8 Years Ago, Propellerhead Was Doomed to Fail Because...

This forum is for discussing Reason. Questions, answers, ideas, and opinions... all apply.
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eXode
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12 Feb 2015

Yes, I understood as much already but I really don't understand how the end result is different from using a bus in Reason.

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eXode
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12 Feb 2015

In reply to the OP: For fun, I've uploaded an excerpt from an old interview with Mats Karlöf, previously Product Manager (he's now the RE Product Manager, afaik) of propelleread. The interview was originally published in Music Tech iirc.

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Ecopro
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12 Feb 2015

KEVMOVE02 wrote:Can we please find another way to convey our thoughts and emotions without using derogatory language, such as "retarded". This word is most often used as a slur, and has no place in this conversation.
EnochLight wrote:
Things have indeed changed since the late 80's/early 90's television:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYmn3Gwn3oI
EnochLight wrote:
KEVMOVE02 wrote:
All joking aside (love the Quantum Leap reference), members of the 
KEVMOVE02 wrote: intellectual and developmental disabilities
KEVMOVE02 wrote: community reject all attempts to label them, and are greatly offended by terms such as "retarded" or "mentally challenged". Think for a moment that a person lurking here, on the fence about joining Reasontalk, reading a thread about the state of the software, when out of nowhere, this term pops up. Apology not accepted. 
Mr44Hz wrote: I think you're over reacting a little. You act like we're children on. this forum. How bout it's shitty then,feel better? You make a good point I'll just say reason is shitty next time.
These people are just trying to tell you that there's a better way to carry a conversation here. There's no need to use derogatory terms to make a point.  When we say something or someone is "Retarded" for example; it means that someone or something is as stupid as someone who is mentally handicapped, and that is in the most derogatory sense. 

You are right! we are not children in this forum, so let's keep this use of language out of here. Let's be a little more professional. Respect your peers so you can get respect back.
Guts Electronic Mayhem

   


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zakalwe
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12 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:Yes, I understood as much already but I really don't understand how the end result is different from using a bus in Reason.
you're only grouping the faders, not the audio.  say you were using multiple hardware outs or rewiring your channels, for example, but you wanted automation control over all the faders in a group.  or you had several fader groups that would contain some of the same channels.  reason's channel bus system would fall over there.

KEVMOVE02
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12 Feb 2015

Mr44Hz wrote: I think you're over reacting a little. You act like we're children on. this forum. How bout it's shitty then,feel better? You make a good point I'll just say reason is shitty next time.
Thank you.

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Gorilla Texas
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12 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:
Yes, I understood as much already but I really don't understand how the end result is different from using a bus in Reason.

I'm on break I'll try to explain as much as I can. You could use busses to lower the volume just like fader groups but it's technically wrong to do and imo unprofessional because if done multiple times stuff would get messy real quick. Let's say you got 20 tracks. 5 drum tracks on a buss,the rest you have miscellaneous other instruments. Your drums is already as loud as you can get them before clipping, the only thing you can is turn everything else down. There's two ways in Reason to do this and both are work arounds for fader groups.one is to turn each fader down individually which brings up more issues ie keeping everything as is in the stereo field. The other is using busses which brings up issues of its own. So in Reason you have put all 15 tracks on one buss which no professional would do and lower the volume of all tracks. Also with busses you lose individual tracks going to the master since all those tracks will be routed to the buss channel to be summed.15 tracks is gonna be hot on one channel vs separate going to the master. that's like recording the whole band on one mic. With fader groups you keep all of the signal flow of each track going to the master.

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selig
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12 Feb 2015

This subject has ben done to death on the old PUF, but since that's now gone may as well try to clear it up once again here.

Assuming for the moment we are not adding compression/distortion at the bus level, and we are talking about a floating point audio system such as Reason…

There is no audible difference between lowering each fader and lowering a buss. There is no audible difference between lowering all faders and lowering the master. There is no audible degradation from doing this "multiple times". There is no "loss" in going through a bus vs going directly to the master. You can't overload a channel in Reason because there is 3000 dB dynamic range in Reason's 64 bit mixer. You can only clip the audio input and audio output.

