What's happened to us (/them)? ... (10 years after discovering RE trademark and patent)

[bxbrkrz]

"The most transcending invention ever created was Allihoopa", according to my very anonymous sources

[guitfnky]

did someone suggest that Reason is becoming more feature complete and that’s why people are complaining more? when…when did Reason start approaching “complete”? was there a version in between 11 and 12 that the rest of the world somehow missed?

[Iapetus 9]

Rack Extensions were so promising at the start, and I bit on the hype from the Props when they said that they would be better than VST's. What a disappointment that was when we couldn't even import samples LOL. I refused to buy RE's until the SDK was sorted out much later, and it was the first time I started questioning whether I needed an upgrade or not. I still think that way now. I'm on 10 and see no reason to upgrade until they get their collective shit together with a proper 12 release. I got no probs with an increase in price, but 12 has been half baked from the start, and I can easily wait until it's finished (next year?) before I decide to upgrade.

[michael.jaye]

did someone suggest that Reason is becoming more feature complete and that’s why people are complaining more? when…when did Reason start approaching “complete”? was there a version in between 11 and 12 that the rest of the world somehow missed?

I meant it in the sense that with every version Reason gets more features, not less. And my actual point was in early days people didn't see Reason as a full DAW so didn't expect complete DAW features. When Reason added audio recording then peoples expectations (and satisfaction) changed. People only see wah tReason didn't add rather than what it has accumulated.

[michael.jaye]

Rack Extensions were so promising at the start, and I bit on the hype from the Props when they said that they would be better than VST's. What a disappointment that was when we couldn't even import samples LOL. I refused to buy RE's until the SDK was sorted out much later, and it was the first time I started questioning whether I needed an upgrade or not. I still think that way now. I'm on 10 and see no reason to upgrade until they get their collective shit together with a proper 12 release. I got no probs with an increase in price, but 12 has been half baked from the start, and I can easily wait until it's finished (next year?) before I decide to upgrade.

I got the buy 11, get 12 deal. I was completely happy with 10. It was discounted upgrade, so I bit.

[guitfnky]

did someone suggest that Reason is becoming more feature complete and that’s why people are complaining more? when…when did Reason start approaching “complete”? was there a version in between 11 and 12 that the rest of the world somehow missed?

I meant it in the sense that with every version Reason gets more features, not less. And my actual point was in early days people didn't see Reason as a full DAW so didn't expect complete DAW features. When Reason added audio recording then peoples expectations (and satisfaction) changed. People only see wah tReason didn't add rather than what it has accumulated.

of course every version, the software gets more features, not less. that’s the nature of software. it’s a given. they don’t get a gold star for that.

and of course people’s expectations have changed over time. that’s the nature of people. also a given.

and it’s simply not true that people only see what’s not been added. many of us gave Reason a hell of a lot of slack when it came to adding new features, and championed the few that were added along the way. I was one of them. I saw that they weren’t adding certain things, but my instinct told me what they *were* adding was important stuff to get out of the way, and that one, maybe two versions later, they would start getting to some of the features that would make Reason at least at some basic parity with other DAWs. that was what I thought with versions 7, 8, 9…and it wasn’t until 10 that I started to wonder. then with just seven super basic quality of life features in 11, my doubts were justified. 12? good lord, 4 “features”, one of which is a requirement to do business in the modern world, and none of which actually have anything to do with actual DAW functionality. but yeah, we’re just an ungrateful bunch missing the forest for the trees, still, I guess. come on.

[michael.jaye]

\But yeah, we’re just an ungrateful bunch missing the forest for the trees, still, I guess. come on.

Great response!

I don't think people are ungrateful, for the record. I just don't invest in this software with the expectation that certain features will be included in the future.

[raymondh]

10 years ago we discovered Propellerhead had registered a new trademark - "Rack Extensions".

There was a hell of a lot of speculation, theorizing, and tech-fu going on. One user inspected the beta executable and knew ahead of time what was to come.

There was so much excitement.

When it was finally announced with the promotional video showing us what they had in store for us, it's hard to explain to those who weren't there just how much it felt like Reason was entering a new age.

It changed everything.

Rack Extensions are so seamless that it's easy to forget there was ever a time when this was not possible and the rack was fixed.

And here we are 10 years later.

Instead of excitement, we have disappointment.

Instead of a "Pay what you want" promo we have this situation where they've heavily promoted the upgrade, and the R+ subscription where they were told they'll get R12 in September, but then only after people had spent their money were they told that "it will be completed around January and this is just an early release."

While R12 is looking to be a good release (eventually), instead of the excitement of 10 years ago we have we have fear, outrage and despair.

