacement that is actually and actively supported.
I would not rely on unsupported software for long, certainly not a full year based on my past experiences.
But knowing I had a full year to transition to a new DAW would be a nice buffer to have in this worst case scenario.

[joeyluck]

So this nightmare scenario is imagining Reason Studios either being acquired and the company acquiring them doesn't honor licenses, or they just decide to shutdown and they don't update their licensing to not be time based or whatever? I don't have those worries.

[MrFigg]

Ignition Key

[bxbrkrz]

The thing I used to love about Reason was its file format. One pack, easy to backup and move around. Unlike working with Cubase back then and the dreadful "missing file/link" error message when opening an old project.
It's one thing to not have access to a plugin anymore, you can always get something else. It is another level of hell when you have zero access to your art, spent decades creating, forever.
As long as you can open a folder and see all the takes, you can rebuild the project using a reference. It's better than nothing. Now I get it Live! I get it Reaper!
That's my issue with RS. Not so much they will go boom one day or no more internet access, but going booooooom with all my music too.

It takes time converting 1000s of tracks, yes.

[NMHindman]

I realize it's just a fun 'rant', but why worry about something that's probably not going to happen? And if it does happen, they would likely remove the 1-year limitation (why wouldn't they?) so users would be able to access their old Reason projects for years to come.

[selig]

The thing I used to love about Reason was its file format. One pack, easy to backup and move around. Unlike working with Cubase back then and the dreadful "missing file/link" error message when opening an old project.
It's one thing to not have access to a plugin anymore, you can always get something else. It is another level of hell when you have zero access to your art, spent decades creating, forever.
As long as you can open a folder and see all the takes, you can rebuild the project using a reference. It's better than nothing. Now I get it Live! I get it Reaper!
That's my issue with RS. Not so much they will go boom one day or no more internet access, but going booooooom with all my music too.

It takes time converting 1000s of tracks, yes.

the only reason to convert tracks is to archive, and the best way to archive is audio files in .wav format (and save a MIDI file with it if need be). I can still open all my wave file from as long as there have been .wav files. But Studio Vision files? Pro Tools 9 files? Nope.
So if you are not prepared to move beyond a specific DAW for archival purposes, you WILL one day have zero access to your art. That is YOUR job, I would never rely on some ‘for profit’ organization for the preservation of my art, that’s my job!

[bxbrkrz]

The thing I used to love about Reason was its file format. One pack, easy to backup and move around. Unlike working with Cubase back then and the dreadful "missing file/link" error message when opening an old project.
It's one thing to not have access to a plugin anymore, you can always get something else. It is another level of hell when you have zero access to your art, spent decades creating, forever.
As long as you can open a folder and see all the takes, you can rebuild the project using a reference. It's better than nothing. Now I get it Live! I get it Reaper!
That's my issue with RS. Not so much they will go boom one day or no more internet access, but going booooooom with all my music too.

It takes time converting 1000s of tracks, yes.

the only reason to convert tracks is to archive, and the best way to archive is audio files in .wav format (and save a MIDI file with it if need be). I can still open all my wave file from as long as there have been .wav files. But Studio Vision files? Pro Tools 9 files? Nope.
So if you are not prepared to move beyond a specific DAW for archival purposes, you WILL one day have zero access to your art. That is YOUR job, I would never rely on some ‘for profit’ organization for the preservation of my art, that’s my job!

I still have access to my first bad ideas I created around 1987(?), thanks to midifile and sysex backups. I can recreate a perfect copy of them if I get all the gear I sold long ago. From floppies, to hard drives, to Zip Drives to the cloud, from TOS, to System 6.0.3, to MS-DOS to Windows 10.
Copies of those were converted as Reason files decades ago since Reason was "the last thing I will ever need ever"

[chimp_spanner]

I mean I feel like this risk is inherent to a lot of software. It doesn't necessarily require a company to go out of business. There is software I've bought and paid for, that doesn't even have any kind of online authorisation AND the developer is still active but they're no longer updating it and it won't work on my Silicon processor. We're forever at the mercy of companies and rely on them to do the right thing, and continue to support what we've paid for, or just...stay afloat/in business. Not saying it's right but it's also not unique to Reason Studios. As others have said, the only thing you can do is try to prepare yourself for the possibility. Stem out tracks, or at the very least ensure that you have full quality stereo mixdowns of *everything*.

I have a few bits of hardware that, currently, sit unused. Sometimes I feel like selling them because I can do it all on the computer. But then I'm like...I *own* these things. They're physically mine. Barring damage or hardware faults, no-one can take them from me or wall them off behind a subscription. I do see the appeal of hardware in this context.

Then I plug it all in and I'm drowning in wires and I'm like...I'll take my risk with software lol

[PhillipOrdonez]

lol true

[RobC]

I have R12, but barely used it.

Reading comments, I just need to do some synchronizing, right? So, it won't be just gone after a year from my account if I don't log in (studio renovation ate up time).

[gloriatyler]

You’re right to be concerned about the 1-year license. If Reason Studios goes out of business or is acquired, your perpetual license might not be valid after a year. Despite updates needing internet access, the fear is if the company fails, the license could become useless. While some users are okay with the 1-year model, others feel it’s not truly “permanent” and could be problematic if the company faces issues. It’s worth considering alternatives or having a backup plan in case the worst happens.