Interesting experience with Reason 8 + Wacom

[chimp_spanner]

So I've recently been diagnosed with tendinitis (2 months, no guitar, no keyboard, crushing!) and in an attempt to prevent a recurrence I've been looking into ways to make my working space/practices more comfortable. I just picked up the Wacom Intuos Pen & Touch and I gotta say, it works really well with Reason! It's kinda like having a touch screen (in as much as you can just point at the thing you wanna do without any cursor travel) but you can also use it like a giant track pad. TBH I prefer the pen. Anyway just sharing my experience of this as an alternative to people who find navigating Reason with a mouse a bit clunky. Oh and rewiring things is an absolute joy as well. It feels like you're actually patching them in by hand!

So yeah, very cool. At least until PH officially support touch screens  

[Olivier]

Thanks for reminding me. I have a Bamboo i used a lot in the past. Installing it now to see if i like it

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah Intuous is basically the new Bamboo. It's really quick zipping around, dragging things about and inputting notes (so long as you have a steady hand!).

[dhruan]

Cool beans, currently running my main rig with an Intuos Pro M (with touch), all in all very nice and ergonomic and for example toying with the XY fields is fun and direct. There are certain things where mouse would be more handy though, for example clicking an input field to manually set a value can be a pain in the butt (might be alleviated by changing the setting but yeah).

[chimp_spanner]

Yeah man I think what I've come to realise is that no one input method is healthy for too long. So I've now got a choice between small touch, big touch, pen and track ball. If I keep them on rotation I should avoid any further injury!

[dhruan]

Yup Pen is pretty much superior to others but even that can lead to straining. I love Wacom products, have been using them since... '97 or so? Anyhow, would love to get one of the bigger Cintiqs with touch, those are pretty damn awesome!

[zeebot]

I've had a Wacom Cintiq 12 for ages but have only tried to use reason a few times on it. I did find using it as a 2nd monitor for the mixer section quite handy for moving about levels etc
I do think the larger cintiqs would be great to use reason with but they do not come cheap!
My humble cintiq 12 cost me just over £1000 when I bought it brand new some years back.

[BarbaraC]

I bought an Intuos ages ago for graphics work, but not until I ended up with an incredibly painful hand did it occur to me to stop using that blasted mouse. It took a while to get used to employing the pen, but along with a bowling glove with metal in it to stop wrist movement, I eventually cured the condition. At this point, I switch between tablet and mouse depending on the software, but I've never tried the pen with Reason, mostly because I now use a Bamboo, which doesn't have all those lovely programmable "buttons" right on it for things like F-keys.

[mrj1nx]

Just want to give you some advice, I have the same problem with my hands (got my first issues back in 2001), and I actually had to quit the guitar for life because of it, now I also been forced to quit programming as a full time job because of it (so still got issues today). Don't take this lightly, be sure to rest and don't push your body's limits, once you have this it might never go away so be careful in the whole "only 2 months" thinking, listen to your body and be careful. Btw, I use a Wacom for most of my work on a computer because of the ergonomics, but for Reason I haven't so far because of how I have my keyboard setup on my desk, it get's in the way of the wacom.

[chimp_spanner]

Thanks for the advice mrj1nx - yeah I mean I don't want to be overly dramatic about it but it's the first time I've had a problem with my hands; my tools. Even typing now my right hand is alternating between burning and feeling ice cold (so I'll keep it short!). But suffice it to say I'm investing a lot of time into researching ways to make my working setup more comfortable. Just struggling to find a balance between resting and earning even the bare minimum amount of money. Difficult.