Something has changed and I have to ask, ...

... What has happened to us (/them)?

Their company has grown and evolved, their customer base has grown and evolved, and their competitive position in the market has evolved.

I expect at least some of the answers could be explained by this book:

[guitfnky]

\But yeah, we’re just an ungrateful bunch missing the forest for the trees, still, I guess. come on.

Great response!

I don't think people are ungrateful, for the record. I just don't invest in this software with the expectation that certain features will be included in the future.

that’s fair, and I don’t either—but I do want Reason to move forward and improve in the ways that are important to me. since RS are here (they have been from the start, but more now than ever), this is where and how I make those desires known—along with actual feature request submissions through their support form. I can’t speak for everyone, and there are certainly some trolls around, but I think the majority of people who post here who may come across as negative really do say the things they do from a genuine place of love for Reason, and a desire to see it become even better. it IS an excellent piece of software—it can just be very discouraging (and, yes, frustrating) to see it sit in a place so near to greatness while rarely focusing on the fundamentals that would actually take it there.

[Proboscis]

My excitement for Reason began when I first forayed into exploring DAWs, and after trialing Fruity Loops and Cubase, stumbled upon Reason 4. The concept of the rack was incredible. Being able to cable instruments and FX was quite mind-blowing to me.

When the announcement was made that third-party devices would be introduced, this too was another round of excitement. The sales pitch was great, and some of the early video demos were very inspiring. I jumped onto RE’s quite early on.

When integrated audio recording was implemented, that also provided a significant WOW factor.

From that point on, I never quite felt the same excitement over a new release announcement. For quite some time, I remained optimistically hopeful that Propellerhead would make improvements to the sequencer, but they never really have, apart from the four additions in Reason 11 (to which I did not upgrade to, feeling increasingly disappointed at what I perceived to be a lack of value for $129)

The early excitement for Reason had disappeared for me, and so too did the optimism. Disappointment reigned as the main feeling, and my expectations lowered. I no longer expect the company to make any significant improvements to the sequencer.

The one ray of sunshine though, is the new Combinator. All of my projects inevitably end up full of combi’s, and the extra rotaries & buttons are great news. But as I play around with Combi2, there are still a lot of shortfalls, but at least there are more options than before. And, the single biggest source of me being outright pissed off for many years was that the user-defined rotary/button labels did not transpose over to the sequencer. That’s been fixed, hooray ! I don’t see this as an exciting new feature though, but a long overdue fix that should have been addressed years ago.

Overall, the ‘excitement’ I once had for Reason is a long ago memory. It’s still an incredible DAW, almost wholly because of the rack concept, the very thing that excited me all those years ago. But until they give some serious attention to the sequencer, there’s unlikely to be anything that delivers a WOW factor.

[StephenHutchinson]

I could be wrong here, but aren't most Rack Extensions made by independent developers? You know... the ones who create instruments and effects, and who I presume profit directly from their work when we buy them? I'm not sure how or why a developer would create a Rack Extension to be specifically purposed for "part of an upgrade."

... and on another note... I'm NOT sure why I capitalized "Rack Extensions").

I would have been all for the RE ecosystem if it was purely a platform for third-party developers. My only beef with it is how RS uses it to sell devices that would otherwise be included in an upgrade. I've always viewed it as a stealth increase to the price of Reason.

Oh, I see. thanks for clarifying.

[kbard]

It's very simple and doesn't have to be a conspiracy theory or evil greedy company agenda.

Life happened. Business happened. Not all our ideas and plans plays out exactly as we want them. Same is happening in business. You can not predict everything.

That's all to it probably.

I'm not suggesting a conspiracy either.

But I do make the point that when they started running the R12 promos, they knew full well that it would not be ready until January. I've been developing software for 20 years. There is a 0% chance they genuinely thought they'd have their 3-month roadmap completed by September. And by the 25th of August, they'd have known full well that this would be released in the state that it was.

But they made out as if it was going to be a regular release as usual - implying it would be at the very least, stable and sufficiently tested. Everything they've said since has been fine, but that transparency only came after people parted ways with their dollars.

It's not a conspiracy theory. They knew full well what state the product was in when they were running their promotions. They knew some users were going to be very disappointed with the state of the product at launch. It was their explicit decision to omit any of this vital information until after it was released.

R12 seems to work fine on my machine so I've not got any major complaints, although I've not been doing too much music-making this last month, and the little I have done has all been in Maschine.

I just find it interesting that it just happens to be about 10 years ago that the forum was excited at this new thing that was coming to Reason.

It was a very different vibe.