If your drums are too loud you can easily bring down the drum bus (that's one of it's functions, after all - to control the gain of the drum bus). This is what I do 90% of the time in this situation. You can also bring down the master fader and bring up the drums - it's exactly the same thing unless there is a compressor on the drum bus (which may have to be adjusted after changing levels "upstream"). 

Otherwise, there ARE issues with using busses instead of drums as previously mentioned (won't work with direct outputs, etc), but most are rare cases IMO. And there are workarounds for some of these: automation can still be applied to multiple channels via copy/paste (not great workflow, but exact same results).

Still it's best to know what these issues are so you can work around them if need be. :)
Selig Audio, LLC

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eXode
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12 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:
Yes, I understood as much already but I really don't understand how the end result is different from using a bus in Reason.
Mr44Hz wrote: I'm on break I'll try to explain as much as I can. You could use busses to lower the volume just like fader groups but it's technically wrong to do and imo unprofessional because if done multiple times stuff would get messy real quick. Let's say you got 20 tracks. 5 drum tracks on a buss,the rest you have miscellaneous other instruments. Your drums is already as loud as you can get them before clipping, the only thing you can is turn everything else down. There's two ways in Reason to do this and both are work arounds for fader groups.one is to turn each fader down individually which brings up more issues ie keeping everything as is in the stereo field. The other is using busses which brings up issues of its own. So in Reason you have put all 15 tracks on one buss which no professional would do and lower the volume of all tracks. Also with busses you lose individual tracks going to the master since all those tracks will be routed to the buss channel to be summed.15 tracks is gonna be hot on one channel vs separate going to the master. that's like recording the whole band on one mic. With fader groups you keep all of the signal flow of each track going to the master.
Thank you for explaining. Now forgive me for asking, but are the 15 summed channels really a problem in a software environment like Reason, with 64-bit mixing? I understand that the signal still gets hot, but since you have a lot of headroom couldn't you just lower the input gain of the bus for instance?

EDIT: I saw that Giles answered as I typed this.

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ClassickHitz
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12 Feb 2015


Well from what I've seen in my 11 plus years of using Reason and following the Propellerhead philosophy. They say one thing standing concrete on the statement, just to end up caving-in to fit what their majority user base were asking for from day one. 

"Not in their product definition" until their bottom line is effected but they'll never come out and admit as much. You'll just see things like audio, midi-out and a form of VSTs implemented.

Example, video integration is definitely coming but it's at their timeline and that time line is usually behind the times. When the ship has sailed that's when Props gets on board calling it innovation. Developing a subpar hardware interface (Balance) at a very ridiculous price point is an example with Discover being the most recent. Music collaboration is not new in any way shape or form, no matter how you try to re-package it. 

IMO Props has lost it's way although it doesn't mean it's a company killer. Not yet at least. However, I'm convinced it does mean the wrong things are being focused on. This leads to the muddying of the waters.

They need to stop trying to re-invent the wheel but rather focus on making sure the wheel continuously rolls smooth. 
 

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zakalwe
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12 Feb 2015

i don't really care about VST, personally.  i used to but i've come to realise that i can just use another DAW for that.  but that's the bit that sucks about reason because it isn't a great DAW yet and i either have to rewire it or just accept the limitations for convenience.  and that means the convenience and coolness of having a giant modular system is somewhat compromised because i have to worry about things like plugin latency.

i don't particularly see why reason can't have depth, power and be intuitive and simple.  if those things were mutually exclusive i'd bin it and move to reaper which is horrifically unintuitive but when you learn its ways it pees on reason (as a DAW) from a great height.

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RhysHuntley89
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12 Feb 2015

ClassickHitz wrote:Developing a subpar hardware interface (Balance) at a very ridiculous price point is an example with Discover being the most recent.
Could you clarify what exactly made it subpar? Personally I'll never understand, given the nature of Reason, why Balance didn't have MIDI.