When you say it like that I can only agree with you. In all honesty and if I think more about it I guess there is that weird "deception" character to it. I mean to the whole stunt.

Yesterday I yet again received their promotion to upgrade. I almost did it on Friday and then decided that 100++ EUR is not worth it for the new combinator and and Hires. Because most of the stuff is still possible to do with R11.

I am not counting mimic because it was excitement at first but then I realized I have 3 almost same samplers. New groundbreaking features in mimic are not groundbreaking for me at all.

So all in all I am postponing upgrade to some better times and I kinda feel they are really weird by sending me emails every 2 days asking me to upgrade. As if they are desperate (I am not saying they actually are desperate).

It's just some sort of weird effect making me hold off on purchasing. As if they have some sort of goals in numbers and fiscal periods and then they use newsletter to bomb everyone in order to achieve that. I actually unsubscribed from emails yesterday.

[rootwheel]

All they needed to do was set expectations.

This is absolutely right. Managing expectations is where they've gone really wrong around this particular release cycle. Perhaps it can be blamed on Covid and staff not all being in an office together properly. There's been a weird mixture of good (CEO dialogue around roadmap, transparency etc.) and bad (buggy incomplete R12 release, sparse feature set, price hike announced so soon after launch).

Anyway, here's hoping these are just bumps in the road for Reason Studios. Growing pains if you will...

[moofi]

It's interesting how the more advanced and complete Reason becomes, the more people are dissatisfied with it and threaten to leave the DAW for something else.

[...]

Dismissing it all as just some sort of insatiable dissent that has nothing to do with any clear failings is just not correct at all.

[...]

So making out it's just because people will always complain is a false narrative, and does come across as a little intellectually dishonest given it's been very clearly explained.

[...]

Well, Michael didn´t say so in his statement, he simply pointed out his observation.

Besides justified cases I often felt like there´s a tendency in Reasonworld to complain. Typically about feature x missing. When feature x is being implemented it´s often way too late, should have been done years ago or maybe should have been done differently and overall it´s just not enough anyways because DAW 123 does this and that.

Then I find, it´s aswell about shifting perspectives.

These other DAW may have more advanced sequencers e.g. and shizzle here and there, yet compared to Reason´s rack including intuitive interoperatibility between devices plus the combinator they could improve a lot aswell. The reason I like Reason so much is because of its studio-like, accessable workflow thru rack + cables. Easy handling, easy interconnection, easy exploration. Reason´s main feature since v1 (v3 Combinator). Yet often and maybe because it´s always been there, just taken for granted.

I´m currently testing some free VST inside Reason and while it´s pleasant to have additional options/possibilities, the access through seperate windows popping up cluttering the screen and also the missing easy CV-ability within the rack (not talking about combinator here) is way behind Reason´s interface.

Not saying there aren´t things I don´t like or that couldn´t be improved at least and I also like new funky devices plus advanced sequencer functionality/workflow etc., yet after all I´m creating music. Along the features today´s Reason offers besides its core rack I can already do a lot (a lot).

The newest latest feature will only do so much anyway because it´s the one creating music being most important in that process and I feel like the focus can be shifted to improving one´s individual musical featureset aswell.

Sure, there are ways to also improve the tool even more so. Yet it´s at least already very much possible to achieve pleasant results like it is.
Having upgraded only once from Reason 7 to 12 I can tell from an individual level it´s perfectly fine to be a little out-of-date in that regard.
The enrichment is even greater hopping over 4 versions.

Reason being quite versatile and also quite capable by now is a way I at least can perceive it here.
I enjoy it basically every day since I got back into music recently, even more so since I updgraded to 12 shortly after.

[Carpainter]

I´m currently testing some free VST inside Reason and while it´s pleasant to have additional options/possibilities, the access through seperate windows popping up cluttering the screen and also the missing easy CV-ability within the rack (not talking about combinator here) is way behind Reason´s interface.

CV issues aside, this is actually one of the things they got right with Combinator 2. I created a Combinator interface for OB-Xd that allows me to control it within the rack, more or less (more robust control options are still needed). As a side bonus, I can see MIDI values while turning the Combinator knobs, which isn't possible within the plugin itself.

[Shadoww]

I’ve started using the RE ‘Sequences’ recently and I’ve enjoyed this process of RE midi manipulation in conjunction with the Reason inbuilt sequencer. I’ve also been experimenting with Captain Melody to create midi too. Like a lot of people here, I have been frustrated with the lack of new features for the sequencer. But this week, I finally downloaded a new DAW (FL Studio) to see what is lacking in Reason. And I just couldn’t get passed the look of FL and how it felt like grey software. And the FL sequencer wasn’t as intuitive as it’s made out to be on YT. So after about 20 minutes I went back to Reason 12 with a whole new outlook. I appreciate it more now. The detailed devices, the colourful creative variety of built in REs and devices. Even using VSTs in Reason was easier and more integrated (although they still seem too small on screen in R12). So I’m just going to focus more on getting up to speed with the Reason Sequencer shortcuts and utilise what is already there. I feel more creative in Reason so I’m going to be less critical of R12 from now on. And focus on the music making. I love Reason for that!