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ClassickHitz
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12 Feb 2015

ClassickHitz wrote:Developing a subpar hardware interface (Balance) at a very ridiculous price point is an example with Discover being the most recent.
RhysHuntley89 wrote:
Could you clarify what exactly made it subpar? Personally I'll never understand, given the nature of Reason, why Balance didn't have MIDI.
Based on the asking price, not having MIDI is the first on the list of what I would consider to be a major con.

Very pricey for only being able to record two channels at the same time when compared to other interfaces on the market for half the price and in some cases maybe a quarter of the price. Definitely limited in expandability as well. 

Bottom line it's comparably better products out there for a third of the price that will last longer. 

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Raveshaper
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13 Feb 2015

Coming from a background in electronic music, I will say that Reason is an incredible value in terms of feature per dollar when it comes to indie artists and bands that want a simple and cost effective one box solution to recording their demos and initial releases. When used in this way, Reason is incredibly affordable when compared to scheduling and paying for studio sessions. It's a way to break in. That may indicate why so few Reason users are active in the online communities -- all they need is to record themselves or their band and then shop the demo(s) around. I bring this up because that is the emphasis of the quick and easy music making marketing campaign. It's aimed at people who want or need a studio experience on a budget but aren't really into making electronic music beyond using a synthesizer as accompaniment.

That said, it does at times feel like electronic music making has been made more difficult than necessary in Reason, often through the perpetuation and persistence of antiquated or old fashioned means and methods of handling things like MIDI, synthesis, automation, note editing and the like. In the capacity of a platform for electronic musicians, I feel that Reason is the poorest value among all available options on the market. The biggest thing in music right now -- and in electronic music especially -- is creating a new and original sound. You can do this in Reason to an extent, but for anyone who has used something like Camel Alchemy, Dark Zebra, Iris 2, and others, you can quickly see how the rest of the market is innovating ever more powerful ways to make original sounds through advanced synthesis methods while developing well organized interfaces to make sound creation more exploratory and intuitive. You hear it all the time: the quality of the sound at its source is the most important thing you can do to make good music. Reason provides decent sounds, but I would not call them quality sounds. As a person who can tell the difference between 96k and 192k, and a person who is driven crazy by high frequencies after even high bitrate mp3 compression because it sounds like "water splashing", I can say that Reason has always sounded like its sounds have less clarity somehow. That is something subjective to me and my individual experience, but aside from that Reason has not overhauled or updated its available synthesizers for a long time, let alone come anywhere close to what is possible elsewhere. I find myself being drawn more and more toward sampling other sound sources to compensate for this. If I sample external sources, a huge amount of value is erased from Reason as my DAW of choice.

When first starting out, a lot of people can only afford to make one choice. The eye candy and feature set that Reason advertises attracts new users who want to someday own the outboard gear represented by the Rack. I could see many of the people attracted by that appeal to have an interest in or complete focus on electronic music. Once they invest in Reason and develop their skills to the point that they encounter the limitations, or once they open it up and get completely lost in the wiring, they get angry because they can't afford the alternatives they see as superior. It is possible to make very impressive and professional songs in Reason, but it takes loads more time because of the routing schemes and the shear level of meticulousness and deliberation involved. Yes, you do need to put in the hours to make something good, but there are many more hours spent in Reason that end up getting in the way of productivity in the form of frustrated development of workarounds as opposed to fine tuning fits and bursts of creativity. It is a rather sad thing that one can push themselves to learn and grow as an artist/producer to the point that they outgrow the abilities of their chosen program. That is significant. Reason is my only experience with a DAW, but I can say that it is daunting to encounter the fact that my ambitions and abilities have exceeded the software I use to express myself. PH isn't publicly traded, but perhaps if they had shareholders to answer to they would be compelled to listen and provide desired functionality or corrections to program behavior that is perceived to be broken without having to say embarrassing things like "believe it or not [we're listening]".

That's where I think most of the complaints stem from. People who want a more comprehensive platform for electronic production, people who want to make the most efficient use of their time without having to muck about with routing things, and people who invested because of economic limitations that restricted them from the competition or because of a perceived higher value in the feature set that Reason offers. I love that I can do so much in Reason, but I can't wait to incorporate other packages and tools into my music. Eventually I see myself at least trying out every other DAW, but I can say with all sincerity that other DAWs present a greater value to me when I consider migration. II fall into the "economic limitations" category, so for now, I make the most of my decision.

This is all just my opinion, you may disagree.
:reason: :ignition: :re: :refillpacker: Enhanced by DataBridge v5

KEVMOVE02
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13 Feb 2015

Propellerhead has one thing going for it that explains why they have survived this long, and will likely survive for some time to come: despite all the missteps, backpedals, bungles and reversals, people are still talking about and buying into the Reason ethos. It's not the love/hate relationship that some other products engender (believe me, we don't even come close to some of the vitriol aimed at other products and companies), but no one would ever accuse us of being indifferent about the direction Propellerhead has taken us over the last decade. While reading this thread a thought occurred to me: PUF was a highly engaged, informed, passionate and EXCLUSIVE community that had one major flaw- non-members could not join in the conversation. I know some people will never accept the loss of PUF, but now that the walls have come down, anyone and everyone who stumble across reasontalk.com can be a part of the community. They will never see the message "You must be a registered user to view this forum." That is a very good thing.

avasopht
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13 Feb 2015

ClassickHitz wrote:
Based on the asking price, not having MIDI is the first on the list of what I would consider to be a major con.

Very pricey for only being able to record two channels at the same time when compared to other interfaces on the market for half the price and in some cases maybe a quarter of the price. Definitely limited in expandability as well. 

Bottom line it's comparably better products out there for a third of the price that will last longer. 
Have you ever wondered how Balance allowed you to choose between two different levels of gain after recording? Basically each channel featured two preamps and ADCs. Then factor in the quality of the converters, production run size, ...

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eXode
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13 Feb 2015

ClassickHitz wrote:Based on the asking price, not having MIDI is the first on the list of what I would consider to be a major con.

Very pricey for only being able to record two channels at the same time when compared to other interfaces on the market for half the price and in some cases maybe a quarter of the price. Definitely limited in expandability as well. 

Bottom line it's comparably better products out there for a third of the price that will last longer. 
When you say these things, have you compared the ADC/DAC's between said devices or made any scientific tests? When it comes to recording in particular, comparably better only says so much if you're blindly looking at "features" and not the actual hardware.

Have you heard of Prism Sound Lyra for instance?

KEVMOVE02
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13 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:Have you heard of Prism Sound Lyra for instance?
You have got to be kidding! The person who is rocking a high end interface like that is not looking at  Balance or any other consumer level audio interface on the market. Would the person who was considering purchasing Balance even looking at gear like this (or vice versa)?

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eXode
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13 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:Have you heard of Prism Sound Lyra for instance?
KEVMOVE02 wrote:
You have got to be kidding! The person who is rocking a high end interface like that is not looking at  Balance or any other consumer level audio interface on the market. Would the person who was considering purchasing Balance even looking at gear like this (or vice versa)?
I'm sorry but you missed my point completely. Why don't you read the post I was responding to and my reponse again? :)

KEVMOVE02
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13 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:Have you heard of Prism Sound Lyra for instance?
KEVMOVE02 wrote:
You have got to be kidding! The person who is rocking a high end interface like that is not looking at  Balance or any other consumer level audio interface on the market. Would the person who was considering purchasing Balance even looking at gear like this (or vice versa)?
eXode wrote:
I'm sorry but you missed my point completely. Why don't you read the post I was responding to and my reponse again? :)
I don't think I did. avasopht was responding to Classichitz, defending the pricing of Balance, based on
feature set and component quality. You also responded to Classichitz, making the point
that comparisons of features alone is not meaningful, unless you also look at the
hardware itself. You asked if he had heard of Prism Sound Lyra. Since you didn't provide
additional info, I can only infer that your point was that the Prism Sound Lyra,
having the same components as Balance, is 4 times more expensive than Balance, thereby
proving that Classichitz premise was false, or at least based on faulty assumptions. 
My question to you is it likely that someone who could afford to buy the Prism sound Lyra would
even looking at Balance? What did I miss? 