[cocoazenith]

... What has happened to us (/them)?

not being able to transfer RE licenses happened

[plaamook]

... What has happened to us (/them)?

not being able to transfer RE licenses happened

Def a preventative factor with expensive Re’s.

[challism]

Seems that the entire world has gone mad. I am pretty upset at the state of the world the past year and a half. I can't believe we are actually living in times like these, the kind of times we read about in sci-fi books, and the future feels pretty bleak, in many ways. Perhaps it has a lot less to do with RS (them), and more to do with us... the general mental state of the people on this planet (us... all of us). Everybody seems to be on edge or really close to going over it, or maybe even already flying off the cliff. I've not seen people this divided and bickering this much in all my life, and bickering over nonsense, for the most part (not talking about RT, but the broader world). Venomous is the word that comes to mind. And I'm not saying I have been above it; I seem to have acted out in crazy ways, too. I think we can we all agree that there is definitely some crazy shit going down on a global scale. And perhaps that is really what has changed.

And considering all that... it sure is great to get lost in a Reason session and just forget about things for a while. I hope you are staying safe and keeping sane.

[bxbrkrz]

Seems that the entire world has gone mad. I am pretty upset at the state of the world the past year and a half. I can't believe we are actually living in times like these, the kind of times we read about in sci-fi books, and the future feels pretty bleak, in many ways. Perhaps it has a lot less to do with RS (them), and more to do with us... the general mental state of the people on this planet (us... all of us). Everybody seems to be on edge or really close to going over it, or maybe even already flying off the cliff. I've not seen people this divided and bickering this much in all my life, and bickering over nonsense, for the most part (not talking about RT, but the broader world). Venomous is the word that comes to mind. And I'm not saying I have been above it; I seem to have acted out in crazy ways, too. I think we can we all agree that there is definitely some crazy shit going down on a global scale. And perhaps that is really what has changed.

And considering all that... it sure is great to get lost in a Reason session and just forget about things for a while. I hope you are staying safe and keeping sane.

You can be lost in making music for a while, so you can have a sharper focused mind, letting you see through the fog of the shitstorm better, instead of forgetting it all, when you look outside again.

That say, that's also true for a company making interesting decisions throughout its existence

[avasopht]

I think we can we all agree that there is definitely some crazy shit going down on a global scale. And perhaps that is really what has changed.

Well. No.

RS have clearly stated that this was released before it was ready for release. That alone is a massive difference.

This detail was not disclosed until after the fact.

That is significant. That is something that has changed dramatically.

There are a number of people on this forum who cannot use the application. Others are experiencing serious performance issues. A bug has completely nixed SF2 support. There are serious rendering glitches and visibly unfinished UI elements.

This is not production-ready software (something they've openly admitted)

That's not to say that it's all bad, or that it won't be great when complete ...

... but to make out that the only thing that has changed is people's attitudes completely ignores all the things that have happened.

I don't get why someone would want to deny that and try to make out that people are just complaining without any justification. Especially when it's been so clearly described in this thread.

I'm not even bashing RS. I'm not against RS. And I'm not dismissing the positives or what has progressed in this version.

But the way serious glaring problems are being dismissed is not a good look. It will make some people feel like they're being invalidated, and without any good reason for doing so.

There's a big difference between thinking positively and outright denial.

[orthodox]

You can be lost in making music for a while, so you can have a sharper focused mind, letting you see through the fog of the shitstorm better, instead of forgetting it all, when you look outside again.

That say, that's also true for a company making interesting decisions throughout its existence

Looking back in a shitstorm situation, any decision may seem interesting. Though in fact it is not.

[avasopht]

You can be lost in making music for a while, so you can have a sharper focused mind, letting you see through the fog of the shitstorm better, instead of forgetting it all, when you look outside again.

That say, that's also true for a company making interesting decisions throughout its existence

Looking back in a shitstorm situation, any decision may seem interesting. Though in fact it is not.

Thing is, for some users, this is not possible because it doesn't display on their machine ‍♂️

[dvdrtldg]

instead of the excitement of 10 years ago we have we have fear, outrage and despair.

Oh for fucks sake

[avasopht]

...