avasopht
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13 Feb 2015

eXode wrote:Have you heard of Prism Sound Lyra for instance?
KEVMOVE02 wrote:
You have got to be kidding! The person who is rocking a high end interface like that is not looking at  Balance or any other consumer level audio interface on the market. Would the person who was considering purchasing Balance even looking at gear like this (or vice versa)?
eXode wrote:
I'm sorry but you missed my point completely. Why don't you read the post I was responding to and my reponse again? :)
KEVMOVE02 wrote:
I don't think I did. avasopht was responding to Classichitz, defending the pricing of Balance, based on
feature set and component quality. You also responded to Classichitz, making the point
that comparisons of features alone is not meaningful, unless you also look at the
hardware itself. You asked if he had heard of Prism Sound Lyra. Since you didn't provide
additional info, I can only infer that your point was that the Prism Sound Lyra,
having the same components as Balance, is 4 times more expensive than Balance, thereby
proving that Classichitz premise was false, or at least based on faulty assumptions. 
My question to you is it likely that someone who could afford to buy the Prism sound Lyra would
even looking at Balance? What did I miss? 
You missed the point that ClassicHitz claim that the device was overpriced ignores componant quality as well as the unwritten features which means it technically has double the channel count displayed.

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EnochLight
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13 Feb 2015

KEVMOVE02 wrote:What did I miss?
avasopht wrote:You missed the point that ClassicHitz claim that the device was overpriced ignores componant quality as well as the unwritten features which means it technically has double the channel count displayed.
I think it was also that the Prism costs 6 times more than Balance (when it was selling for under $300 USD) but technically offers less features.  Whether it sounded noticeably better than Balance is anyone's guess.
Win 10 | Ableton Live 11 Suite |  Reason 12 | i7 3770k @ 3.5 Ghz | 16 GB RAM | RME Babyface Pro | Akai MPC Live 2 & Akai Force | Roland System 8, MX1, TB3 | Dreadbox Typhon | Korg Minilogue XD

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selig
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13 Feb 2015

avasopht wrote:Have you ever wondered how Balance allowed you to choose between two different levels of gain after recording? Basically each channel featured two preamps and ADCs. Then factor in the quality of the converters, production run size, ...
avasopht wrote: You missed the point that ClassicHitz claim that the device was overpriced ignores componant quality as well as the unwritten features which means it technically has double the channel count displayed.
That is not how Clip Safe works. That feature only works on one channel, using the second for the "safe" part. This is one reason folks such as myself have suggested a four channel interface (with MIDI, of course) - so you can have stereo "clip safe". :)
Selig Audio, LLC

avasopht
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13 Feb 2015

selig wrote:
That is not how Clip Safe works. That feature only works on one channel, using the second for the "safe" part. This is one reason folks such as myself have suggested a four channel interface (with MIDI, of course) - so you can have stereo "clip safe". :)
That's an absolute must, I had always assumed stereo clip safe.

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eXode
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13 Feb 2015

avasopht wrote:You missed the point that ClassicHitz claim that the device was overpriced ignores component quality
This. :)

KEVMOVE02
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Joined: 26 Jan 2015

13 Feb 2015

avasopht wrote:You missed the point that ClassicHitz claim that the device was overpriced ignores component quality
eXode wrote: This. :)
I said "avasopht was responding to Classichitz, defending the pricing of Balance, based on 
feature set and component quality." To avasopht: How is that not the same thing you said?
To Exode: I was not questioning your challenge of ClassicHitz premise; I was asking you if it is likely that someone considering the exorbitantly expensive Prism would even look at Balance. True, my question was not on topic, and for that I apologize. But in my defense, this whole line of thought is tangential to the original theme of this thread  :)



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